by Lynn Neary
Morning Edition, December 4, 2008 · Two new Bibles targeting a young, hip — even secular — audience are hitting bookstores. One is a slick, illustrated version of the New Testament; the other is an environmentally friendly edition that takes advantage of the popularity of the green movement.
A Peek Inside 'The Book'
First, the flashy coffee-table Bible: Dag Soderberg, a secular Swedish advertising executive wondered why so few people actually read the "good book," so he set out to make it more appealing, with glossy photos and magazine packaging. The resulting publication is an illustrated version of the New Testament called Bible Illuminated: The Book.
"A coffee-table magazine is read by the many everyday, everywhere," explains Soderberg. "This is a way to make [the Bible] as available as any other magazine."
If you didn't know this was a Bible you might think The Book was a "goth" magazine, or perhaps something you'd find in a doctor's office. The front cover is a close-up of a translucent green eye, caked with black makeup and staring eerily from the page. On the back is a photo of a faceless figure wearing a black hooded sweat shirt.
Inside, photos of celebrities like Angelina Jolie, Bono and John Lennon are interspersed with pictures of heroic figures like Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King, Jr. A veil-covered African woman holding a young child illustrates the story of Mary and Jesus. Images taken from the news — both jarring and poignant — radiate a message of social justice.
United Methodist minister and Hacking Christianity blogger Jeremy Smith says The Book is meant to provoke discussion.
Smith points to the series of images that run in conjunction with a quote from the Book of Revelation. The quote reads: "The whole earth was amazed and followed the beast ..." The photographs show post-Katrina New Orleans, a four-page spread of an animal slaughterhouse in Nigeria and, finally, a picture of a man pumping gas.
"They are interpreting this with some very political and edgy and — honestly — some disorienting imagery," says Smith.
Though skeptical when he first heard about the book, Smith says he found many of the images compelling. But equally compelling, he says, is another new Bible that takes a completely different approach.
The Green Book
With its beige cloth cover, embossed with a picture of a green tree, The Green Bible is the embodiment of simplicity. Inside, passages that refer to the environment are highlighted in green.
Smith says the book catches people's attention: "I took it to a Bible study and set it down on the table and people looked at it and said, 'What is that?'"
Mark Tauber, the senior vice president at HarperOne, which publishes The Green Bible, says that the book is important in both form and function.
"The actual form of the Bible, we think, is a green product," he says, noting that the entire book is made of recyclable materials. "Then in function, it performs the function of helping people be better stewards, if you will."
Smith points out that while The Book seeks to begin a conversation, The Green Bible wants "to add to the conversation."
"Did Jesus say anything about recycling? Did God care what we do with the earth? These are the existing conversations that are emerging that I think The Green Bible contributes to," says Smith.
The book is drawing attention in secular venues, including the Earth First Web site, where bloggers offered unusual praise, which Tauber paraphrases as: "Those crazy wacko religious people ... if you have to believe there is something beyond this life, this is probably a good Bible for you to read."
"It was this backhanded compliment from people not known for being so friendly to people of faith," says Tauber.
Both The Green Bible and The Book are aimed at the young. But Soderberg says that when the illuminated Bible was published in Sweden, it appealed beyond its target audience. In fact, he says, the publisher expanded the market by almost 50 percent in a year.
And Soderberg says there is no question that a new conversation about the Bible is under way in a lot of unexpected places.
He says he's seen people in offices that are very strict talking about the Bible, "because everybody flips through this magazine. ... That's cool."
And an illuminated version of the Old Testament is in the works. Soderberg says it will be published in the U.S. in the spring of 2009 — just in time for Easter.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97537385
betterdaze
JoinedPosts by betterdaze
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Two New Bibles Preach A Hip, Eco-Friendly Gospel
by betterdaze inby lynn neary .
morning edition, december 4, 2008 two new bibles targeting a young, hip even secular audience are hitting bookstores.
one is a slick, illustrated version of the new testament; the other is an environmentally friendly edition that takes advantage of the popularity of the green movement.
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betterdaze
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Peeping Tom sentenced for hiding camera in airport washroom ceiling
by betterdaze in(scroll down to the last sentence for the jw connection.
didn't brother cano the pedo bethelite have the same "hobby?
last updated: wednesday, december 3, 2008 | 5:05 pm et comments14recommend39 .
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betterdaze
(Scroll down to the last sentence for the JW connection. Didn't Brother Cano the Pedo Bethelite have the same "hobby?")
Last Updated: Wednesday, December 3, 2008 | 5:05 PM ET Comments14Recommend39
CBC News
An electrician has been sentenced to 30 months' probation and ordered to write a letter of apology for installing a hidden camera in the ceiling of a women's restroom at the Prince George, B.C., airport.
The court heard that Ron Ballard, 50, of Prince George is a voyeur with an "aberrant sexual attraction" to women's washrooms that includes enjoyment in counting the stalls.
He no longer works at the city airport.
The judge ordered Ballard to continue counselling and prohibited him from using any kind of camera or entering any women's washroom.
His letter of apology to the airport's female staff is to be posted in their restroom.
Ballard was arrested in May 2007 soon after an airline employee noticed a hole and a camera in the ceiling of the washroom used mostly by staff.
Pleaded guilty
He admitted to police he'd been filming a women's toilet stall there for four to six months. He eventually pleaded guilty to secretly observing and recording nudity in a private place.
At the sentencing hearing Tuesday in Prince George, Ballard appeared in a business suit accompanied by his wife, but declined to say anything to the judge.
