Amazon.com has a new feature for its associates that allows folks like me to create their own customized mini-stores. If you look to the sidebar at the left, you now see a button called "Book Store." This feature lets me customize up to nine products on one page and then create category pages (such as books, DVD's etc) filtered by keywords. It's limited right now (the whole program is still in beta) so that I can only have one customized page and one filtered page per category.

Therefore, based on some of our recent discussions, I have created a customized page with some of the Bibles I am currently using: "Rick's Bible Tool Belt." And I also created a filtered book page using "wide margin bible" as my filter. If I could customize this page, I would make it match the offerings in the wide-margin Bible survey that I posted a couple of weeks back.

Then I tried to create a software page using the keyword "Accordance," but all the bundles Amazon had said "Currently Unavailable" [Hello, David Lang!!]. Plus my test page also displayed modules from Logos Bible Software. I wanted Accordance, not Logos!

The ability to create more than one customized page would be nice as well as the ability to have more than one filtered category page. However, it is only a beta program right now, and for what it does, it does fairly well.

And of course, yes, if you order something from my page, I DO get a cut. But it's a very minor cut, and you'd be helping out this poor seminary student. So, thanks!

From the Christianity Today Weblog:

David Jenkins, the former Bishop of Durham, argued against the physical resurrection of Jesus, the literal truth of the Bible, and the continued existence of his own Church of England. But it wasn't until he used the words "bloody" and "damn" in a sermon that he got banned from two area churches. Ah, priorities.

DISCLAIMER: Well, this entry seemed like a good idea at the time, but my conclusions are flawed. I have had a number of folks contact me both in the comments and via private email with explanations for the vast differences in Amazon's currently bestselling Bibles and those found in lists elsewhere.

Here's what I now know thanks to a knowledgeable, but (for your purposes) unnamed source:
• Contrary to my speculation below, CBA stores as a whole do indeed outsell Amazon by a healthy margin (I just thought everyone bought from Amazon like me).
• Bibles with the apocrypha sell better on Amazon because they can't be as easily bought in physical stores, especially CBA stores.
• Contrary to one of my conclusions below, the NRSV is not quite as healthy as perhaps I thought after initially looking at Amazon's results. Evidently, it is just easier to obtain through Amazon than other sources. Unfortunately, many editions of the NRSV have gone out of print and its use as a translation is on the decline.
• I was at least correct on one count--study Bibles do indeed outsell text Bibles. Surely this is a change in practice from a generation ago.

I could easily just remove this post, but regardless of the error in some of my conclusions and speculations, the information by itself is still fairly interesting. Plus, I don't mind admitting when I err.
Therefore, I am leaving the post as is. Enjoy.

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There are five separate Bible bestseller lists in this blog entry. Only the last one may have any real significance.

What BIbles are people buying these days? This is a difficult question to answer because as far as I know Bible publishers don't report their sales figures to one central source that keeps track of such things.

Zondervan may be the only Bible publisher I know to release it's own list of top-selling Bibles. Here's the list as it stands today:

Zondervan Top Sellers
1. NIV Life Application Study Bible
2. NIV Audio Bible Dramatized CD
3. NIV Study Bible
4. NIV Teen Study Bible
5. NIV Adventure Bible, Revised
6. NIV Student Bible
7. TNIV True Identity
8. TNIV Pocket Bible
9. NIV/The Message® Parallel Bible
10. NIV Thinline Reference Bible

Zondervan's list is interesting, but we still don't know how its sales compare with other Bible publishers.

There's always the CBA bestseller lists, but as I've suggested before, these figures aren't overly representative of all BIbles sold. They leave out secular stores like Borders and Barnes & Noble. They leave out a number of Catholic and Jewish sources. And certainly, the most significant numbers that are left out are those of Amazon.com. The CBA numbers end up looking surprisingly Evangelical because they don't really adequately measure non-Evangelical sources which for the most part are non CBA stores.

Look for example at some of the CBA's recent best sellers for August (which actually means for July):

Specialty Bibles (whatever that is)
1. Cornerstone Reference Bible (KJV)
2. NIV Thinline Bible (NIV)
3. Spanish Reina Valera 1960 Outreach Edition (RVR)
4. Men's Devotional Bible (NIV)
5. Women's Devotional Bible (NIV)

Study Bibles
1. The NIV Study Bible (NIV)
2. Life Application Study Bible (NIV)
3. Archaeological Study Bible (NIV)
4. KJV Study Bible (supersaver ed.) (KJV)
5. Life Application Study Bible (KJV)

Young Adult/Children's Bibles
1. The Adventure Bible (NIV)
2. The Student Bible (NIV)
3. The Teen Study Bible (NIV)
4. True Images (NIV)
5. The Adventure Bible for Young Readers (NIrV)

Okay, I wanted to list these above for sake of contrast with another source for determining bestselling Bibles: Amazon.com. I really wish I knew how Amazon's sales numbers compare with those of the CBA. My guess (and it's only a guess) is that Amazon by itself sells more Bibles than all CBA stores combined, but I have no way of proving that--it's just a hunch.

