The Word on the Street - Rob Lacey

...and who can turn down the vicar!? What he needed was to find a Bible for the youth group which was easy to read and understand, but not too patronising, American or inaccurate and most definitely not too 'yoof'. And in this he gave me about 7 different Bibles and told me to go figure...hmm...so you can guess what you are going to be bored to tears with during the next few reviews...

===Boring Stuff===
Title: The Word on the ...
...of Scriptures. Lacey is translating the Bible into what he counts as the street language of today, simplifying the stories and missing out the boring bits. His aim was to get rid of the 'stale' religious language and replace it with real, gritty down to earth language that is more understandable today, and making the issues in the Bible resonate more deeply. He attempts to do this by, for example, transforming psalms into song lyrics, the Epistles ... more

Recently my vicar approached me with a favour to ask, and who can turn down the vicar!? What he needed was to find a Bible for the youth group which was easy to read and understand, but not too patronising, American or inaccurate and most definitely not too 'yoof'. And in this he gave me about 7 different Bibles and told me to go figure...hmm...so you can guess what you are going to be bored to tears with during the next few reviews...

Boring Stuff

Title: The Word on the Street
Author: Rob Lacey
Genre: Bible (supposedly)
Publisher: Zondervan (2 Feb 2005)
ISBN: 0-310-93225-4
Price: £8.99 or £6.99 on Amazon

What is it

Supposedly a 'dangerously real' retelling of Scriptures. Lacey is translating the Bible into what he counts as the street language of today, simplifying the stories and missing out the boring bits. His aim was to get rid of the 'stale' religious language and replace it with real, gritty down to earth language that is more understandable today, and making the issues in the Bible resonate more deeply. He attempts to do this by, for example, transforming psalms into song lyrics, the Epistles into emails and Revelation being seen through a virtual reality headset. He does not mean his work to take the place of the Bible, but to be a bridge to it, and to help people to understand.

Changes in words

Immediately I had an issue with this bible. Why? The use of some of the words, some inaccurate or just plain stupid - which meant that I was annoyed with the bible before I actually started reading Genesis. These aren't just ideas for how you might want to take other words, these are actual replacements. Examples:
Inaccurate:
Amen --------------> Absolutely - ('I agree' would be better)
Justify -------------->Acquit - (two different meanings)

YOOF!
Ungodliness -------------->Anti-God stuff
The Ten Commandments --------------> The Big Ten

Just idiotic :
Sanhedrin -------------->City Council (an accurate translation would be courtroom)
Temple -------------->God's HQ

How stupid am I meant to be?
Sanctified -------------->Keep out the pollution
Sinners ----------------> The messed up

Words cannot describe
Repent --------------> Turn back round 180 degrees to God

Fundamentalism
Faith -------------->Taking God at his word

Worthy of The Life of Brian
Church -------------->The Jesus Liberation Movement
Many of these seriously annoyed me, because most of the time he's made things more complicated solely because he wants to avoid religious terminology...which is what the Bible's about in the first place.

The actual writing

I personally found the entire thing to be patronising and on occasions just stupid. If I hadn't been looking through it for my vicar I would have thrown it away from me with as much force as I could possibly manage. The movement into modern day situations would have worked, if it hadn't seemed that the writer was just trying too hard. I have to admit that I actually found it painful on occasions, because if the audience he is writing for is as idiotic as he seems to assume, they are probably illiterate anyway.
I can see why he missed out certain parts of the Bible such as Leviticus, but even so these are parts which do play a role in anyone's reading of the Bible if they are taking it seriously. But if you just take his version of the Ten Commandments:
'You shall not steal' has been transformed into; 'You won't thieve, nick, lift, blag, fleece, half-inch, swipe or get sticky fingered.'
'You shall not kill' has been transformed into; 'You won't snuff out a life, stop someone's clock, blow anyone away, bump anyone off, dole out the big chill, erase, drop, hit, top, waste anyone.'

What is the problem with kill and steal? Is there anyone who cannot understand these two simple words? Did I buy a bible or a thesaurus? It seems that in this section 'yoof' seems to be a shorthand for euphemism. Throughout this poor excuse for a Bible the writing style and form does not improve, and I have never read a book which has made me feel like I should be a five year old...I mean 'woodgy words of wonder'??? Where's the sick bin?

A quick word on the Gospels, they have all been put together - which does make them easier to read but also loses the discrepancies between them...but calling the disciples Pete, Jim and Jonno!? The world has gone mad...and his writing on the Garden of Gethsemane actually loses the emotion and power that this particular point in the Bible should have. How? Because he's gone so far with lowering the language that any emotion is completely missed.

Inaccurate

The patronising tone and annoying style I could possibly have coped with, although I'd still tell my vicar how useless it is. But when it is condescending AND inaccurate I start having even more major issues with it. The missing out of certain sections is bad enough, particularly when they miss out Cain and Abel from Genesis - which no one could call boring. But trying to rename Passover the 'Flyby Festival' annoyed me a lot...particularly as 'Driveby' would have been more accurate considering the amount of people killed by the Angel of Death on that particular occasion.

Another section (in Job) which stated that God was nowhere also seemed highly inaccurate, because it might have seemed to Job that God was nowhere but the basis of my teaching has been that God is everywhere. It is just on that occasion he was not responding. He was still there, and making that sort of point without stating that this is just how it felt to Job is completely inaccurate. Also in the same book of the Bible calling sinners 'gangsters'...I thought we were all sinners who are relying on God's mercy...I have grave objections to being called a gangster. Or possibly worse God telling Job that he is suing for misrepresentation...compensation culture gone overboard?

The Psalms as song lyrics are an excellent example of his inaccuracy - I will not quote them at you because no one will read them and I'll get in trouble for not having enough of this review being my own writing...if anyone wants any examples (possibly highly unlikely) I have a guestbook! It will suffice to say that often or not the psalms that he has written have absolutely no resemblance to the actual psalm, in phraseology or in meaning. And to make matters ten times worse they are badly written, tacky song lyrics...

On a similar vein, his version of the Lord's prayer (Matthew 6:9-13 if anyone's interested), is absolutely awful. Again it is patronising, and ok it is in the vernacular but I have heard far better versions of it...which have been written by people with an understanding of both the Bible and of poetry/prayer.

Good Points

Drat, I now have to stop my rant and actually think. As a whole the story of Job is well done, this may be because the author was struggling with cancer at the time and put far more effort into this section of the Bible. He doesn't go too far overboard with the language, and many of the points are actually easier to understand than the original - which is what he was aiming for to begin with. Much of the Gospel is also quite well done, with the parables being put across succinctly and the meanings behind them being easy to understand...the biological reasoning about why when the soldier put the spear into the crucified Jesus blood flowed out with water' is also well put...and at least doesn't go with alot of the fundamentalist nonsense...

There is no bigotry, in this I am focusing on the letters from Paul to the Corinthians in particular. It is not a fundamentalist Gay hating text...it is a very straight forward explanation without any form of hatred or bashing of certain groups...I wouldn't usually include this as a good point as I'd count it as common sense...but I am REALLY struggling to find good points.

Conclusion

I would call it an ASBible but that would actually be an insult to the ASBO kids.
Suggested uses: Kindling for fires, Kleenex, and Andrex. It could also be used as a missile, a brick, or as a door stopper... 

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