The JPS Tanakh is considered the authoritative translation of the Jewish Bible and is certainly the most widely read English edition. That said, we’ve always known we wanted to make our Bible available to everyone, in any format that a person would want to use. Thus came the idea for an audio version and the Jewish Braille Institute (JBI) was the clear partner for collaboration. After 12 months of recording the 2,000 pages of the Tanakh into 60 hours of audio using 13 narrators, the Audio Bible is finally here! Last October we gave readers a sneak peek with our free weekly Torah portion (widget-version below), but now readers have the option to purchase the entire TANAKH, only the Torah, The Five Megilloth and Jonah, or any of the other 36 books of the Bible.
The JPS Tanakh: The Jewish Bible, audio version even makes it easy for you to bring the text wherever you go, and whenever you want. Offered in both MP3 and iTunes download formats you can listen on your iPod or MP3 Player on the road or anywhere on the go.
To celebrate the release of this landmark project, we are offering a special introductory offer – purchase the download of our audio version of the complete JPS Tanakh or Torah and we will send you our Torah eBook FREE of charge!
We could keep going on about how excited we are about this audio Bible, but our Interim Director, Carol Hupping, sums it up best in this recent Q & A session.
Q: How did the Jewish Braille Institute (JBI) and The Jewish Publication Society (JPS) come to partner on the JPS Tanakh: The Jewish Bible, audio version?
A: JPS had wanted an audio version of its Bible for years, but we knew that producing it would be very expensive. We’re talking about 2,000 book pages, about 60 hours of listening time. We had gotten a bid from a commercial audio book producer, but it was much more than we could afford. Then we recalled conversations we’d had with JBI a few years back about publishing a large-print Bible and remembered that they also produced audio books. We asked if they would be interested in collaborating on the project. Indeed they were.
Q: How does this project fit into the new direction JPS is taking?
A: For the last 120 years, JPS has been primarily a publisher of print books. But that’s changing now, because the Internet and handheld devices like smart phones and ebook readers have changed the way people access and use information, and the way many people read books. So, in addition to print, we’re now offering ebooks and also audio, starting with this audio version of the JPS Tanakh, directly through our website and via many other distributors. We want to reach as many people, in as many ways, as possible.
Click here to read the rest of the interview with Carol, as well as a Q & A with JBI President and CEO Ellen Isler and several of the Audio Bible narrators [73K PDF]. Feel free to link to the complete Q&A or to excerpt from it, if you wish.
Also, for more information about the JPS Audio Bible go to http://jewishpub.org/books/audiobible/about-bible.php.