Here's what I did. At Amazon.com's home page, I did a simple search for "Bible." Once the results were shown, I narrowed my selection by clicking on "Books" on the left. Then I narrowed my results further by clicking on the "Religion and Spirituality" link. Finally, I narrowed them one step further by clicking on the link that said "Bibles and Other Sacred Texts" (I could have narrowed one category further by clicking on "Bible," but I didn't want to eliminate the category "Torah"). The very last step is to change the "Sort by" drop down to "Bestselling."

Now I had my results. Although there were still quite a few non-Bible hits, it didn't take much effort to wade through to see what Bibles people were actually buying off of Amazon.com. The results may surprise you. I was certainly surprised by some of them.

AMAZON.COM'S CURRENT TOP SELLING BIBLES
1. The New Oxford Annotated Bible, NRSV with the Apocrypha, Third Edition (ISBN 019528478X)
2. The Catholic Youth Bible, NAB (ISBN: 088489794X)
3. The Archaeological Study Bible, NIV (ISBN: 031092605X)
4. Fireside Catholic Bibles: School and Church Edition, NAB (ISBN: 1556654901)
5. The Harper Collins Study Bible, NRSV with Apocrypha (ISBN: 0060655275)
6. The Message Remix (ISBN: 1576834344)
7. The New Interpreter's Study Bible, NRSV with Apocrypha (ISBN: 0687278325)
8. The Jewish Study Bible featuring the JPS TANAKH Translation (ISBN 0195297512)
9. Life Application Study Bible, NIV (ISBN: 0842348921)
10. Zondervan NIV Study Bible, Personal Size (ISBN: 0310923077)

In my opinion, the above list may be a more accurate list than anything else out there. Further, it's a very fluid list and could change at any moment as people make actual purchases. There are a number of interesting observations I could make about the above list.

First, note the stark predominance of study Bibles over text Bibles. The Message/Remix is a text Bible, and I'm not certain about the Fireside Catholic Bible, although I would presume the latter would include the NAB notes.

Second in spite of reports to the contrary, and in confirmation with my own findings when I posted on top blogged translations, the NRSV is far from dead. In fact, it's very well alive. Three of the top 10 are NRSV and if I had gone further, to the top 20, there would be even more listed including the Renovaré Spiritual Formations Bible.

Third, although the Jewish population makes up less than 5% of the population, I was very intrigued to see The Jewish Study BIble come in at #8, ahead of both the NIV Application Study Bible and the NIV Study Bible. If you're curious, the BHS came in at #13. Don't let anyone tell you that Judaism is not alive in well when it comes to study of the Scriptures.

Fourth, despite the fact that all of these Bibles will find some use outside their target audience, the selection essentially breaks down to 40% Evangelical and 60% non-Evangelical. Don't let anyone tell you that only Evangelicals are reading their Bibles. Here's a different way of looking at it: NRSV 30%, NIV 30%, NAB 20%, The Message 10%, and JPS 10%.

Sixth, 50% of the Bibles above include the Apocrypha. Evidently the debate over the limits of the Canon are not quite yet over.

Seventh, notice the absence of a number of newer translations including the NLT, ESV, HCSB, and TNIV.

Finally, just because something is on a bestseller list, doesn't mean that it's a quality selection. Look at any of the books on today's fiction or nonfiction bestsellers list and that becomes evident. However, if I had begun to list what I thought was a "popular" representation of Bibles being sold today, my list would have looked very different from the one above. Certainly, someone might say, "Well just because people are buying Bibles, doesn't mean they are reading them." Well, that's true. But if people were just buying Bibles to have in their homes or to carry to church and not really to read, I would have expected a lot of thinline Bibles and pocket and purse Bibles. With minor exception, the Bibles listed above are meant for serious study.

Surprising indeed.

Tags: Translations

For you wide-margin aficionados out there, Christian Book Distributors (CBD) is offering NIV Wide Margin Bibles in bonded leather for only $29.99. That's 50% off the regular price of $69.99.

You can even choose which color you want: black, burgundy, or navy blue.

For those of you who like hardbacks, the NIV Wide Margin is only $22.99, although Amazon has it cheaper at $19.79.

Since CBD is known for making exceptional deals on items they often get as remainders, it makes for interesting speculation as to whether or not Zondervan is planning new editions of the NIV Wide Margin Bible. But who knows--maybe they're just overstocked. As I've said before, I'm still holding out for a TNIV Wide Margin Bible. Yesterday, I sent a link to my blog entry on what I want in a wide-margin Bible directly to Zondervan on their contacts page. I also suggested that they look at all the comments on that entry from all of you. So hopefully, they're listening.

Also, a few weeks back I reported that CBD had NLT1 Notemaker's Bibles on the cheap for $17.99. They've now dropped their black and burgundy bonded leather editions down to $12.99 and the hardback is $7.99. Holy frijoles!