In a joint statement presented before sentencing, the defence and Crown lawyers noted Ballard co-operate with police and is seeking counselling.
Judge Michael Brecknell called Ballard's actions "an unusual offence" that invaded women's privacy and he noted the embarrassment the crime had caused the accused and his family.
The judge noted, from the pre-sentence report, that even counting women's washroom stalls provided Ballard with sexual gratification.
The judge also noted that Ballard has been thrown out of a Jehovah's Witness congregation and the couple has moved to Williams Lake.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2008/12/03/bc-peeping-tom-prince-george-airport.html -
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JWD is Back And So Am I! NEW VIDEOS
by V inthanks simon for continuing this forum!.
new www.watchtowercomments.com video series in progress here (parts 1 & 2 so far):.
question jehovah's witnesses: no blood?.
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betterdaze
Wonderful work as always, V! I'm bookmarking your site on my parents' Mac next time I visit.
Reniaa: If you have some beef with "other christian faiths" such as the Baptists, they have fora, too.
Perhaps your trolling would be more fruitful there? Ya think?
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Favorite LOCAL radio stations
by betterdaze ini'm currently listening online to wbgo public radio out of newark, nj.
jazz, swing, soul and some funk on the weekends.
great historical commentary, too.
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betterdaze
I'm currently listening online to WBGO Public Radio out of Newark, NJ.
Jazz, swing, soul and some funk on the weekends. Great historical commentary, too.
http://www.wbgo.org/listennow/
Share some sounds from your neck of the woods... What's your favorite *local* radio station?
~Sue -
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Peace to this house
by sacolton inluke 10:5.
"when you enter a house, first say, 'peace to this house.'.
do you recall ever getting this greeting from a jehovah's witness?
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betterdaze
My childhood home had a sign hanging over the kitchen doorway:
PEACE TO
ALL WHO
ENTER HERE
If I remember correctly, it was a housewarming gift to my JW mother from a well-meaning "pagan" Catholic. Sweet gesture!
Fast forward 30+ years: As the sister I was studying with left my home the for last time, she literally "wiped the dust off her feet"
with a pronounced shuffling motion!
I kid you not: She was like a cat shaking off invisible kitty-litter, LOL! But she's sweet, too, and I hope her eyes are opened to
the Watchtower cult some day.
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What is jw view on history of selective breeding?
by badboy init is claimed that selective breeding is 11,00 years old
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betterdaze
Selective breeding? Genesis 30 details Jacob tricking Laban with his animal husbandry skillz. He used *magical* tree branches to mate livestock. All very scientific, praise Jah!
"Thus he made separate flocks for himself and did not put them with Laban's animals. 41 Whenever the stronger females were in heat, Jacob would place the branches in the troughs in front of the animals
so they would mate near the branches, 42 but if the animals were weak, he would not place them there. So the weak animals went to Laban and the strong ones to Jacob. 43 In this way the man grew
exceedingly prosperous and came to own large flocks, and maidservants and menservants, and camels and donkeys."
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Then, there is the disturbing human context: All throughout the Hebrew scriptures, Israelites were obsessed with maintaining racial purity. Kill everyone who doesn't worship Yahweh. 'Twas the primitive tribal way.
(But keep the pagan female children as sex slaves. Hate what Yahweh hates, but never pass on the opportunity to rape little girls and assimilate them into the tribe... Big tribes can steal more grazing land, you know.)
Magic tree shoots, murder, rape, not becoming "yoked" with a doomed unbeliever... You can be assured Jehovah's modern-day tribe "of many nations" believes in selective breeding, and condones it.
Why? It's in God's Word the Bible, silly! Read it daily.
~Sue (of the *not of our sort* class) -
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betterdaze
Walking wounded,
hounded by hypocrites.
~Sue -
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Vegetarianism Suggestions?
by exjdub inmy wife and i are having trouble getting past the way animals are treated for our food supply and also the unhealthy things that are introduced into our food supply.
we have also discussed the fact that if our meat, chicken, pork, and turkey was not packaged in little vacuum packed trays where we could exercise a large amount of cognitive dissonance, we would not be able to eat animals.
i was hoping someone would have some favorite suggestions for books and resources to begin the journey toward vegetarianism.
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betterdaze
Vegetarian Times
http://www.vegetariantimes.com/
Vegetarian Resource Group
http://www.vrg.org/
International Vegetarian Union
http://www.ivu.org/recipes/ -
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2008 THANKSGIVING MENU AT BETHEL
by Scorpion in2008 thanksgiving menu at bethel .
new world diner .
welcome to new world food and "spirits".
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betterdaze
All that "spiritual food" will require Antitypical Antacid!
~Sue -
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Iowa College Bases Musical on Bible's 'Terror' Stories
by leavingwt inhttp://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,456446,00.html.
des moines, iowa don't expect to hear these bible stories at church.. cannibalism, rape, a bear that mauls children this is the bible?.
they're among six stories from the old testament acted out in "terror texts," a musical at northwestern college in orange city.. adding to the shocking nature of the stories are the theatrics, with actors decked out in goth attire, a rock band and a mosh pit.. theater professor jeff barker said the obscurity of the stories belies their value.. "we believe we have discovered something that has been lying dormant for many, many centuries," said barker, who created and directs "terror texts.".
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betterdaze
Cool tunes! And "Sacred Stage" Trailer.
http://www.myspace.com/terrortextsthemusical
The full name of the musical is "Terror Texts: Hair Raising Tales from Ancient Israel."
Can't believe the ADL hasn't pushed to shut them down yet.
~Sue