Friday, May 2, 2025

Gehenna Revisited is temporarily unavailable while updating for audiobook

I am working on an audiobook edition of Gehenna Revisited: Rebutting Francis Chan. Because I am doing a very deep edit with an audiobook in mind, I have found some issues in the manuscript that need addressing. Even though I have published previous editions of Gehenna Revisited before now, and I make additions when I think they improve the book, I have always stated at the end of Gehenna Revisited that any updates to the book will be posted here. That is the purpose of this blog post.

I have some grammatical corrections to make. There are a couple of instances where I omitted the words "as" and "that." I had never noticed those omissions until I listened to the audiobook. For print and digital readers, there is also the issue of semicolons. I don't have a problem with semicolons, but some readers don't like them. I have made some minor tweaks so I could either replace some of those semicolons with commas or start a new sentence. I also noticed it improved the flow of the audiobook's narration. I had never thought about those things from the point of view of an audiobook. That is quite different from the written word, and it has presented some new challenges for me that will affect the print works as well. 

I also need to clarify some historical and cultural issues in this edition. For example, when writing about Assyria's fall, I only mentioned Nabopolassar, but he had allies. I decided to address that. I also stated that Egypt had written less about their views of the afterlife than the Greeks had, but The Book of the Dead is extensive, so that wasn't accurate. I need to correct that. I can't think of other historical or cultural issues off hand, but there were one or two others that I noticed as I listened to the book. Some sentences were not as smooth as I thought when read out loud, so I need to rewrite those -- keeping the audiobook in mind. 

I'm only halfway through the edits, and I worry I might find other issues along those lines. Even if most of these are minor, I don't want to offer the book again until I'm certain everything is fixed. 

If you own the digital version, the update will be automatically available if you use a Kindle and it is set to update. I will also offer the digital book for free after I'm finished. I want to be sure that if you own the book, you will be able to at least get the digital updates. Or, if you own the digital book, you will be able to buy the audiobook edition at a fraction of the cost.

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