Last week just came and went! Sorry for not posting more. We're getting into the crunch time of the quarter and the assignments, they are a'pilin' up.
As I was preparing for Sunday Mass this week I kept thinking about family bibles. Do you have one of these? You know the style I'm talking about, that massive tome of a Bible people buy you when you get married. The kind that creaks when you open it, because it's so enormous it might as well be a door than a cover; and it has gold plating or big frilly letters (which are extraordinarily hard to read).
Aren't those bibles just ridiculous? I mean, who's ever going to read a Bible like that? You could burst blood vessels just putting it on your lap. You're likely to fall over when you try to lift it. It's the version you're "supposed to have", but honestly, I'm going to weigh in and say these family bibles actually keep people from reading the Bible. They're way too big and too heavy for regular use. And we'd all be a lot better off throwing ours and getting a fit-in-your-backpack handheld version.
And since we're on the subject, you know the other thing we need? We need a version of the Bible that is accessible to people who don't have degrees in Scripture. And I don't mean a kind translation, although that's a fine place to start. I mean a version that isn't so overwhelming to jump into. The Bible has literally dozens of books. And if you wander into the wrong one (and yeah, Leviticus, that means you) it's like walking into a foreign film without the subtitles. Or walking into an accounting lecture when you thought you were going to see a movie. Or walking into the movie J. Edgar when you thought you were going to see something entertaining. Which it is most definitely not.
Point being: you're not going to like the experience. You're going to get up and walk out.
How do we fix this? Some Bibles put a little "This is what this book is about" introduction on each new book. That's not bad. If written well it gives you some useful context.
Maybe we could attach tabs to certain books, ones that are a great place for a non-Scripture scholar to start. Books like Ruth and Jonah and Samuel and Kings and Genesis and Exodus. Short books, with a clear story, or books like the Psalms that are broken into really distinct chunks that can be absorbed individually (or skipped without hurting anything).
Or maybe in the sections that are just impossible to appreciate, we insert an editorial comment telling us, this is what this section is about, and here's how long it goes, feel free to skip it. I hate to say that, but the thing is, if you're not an academic, the Bible is first and foremost a place you go to for inspiration and direction. It's a place to meet God. Hearing about how many freaking cubits the temple was long and wide is just not that.
Maybe in addition to the "complete works" we should sell the books of the Bible separately, the way we do the works of Shakespeare. That alone might go a long way to making it all more manageable for readers. You could keep the first 5 books together (they are one unit); Luke and Acts; maybe Samuel and Kings. But otherwise you split it all up, so that people can just pick up one book at a time, and not be overwhelmed by having them all there together -- or get frustrated just trying to find the book they want. (It can be a real pain, can't it?)
We call the Bible the Good Book. And boy, it is. Now what do we do to help people to use it?
PS And hey -- how about some visual aids?? Sometimes I think the children's bibles are the only ones that get it right.
As I was preparing for Sunday Mass this week I kept thinking about family bibles. Do you have one of these? You know the style I'm talking about, that massive tome of a Bible people buy you when you get married. The kind that creaks when you open it, because it's so enormous it might as well be a door than a cover; and it has gold plating or big frilly letters (which are extraordinarily hard to read).
Seriously, I think this one was carved out of oak.
Aren't those bibles just ridiculous? I mean, who's ever going to read a Bible like that? You could burst blood vessels just putting it on your lap. You're likely to fall over when you try to lift it. It's the version you're "supposed to have", but honestly, I'm going to weigh in and say these family bibles actually keep people from reading the Bible. They're way too big and too heavy for regular use. And we'd all be a lot better off throwing ours and getting a fit-in-your-backpack handheld version.
And since we're on the subject, you know the other thing we need? We need a version of the Bible that is accessible to people who don't have degrees in Scripture. And I don't mean a kind translation, although that's a fine place to start. I mean a version that isn't so overwhelming to jump into. The Bible has literally dozens of books. And if you wander into the wrong one (and yeah, Leviticus, that means you) it's like walking into a foreign film without the subtitles. Or walking into an accounting lecture when you thought you were going to see a movie. Or walking into the movie J. Edgar when you thought you were going to see something entertaining. Which it is most definitely not.
Point being: you're not going to like the experience. You're going to get up and walk out.
How do we fix this? Some Bibles put a little "This is what this book is about" introduction on each new book. That's not bad. If written well it gives you some useful context.
Maybe we could attach tabs to certain books, ones that are a great place for a non-Scripture scholar to start. Books like Ruth and Jonah and Samuel and Kings and Genesis and Exodus. Short books, with a clear story, or books like the Psalms that are broken into really distinct chunks that can be absorbed individually (or skipped without hurting anything).
Or maybe in the sections that are just impossible to appreciate, we insert an editorial comment telling us, this is what this section is about, and here's how long it goes, feel free to skip it. I hate to say that, but the thing is, if you're not an academic, the Bible is first and foremost a place you go to for inspiration and direction. It's a place to meet God. Hearing about how many freaking cubits the temple was long and wide is just not that.
Maybe in addition to the "complete works" we should sell the books of the Bible separately, the way we do the works of Shakespeare. That alone might go a long way to making it all more manageable for readers. You could keep the first 5 books together (they are one unit); Luke and Acts; maybe Samuel and Kings. But otherwise you split it all up, so that people can just pick up one book at a time, and not be overwhelmed by having them all there together -- or get frustrated just trying to find the book they want. (It can be a real pain, can't it?)
We call the Bible the Good Book. And boy, it is. Now what do we do to help people to use it?
PS And hey -- how about some visual aids?? Sometimes I think the children's bibles are the only ones that get it right.
Tells the story all by itself, doesn't it?
(Although if you didn't know better, you might think
the baby Jesus was radioactive.)
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