lethargic_man | Book review: The Tabloid Bible

The Tabloid Bible is exactly what it says on the tin: the stories of the Bible presented in tabloid format. I encountered this book in a Marom Bet Midrash session on the Tower of Babel. "TOWERING CONFUSION" yells the headline. "Tower of Babel Crashes; Project Ends In Chaos":

The Tower of Babel project has collapsed due to what the management team called "an unprecedented communication breakdown."

And so on, until:

The project was finally abandoned yesterday after a statement by the managing director at a packed shareholders meeting.

"Xxyshhibbothuth mi varg," he said.

No translation was available.

At the bottom of the page is an advert:

Luxury apartments and houses in the rural paradise of Sodom and Gomorrah. 4 and 5 bedroom homes available. Luxury fitted kitchens, jacuzzis, and those "fun" rooms for all manner of "adult" entertainment. [...]
Sodom and Gomorrah—Building a Better Class of Home in the Gutter.

...And you know what the headline on the next page is going to be, don't you...

The Tabloid Bible is pure, unmitigated fun: "JESUS FEEDS FIVE THOUSAND" runs a headline quoted on the back cover; "'He Cut The Bread Very Thin,' Claim Skeptics." The book captures the essence of each Bible story in no more than a page and a half. Whilst it pokes fun at its source material, projecting twentieth century culture willy-nilly back onto the Biblical stories, and shows the typical partisanship of tabloid newspapers—sometimes in favour of the Biblical characters, sometimes against them—it is never disrespectful to the Bible or Judaism and Christianity. Indeed, Biblical text is often sneaked in in quotations attributed to people on the scene of each story. My one, small, criticism is that occasionally the text seems a bit immature.

This book is ideal for everyone from teenagers in need of a way to relate to the Bible, to people like me who know most of the stories back-to-front anyway. (From the Jewish perspective, this is, of course, presenting the Bible from the Christian perspective; however, there were only two Christological references I saw in the Old Testament section—a reference in the Binding of Isaac section, and a sidebar on Elisha starting "Is this the greatest prophet ever?" and ending "It's an impressive resume. Perhaps one day someone might come along who can do better. But that person would have to be God himself." Which also encapsulates how the book diverges from the Jewish perspective, which holds close to its heart the statement (Deut. 34:10) "There has not arisen another prophet in Israel like Moses, who knew G-d face to face".)

Sadly the original British edition is now out of print, and I had to order the USAn edition from the States, which turned out to be a bit of an odd bird: the text has undergone a surface-level Americanisation—USAn spelling, and references to "mom" and the "bowl" championship; but it remains riddled with references USAn readers might not get, for example to the Millennium Dome.

I highly recommend this book; but if you don't want to take my word for it, you can preview its contents at Amazon.

~~This post is locked so neither livredor nor my brother can see it, as it's likely to be the next birthday presents for both of them. Please bear this in mind if discussing it.~~