They may be the words of the Lord. But there are simply too many of them for the modern attention span. That, at least, was the reasoning behind the launch on Wednesday of a more "user-friendly" edition of the great work.
The 100-minute Bible was published at the cradle and headquarters of British Christianity, Canterbury cathedral. It is a 57-page pocket-sized edition, the latest in the long and often turbulent legacy of the Holy Book, from Hebrew through Greek and Latin to Martin Luther, the glorious King James edition and various recent English translations. Entire cycles of frescos by medieval and renaissance painters may have been derived from a few poetic sentences in the Bible, but the harsh reality of modernity suggests people just do not have the time to concentrate on the book any more.
The man who had the responsibility for condensing the Bible was the Reverend Martin Hinton, who spent two years on the task.
"We have sacrificed poetry to clarity," Hinton told people attending the launch. "Those who want a sense of the glorious poetry in the Bible will have to look elsewhere, but anyone who wants a sense of the story and the argument will find it here."
"This is a gateway to the Bible for everybody. We have to face the fact we live in an overwhelmingly secular society and must do all we can to present people with the story and what Christianity is about," he said.
The Bible is summarized in elegant prose, without slang, and is not split into testaments. The Gospels are, Hinton said, "central to the document," with the Old Testament dealt with chronologically, "incorporating the prophetic books into the story and dealing with a few books such as Psalms separately."
They and Moses get a page each, for instance, as do the crucifixion and resurrection.
The publisher of the book, Len Budd, a former chairman of the deanery at Canterbury, said: "Is it a dumbing down of the Bible? Yes, but that's the world today. Although we as Christians love the Bible it is very user-unfriendly. People just don't have time to read it."
"If this book means more people can answer pub quiz questions on the Bible, so much the better," he said.
It was "not an evangelical document," he said, but a version aimed at "interested outsiders," especially "young people who, quite honestly, don't know anything about the Bible, the story, or Christianity at all."
He added that it had been written in a style to encourage page turning but lacked "literary gimmicks."
Hinton said: "In the words of Frank Sinatra, `regrets, I've had a few.' There are omissions." One of them is the book of Ruth, "which we just could not get in."
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese