Extreme Jesus!

(friendly warning: If you are a Christian and easily offended, you may want to skip this one.)

One day when I was at the Highland Square Mall with some time to kill and a rather high degree of boredom, I gathered up my courage and went into Inspirations (a Christian store mostly devoted to books). I normally would not go there as I generally prefer not to be smoted but I had been there one previous time and got quite a kick out of Bibleopoly (seeing as Monopoly is about the most unChristian game in existence (what with the goal being to hoard wealth and crush your opponents). Judging by the online description, Bibleopoly does change the winning conditions by quite a bit though)).

While Bibleopoly was no longer present, they did have something else which I got a kick out of, The Extreme Teen Bible. I had a good laugh at the concept (as I told Jon earlier, I simply cannot see it as something that any self-respecting Christian would want to own (unless it was purchased as a novelty item) at the time but seeing as it was rather expensive that was pretty much the end of it.

Flashing forward to present day I was at the mall last week and saw that Inspirations was having a big sale (possibly a closing out sale, I'm not quite sure). Thinking back to my Extreme Teen Bible and Bibleopoly trips I decided I would once more tempt fate and enter the store. Unfortunately the sale must have been going on for quite a while as most of the really neat stuff was long gone.

Sometime after my failed trip, I mentioned to Krista that I had been to Inspirations and told her what had 'inspired' me to go there. She then told me she actually had a copy of Extreme Teen Bible and, after confirming that it was as awful as it sounded, offered to lend it to me. Naturally I jumped at the chance to get extreme with the Lord.

The actual text of the book is seems to be the King James version with more modern words put in place of the original KJ text. So for the most part it just makes things a bit simpler for those who do not have experience reading older texts (and for someone who has gotten used to reading literature from the 800s onward, the original KJ version is easy to read as is). It does make some of the more ridiculous statements in the bible seem even more ludricious when they are translated into today's vernacular (for instance the story of a concubine who is cut up by her master after she is raped by a group of men (and this is portrayed as a just thing) doesn't really seem to gel) but there's not really much difference between reading the text here and in the KJ version.

What makes the Extreme version enjoyable is the little inserts such as the explanations of passages and the introduction.

Here are a few excerpts I enjoyed:

Description on the back of the book: "Reach in, hang on, and get ready to find out about Someone who went to the extreme just for you!... So take teh plunge into all the great stuff we've packed into this Bible to make your Bible time more extreme than ever before."

On the books of the bible: "Their stories teach us to survive as well by God's power. Because God inspired them, they're one hundred percent accurate and reliable"

On those pesky gay people: "With homosexuality comes guilt, emotional scars, condemnation, and possibly disease and death... Remind him or her that in Jesus there is the power to break any bondage. Your friend may need counselling or other help"

On God's academics: "After all, the principles of math and physics were all His ideas"

God's ego trip: "He wants to know that you need Him. He wants you to admit that He can do a better job with your life than you can"

On getting God to smite your enemies: "That's right, love your enemy! When you love an enemy, you are actually piling burning coals upon his or her head. In other words, God will take care of enemies with the kind of rain you don't want!"

I only started looking at the book tonight but those are just a few things I found be leafing through.

I thought about taking a random chapter from the bible and translating it in such a way as I think an "extreme" bible should be translated (i.e. instead of word for word translation, going for a more modern feel) but I probably offended enough people already so I'll hold off on my own Extreme Bible verses for another day.