If you glance at the back cover of the latest Taonga mag, you’ll see that David Guthrie has quite an ambitious project on the go.

He’s an Anglican priest who, in early 2007, set up the Genesis Foundation, whose first objective was to make available, online, the daily prayer offices. That’s happening – check www.genesis.net.nz – and the aim now is to roll out a complete set of CD recordings of the Scriptures, under the title The Spoken Word.

As you can imagine, that’s a work that is best handled in stages – and the latest set of recordings is of David reading Mark’s gospel.

Aha, you say. Another audio Bible. Well yes – but no, too.

Because David Guthrie believes there are a number of reasons why The Spoken Word is different from the rest.

For a start, there’s the translation David reads from. It’s the New Jerusalem Bible which, as far as he’s concerned, stands head and shoulders above the pack.

That’s simply because it was translated, he says, with the “sound” of the spoken word uppermost in the minds of the translators.

Secondly, there’s the sound that David strives to achieve. David is a gifted reader, with a rich voice: and the benchmark he sets himself is that his readings of Mark’s gospel should not sound like readings at all.

In other words, David’s aim has been to stand back, as it were, and have Mark speak, directly and personally, to people listening in their living rooms, and cars.

He’s also produced an edited version of Mark’s gospel (he calls it “Tight Mark”) which he hopes will work well with young people and new Christians.

The story of how Fr David Guthrie came to set up the Genesis Foundation and to be making these recordings is fascinating, and we’ll be telling that in the next issue of Taonga. You might want to check that out.