The 100-Minute Bible

My friend Kevin sent me this Christian Science Monitor article about a new Bible now available in Britain, “The 100-Minute Bible.” The ultimate in Reader’s Digest-style condensations, it distills the 66 books of Scripture into something like 60 pages. Here’s an excerpt from the article:

Proponents say it is a gateway to the classic, a crash course in Christianity that will provide a useful tool to reach out to the curious, the lapsed, and the ignorant.

But opponents fulminate against such pithiness, muttering about the callous disregard for Biblical virtues such as perseverance, dedication, and deferred gratification. There is, after all, no beatitude that reads: "Blessed are the editors, for they shall make stuff shorter to read."

Check out the article for an excerpt from the book. It compresses Genesis 1-3 into two paragraphs, capturing nothing of the grand poetry of the creation story, the wonder of Adam and Eve’s fellowship with God and the tragedy of The Fall.

I know there are many paraphrases and modern-English translations. I even use one, “The Message” by Eugene Peterson, on occasion for illumination and a different perspective. But really there is no substitute for a word-for-word translation to capture the full richness of Scripture. No prose condensation can possibly substitute for the soaring poetry of Psalm 51 or Psalm 139. How can you possibly reduce Paul’s masterful logic in Romans to a few paragraphs?

If it prompts the “curious, the lapsed, and the ignorant” to turn to the real thing, then it might be excusable. But oleo doesn’t really taste like butter, aspartame doesn’t really taste like sugar and only Scripture satisfies like Scripture. Accept no substitutes.