I've aimed for an everyday, down to earth flavour and have not been afraid to use modern UK English expressions and turns of phrase. So when the messenger Gavriel speaks to Miriam he says, 'Hi there' instead of the more usual 'Hail' or 'Greetings'. I see no evidence that Father's messengers are stuffy or formal. I've used modern words for things, ideas and titles instead of the old, traditional words. The intention is to allow the text to speak today in the same way it did when freshly penned by the author.
Religious jargon is hard for people unfamiliar with it.
So I've used 'emissary' instead of 'apostle', 'apprentice' instead of 'disciple'. I want this version to be clearly understood by ordinary people. Transliterations - Probably the main difference between this translation and most others is that, where possible, I've transliterated names of places and people to the Roman alphabet so that you can read them to sound roughly as they would have done at the time. I've avoided using modern English names, and I've also avoided the standard English transliterations which are more than 400 years old and far from accurate. To help you find your way I've placed the traditional equivalents in square brackets throughout with a couple of important exceptions noted below.