Thursday, September 29, 2005

Read the Bible in 100 minutes?


A group of Anglicans in Britain have truncated the Bible so that it can be read in under two hours. Here's an example from the first part of Genesis:
In the beginning God created heaven and earth over a period of six days. First he created light and darkness; then the vault of the heavens, separating the water above from the water below; then the dry land and all that grows in it. On the fourth day God created the sun, the moon and the stars; on the fifth the creatures of the sea and sky; and on the sixth those of the land, including humankind. On the seventh day God rested.

God made the first man, Adam, from the dust, and breathed life into him. He placed him in the beautiful and fertile garden of Eden, forbidding him to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil which grew there. Because he thought man should not be alone, he created the first woman from Adam's rib; Adam named her Eve. Eve was tempted by the serpent, the most cunning of creatures; she took fruit from the forbidden tree, ate some herself and gave some to her husband. As a punishment, God expelled them both from the garden; he condemned men to arduous toil, and women to pain in childbearing and to submission to their husbands.
Loses some subtlety, but I think a super-abridged version would be useful in giving people a sense of the scope of the Bible. Speaking of which, if anyone's interested, I've created a one-page diagram that summarizes the Old Testament. Email me if you'd like it.

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