This is just depressing. The 100 minute Bible? Whatever your stand on religion, and specifically Christianity, The Bible does not deserve to be read in 100 minutes. I re-read the first four books of the old testament last month, and it took several nights.
Yeah, you can probably present the ideas in The Bible in that time -- but what will you miss in this "executive summary" of The Bible? In the book of Genesis alone, will you get to read about David and Goliath, Bathsheba, the Garden of Eden, Sodom and Gomorrah, The Burning Bush, The Tower of Babel, Noah's Ark, Jacob wrestling God, the story of Jacob's cousins, Jacob's Ladder, the call of Abraham, The Covenant, Pharoah's Dream, and the move to Egypt? And that's just in the very first book! What becomes of The Psalms? Can this new book render the subtle nuances that exist between the four gospels? 100 minutes will cut literally hundreds of stories, and reduce the rhythm and sweep and majesty of a great book to that of an instructional manual.
This Reader's Digestification of The Bible is a travesty from a purely literary standpoint, and surely from a religious standpoint as well. I realize the Vicar had noble motives to spread The Word. But a lot of really bad ideas begin with great intentions.
What is the rush in reading The Bible? Has it come to this? Click on the title of this post to read the article about this "invention" by a Vicar of the Church of England.
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It could have been worse, you know. He could have published a Bible comic book.
ReplyDeleteActually, I don't think that would be worse...It would drive someone to relate the Bible in their own artistic interpretation. Now I'm not making comparisons, but haven't people done that with Bible stories before?..Like that whole Sistine Chapel thing? Ya know come to think of it the Sistine Chapel is almost like a grand comic book, in that it is Bible stories told in a series of different "panels" that make up on large work of art.
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