Entertainment Bibles. . .

I have on these pages complained about the marketing of Scripture as more a reflection of our status in life, the stage of life where we are, the self-image we cultivate, or the things we value most (usually much more than the Word of God).  It is a scandal of our own creation -- because we buy the dang things!  Anyway, I will not recount or recant what I have said but I am happy to read of another Lutheran Pastor who shares my disdain and who has framed his opposition in a very "entertaining" piece.

You can read it all here....  Pr. Russ Saltzman has written a pretty good summary of the problems with this whole category of Bibles.

I will simply copy a paragraph or two to bolster my own complaint about the marketing of Scripture into a cash cow for publishers no longer beholden to the Church and with an agenda not necessarily friendly with our cause of making known the Word of the Lord.

But if I have any real objection, it is less with The Voice itself and more with the entire category of what I call “entertainment Bibles,” every one of which was supposed to rock our Christian world.

The effect of an entertainment paraphrase, whatever the intention, is to titillate by novelty. When the novelty is gone, we go looking for new entertainment. That’s how it rolls.