I’ve posted a few times now on the topic of cadence, slowing building some definitions and framing them into the world of Bible translation. I want to mix together some of the definitions previously presented into this single statement:

Cadence is the natural rising and falling of the rhythms created by the spoken word.

With that in mind, *read* the opening phrase from Obama’s acceptance speech last night:

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

It’s a long sentence and if you read it, you tend to get lost in the phrases and the punctuation. Yes, Obama spoke slowly and deliberately, but he spoke with rhythm - not reading a book, but speaking.

Now, with the echo of Obama himself in your ear, speak it. Don’t just read it out loud. Speak it with a rhythm that crescendos and withdraws - pause, but speak through the punctuation - don’t stop! Breath if you must but speak it. Do you feel the parallel phrases? Not just read in sequence, but voiced together as one thought.

Obama’s speech is not written to be read. It’s written to be spoken. And there is a world of difference in how we process his English from that of John McCain. Compare these remarks:

In a contest as long and difficult as this campaign has been, his success alone commands my respect for his ability and perseverance. But that he managed to do so by inspiring the hopes of so many millions of Americans who had once wrongly believed that they had little at stake or little influence in the election of an American president is something I deeply admire and commend him for achieving. This is an historic election, and I recognize the special significance it has for African-Americans and for the special pride that must be theirs tonight.

Tremendously gracious in spirit, McCain’s speech was written to be read, preserved, perused at leisure. You cannot *speak* it that same way that Obama’s speech can be. The cadence is literary, not spoken.

Too often, I think, our Bibles have been translated to be read, preserved, perused at our leisure. But the Bible wasn’t written to be read, it was written to be spoken. It was written to be read with “the natural rising and falling of the rhythms created by the spoken word.”

Let’s look again at Obama’s speech - this time through the lens of the NLT:

Does anyone still doubt that America is a place where all things are possible? Does anyone still wonder if our founders’ dreams are alive today? Does anyone still question our democracy’s power? If so, tonight is your answer.

Same thoughts, many of the same words - totally different cadence. Can you read it the same way? I suggest that you cannot. And this is why the NLT is a wonderful written translation in idiomatic English, but it fails where the KJV does not. The KJV captures the rhythm of the spoken word. Not written words.

I voiced the question in one of my last posts whether a translation could speak with the modern vocabulary of the NLT, but the cadence of the KJV. Look at Obama’s words. They are not massive multi-syllabic testimonies to a thesaurus. They are simple, plain, hand hewn. So too the NLT. Yet I listen to Barack Obama and I hear the KJV. Not because he speaks with archaic 17th-century language, but because the cadence of his speech is born out of a spirit of drama, conflict and poetry. Natural rhythm and cadence.

Why not too the Word of God?