The Coming of the Mini-Bibles

In the final book of the Bible, the author ends with the following warning:

Revelation 22:18-19 I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues which are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in this book.

This hasn’t deterred Christians from publishing “The Bible in 100 minutes” along with various other "friendly", abridged versions in recent years.

I can understand why they would do this. The bible is a book that can be interpreted in many ways. There are so many horrific commands (coming apparently from God himself); so many absurdities like talking donkeys; so many errors coming from God himself (like bats being listed as birds); so many contradictions. There are huge differences even in the core message - for example, there are several different ways of getting into Heaven – including faith alone,  giving up possessions, following all the commandments etc. That is why there are thousands of different denominations.

So “The Bible in 100 Minutes” solves a problem for Christians. It filters out all the nasty bits, the stupid bits, the erroneous bits, the conflicting statements. It interprets the texts according to a narrow 21st century view, specific to a particular branch of Christianity. And it markets the religion to children and people who know little about scripture.

It is a scam.

It is a con-trick because it is like selling rubber double-glazing:-

Buy our new Rubber Double Glazing Yes! It fills a hole in the wall. Yes!  It keeps in the heat. Yes!  It is inexpensive. (But we forgot to mention that you can’t actually see through it.)

Marketing any product by presenting only the good bits, leaving out the appalling side-effects, is dishonest. However, it is the only possible future for Christianity. If they can get their new book accepted by this generation, who knows – their grandchildren may come to see it as the true book, of which the original was just an imperfect first draft by god. After all, you can believe what the hell you like about anything when you’ve already thrown out your reason.

My New Version
I think I will write a new version of the Bible, calling it "The Bible in 99 minutes".

I will market it thus: 


You can bet your life that all sorts of Christians would complain - but if they were honest , let's face it, they would stick to their principle and complain about their own little propaganda trick too.

Geoff Mather 2007

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