A Bible for All Seasons
Dec 15, 2008 Uncategorized
I know it’s a time honored tradition to justify and validate different political and social agendas using the Bible: prejudice, the divine right of kings, invasion, genocide, torture – you name it. This is what has been happening for centuries and Christians seem OK with it.
Now there are two new Bibles to choose from!
The “Illuminated Bible” is a version for people that don’t want to be reminded that the Bible is a relic of the ancient world. It illustrates the story with modern photographs and has all the passage numbering removed so it reads more like a normal book.
The “Green Bible” is a book for tree hugging Christians. This version highlights passages that can be used to validate the environmental agenda. Now I am an environmentalist, so this may sound strange, but I think the Green Bible is the more dangerous of the two, or at least the more revealing of the two.
Image if every modern group that has an agenda made themselves a Bible. We could have the “Born Agains Bible.” We could have the “Pro Prop 8″ Bible. We could have a “Free Market” Bible. We could have the Mormon Bible. (oh wait… we do)
Christianity has always changed and morphed in an attempt to stay relevant. The rituals change. The interpretations change. In fact the very words change from version to version and language to language. Religion has evolved just like every other long-running institution. But it’s important that we see this process for what it is because the evolution of the Bible moves at a pace that may not be recognizable in your lifetime.
The Bible was written by men, to control and align other men for a common cause. It is one of those flexible documents that can be bent and interpreted to justify just about anything you want. So go ahead, pick up a new Bible today!
More info on these two new Bibles at NPR.org.
December 16th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
Did you look over the excerpts of the Green Bible at
http://browseinside.harpercollins.com/index.aspx?isbn13=9780061627996
(huge amount of intro to get through, but eventually you get to the Bible-y goodness…)
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What I was interested in reading was the part from the translators! It’s one thing to highlight text in green, it’s another to alter the words….
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In time, we can all have our own Bibles, made just for us.
Truly, an iBible ??