Bible-zines

I received some "Bibles" to review today, and they are unfortunately some of those Bible-zines. They're glossy fashion magazine-style books roughly the girth of Vanity Fair that have the text of the New Testament with all kinds of extraneous notes that are catchy or clever or engaging or relevant or something. Those types of notes aren't the problem, necessarily. Catchy and clever and whatever notes are fine, as long as they drive the reader back to engage the biblical text. But I don't think the biblical text is meant to be read in the format of a fashion magazine. Here's why.

The act of reading implies a contract between the author and the reader. The contract is somewhat fluid. It implicitly states that, among other things, the reader will engage the text as the author intended. Sometimes this is impossible, for instance if you happen to find a scrap of paper with a few words scribbled on it. It may have a very uplifting aphorism scrawled on it, but that may have come in the context of a scathing critique. There are some extenuating circumstances in how the reader keeps this contract. You only got a few words. You take them at "face value," that is, bringing your culture and understanding to the text, and taking away something relevant to yourself, namely, encouragement. But you can only do this because there is no other context in which to understand it. It's also very easy to go directly for the personal application if you don't take the author's intention very seriously. You have no context to understand the intention, therefore it's very easy to discern the import of the text. It's throwaway; you can take it for whatever you want.

However, with the Bible, there are a myriad of expectations placed on the text. This is "God's Word to me" (or "god's word to ME") or "my ticket to Heaven" or "God's plan to save the world." Whether or not these have any ground in reality, to the person who believes them, they are very important. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to understand this contract between author and reader. And in the case of the Bible, we need to carefully study the context of composition (Who's writing? Why? What are the circumstances? Who is the audience? There are several good books on this: How to Read the Bible for All It's Worth by Gordon Fee, for starters.) in order to get a good grasp of what the actual message is. Again, this is a bit fluid. We don't know everything about the original authors and audiences and circumstances of writing of the biblical text(s). In some cases we know very little. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try for accuracy. On the other hand, there are uses of the biblical text, that are egregiously wrong. For instance (crassly), we don't say, "This Amnon fellow was a pretty good guy. Firstborn of the great King David. He had agape love for his hot half-sister Tamar. [Yep. It's in the Septuagint.] It was okay for him to force himself on her." Ridiculous. But we take all kinds of passages grossly out of context like that. "I know the plans I have for you . . . plans to prosper you and not to harm you." That was very specifically about the nation of Israel. But we assert that for ourselves or people around us all the time. We may still be able to claim that after we do the work of understanding God's working in the passage, but most people grab it with no attention to what God's doing. And that's important. So the contract says to do our best to understand what God is communicating, not do our best to hear what we want to hear.

That brings us back to Bible-zines, for those still with me. If a teen comes to the text expecting to find beauty tips (because they're formatted as fashion magazines), they're going to expect that the Bible is all about them. Because that's how fashion magazines present themselves. How do people read fashion magazines? They scan the columns for something that catches their eye. And while God does amazing things in catching people's eyes, that's a horrible Bible-reading habit to cultivate. But these Bible-zines format the Bible text jumbled in with all kinds of opinion polls, tips and charts. Suddenly the genre of every Bible passage is set to "teen fashion mag." Whatever catches your eye is all about you and will make you coolandsexyandattractiveandpopular. Or you're unworthy and won't ever measure up to the perfection of botox and silicone and photoshop. (To be fair, these Bible-zines for girls promote modest dress and "it's what's inside that counts." But remember, your genre is "teen fashion mag." That's the set of expectations that's now thrust upon the text.) Some will object: "But if it gets kids into the Bible, it's worth it." Yeah, it's fine if it wrecks how they read the Bible for the next decade? God uses a myriad of strange things, but if we know better, we shouldn't do it. Discipleship is the key. Teach your teens how to read the Bible, if you know how.

Now for the prophetic gem. You heard it here first. Thomas Nelson first published Revolve for teen girls a couple of years ago, then Refuel for teen boys and Becoming for college girls. Sales were good. Now we have Revolve 2008 (and Refuel, Regurgitate and whatever else). They've annualized their production schedule to make a profit off of the Bible, and off the guilt people feel over reading the Bible, and off the awful capitalist mantra that you have to tell people what they need in order to make money off of them. Sorry, that was the history, not the prophecy. Prediction: the next step marries fashion mag genre and Bible reading plans. They sell a monthly mag for $3.95. You get the full text of the NT in a year, plus all your gory or gooey fashion stuff. (I note gory, because to a dude, that's what fashion stuff is, and also because the first mag for boys featured all the best battle scenes from the Old Testament.) On the same schedule as every other fashion mag. And people will buy it, because it's the same price as one decaf-venti-soy-no-whip-caramel-macchiato per month. (Spell check suggested macchiato, which is Italian for marked or stained, should be spelled machete. Hm.) Thomas Nelson, here is your free idea that will make you biblezineloads of money. But if you had read the idea in context, you would know that it is WRONG.