Thursday, June 26, 2008

Review: The Uncensored Bible

In "The Uncensored Bible: The Bawdy and Naughty Bits of the Good Book" (Amazon) two biblical scholars and a journalist summarize and analyze a series of unorthodox interpretations of selected Bible stories that have been suggested by other biblical scholars. As the title suggests, these alternative interpretations have mostly to do with sex, drugs, depression, body hair, and excrement. Most of these theories hinge on alternate translations of key words from the original Hebrew that have been "sterilized" in modern English translations, or on key phrases that can be read as provocative euphemisms.

What is most clearly illustrated by this book, however, is that the foundation for any interpretation of the Bible is very shaky indeed. Consider the "telephone" party game: guests sit in a circle, and one person whispers a short sentence to the next person, who whispers it to the next person, and so on until the last person says aloud what they heard and everyone shares a good laugh at how unrecognizable the original message has become. Now imagine this game where each person in the circle has to translate the message into a different language before passing it along, and you get an idea of the journey the text of the Bible has taken over the past 3000 years from its original authors through to us.

By comparison, all approximately 4400 words of the US Constitution (the Bible has roughly 750,000 words) were written in modern English by people who are less than 10 generations removed from us, and they still require a panel of nine Supreme Court Justices and armies of constitutional lawyers to interpret their meaning.

The Uncensored Bible was a short, fun, and thought provoking read.

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