Tags: NIV, Wide-Margin

I was fortunate enough to be privy to the beta builds over the last two or three weeks, so don't let the ".1" designation fool you--Mellel 2.1 is a major release. If you've got a Mac and you're engaged in academic writing, especially writing that incorporates foreign languages such as Greek and Hebrew, this is the word processor you need. Even the upcoming version of Word for the Mac will still be unable to allow you to enter right to left text for a language such as Hebrew.

From the Redler's press release a few hours ago:

For Immediate Release
Mellel 2.1 introduces XML format, superb find and replace, full screen mode, and more
Tel Aviv, Israel — August 28, 2006 —RedleX today released Mellel 2.1, a major update to the leading word processor for Mac OS X.
Mellel 2.1 introduces several key important changes and features, including switching the file format to XML, top notch Find and Replace capabilities (full Regular Expressions support), Full screen mode, paragraph and character style palettes, and much more.

The update is free to all registered users of Mellel. The update is a for-pay upgrade for user who purchased Mellel more than 3 years ago. A free trial version is also available.

The most important change in Mellel 2.1 is the move to XML based file format. With this move, which took several months to implement, Mellel is moving to an open, standard, text based file format, that is much more economic in terms of file size, and opening the door to a slew of innovative options for formatting, import and export.

"The move to XML is important for many of our users because it frees them from any future worries," says Eyal Redler, CTO at RedleX. "XML-based file format are becoming the standard in word processing. Just about every serious word processor is moving in that direction or is already there. In addition, text in XML-based files will always be retrievable and easy to script and manipulate by Mellel, AppleScript or any other application," he adds. The new XML-based format will also make it easy to convert Mellel files to and from other XML-based formats such as those used by MS Word, Pages, FrameMaker, and more.



Another important in Mellel 2.1 is the completely rewritten Find and Replace feature, including full support for Regular Expressions (RegEx), find and replace by character formatting and styles, flexible search options, and more. "Regular Expressions is an insanely great, extremely powerful tool, but for most of the users it is completely useless, because it is simply too complex," says Guy Hivroni, cofounder and chief GUI designer for Mellel. "With Mellel's new Find and Replace we tried to make RegEx useful to mere mortals. No more cryptic codes, carets, slashes, asterisks, and so on. Everything is icon driven and clear, so even non-programmers-types can make use of it."



Mellel 2.1 is available for download now, from the servers listed below. The price for a single user license is US$49, Educational license is US$34.99, 5 Pack license (5 separate licenses) are US$99. A Boxed Edition of Mellel is also available for US$59 (including shipping costs).


For a complete of new features, improvements and bug fixes, please see the release notes at: http://www.mellel.com/releasenotes.html

Main New Features

• XML: Mellel 2.1 uses an XML-based file format, shrinking file size by up to 400 percent. The format is clear and cleanly separates content from formatting, making it easy to write convertors and otherwise manipulate files.
• New Find and Replace: Mellel's new Find and Replace option fully supports Regular Expressions, but with a much friendlier interface.
• Find by formatting and style: Mellel now supports find and replace by formatting and style.
• Full Screen mode: allowing you to move into full screen mode (no menus, palettes, window frames, etc.) which is WYSIWYG and zoomable.
• Find Expressions and Find Actions: You can now save expressions you've created and complete find action, and "play" them later on.
• FindSets: Allowing you to create sets of Find Action you can run all at once, completely formatting or reformatting a document in a matter of seconds.
• Paragraph Style palette: Offering you control over applying, creating, editing, saving, and deleting paragraph style.
• Character Style palette: Offering you control over applying, creating, editing, saving, and deleting character style.
• Equation editing round-trip: Mellel now support round-trip editing of equations created in MathMagic. The equation is kept "alive" and editable in MathMagic.
• Auto-title in-place editing: You can now edit auto-titles in-place.

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For my previous blog entries about Mellel and why I use it, follow these links:
• Mellel 2.0 Released
• Mellel Roadmap
• It's Official: No Right-to-Left Text in Word 12 and Why I'm Switching to Mellel

Tags: Mellel, Macintosh

Preston Jones and Greg Graffin, Is Belief in God Good, Bad or Irrelevant?: A Professor and a Punk Rocker Discuss Science, Religion, Naturalism & Christianity. Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press, 2006.

I've read lots of "conversations" between Christians and non-Christians, but I was always troubled that the Christian in the books was so easily able to destroy the arguments of the skeptic as this never seemed to work quite so easily for me in real life. The problem is that in the books, such conversations are usually made up, and of course, the Christian gets the edge. That's not the case with the conversation between Preston Jones and Greg Graffin in the new book Is Belief in God Good, Bad or Irrelevant? from InterVarsity Press.

In this book, we get to read a read another person's email--in fact the email of two people--and it's perfectly okay. The book is described as "A Christian and a naturalist in conversation," and that's exactly what it is. What makes the book so interesting is who these two people are. Representing Christianity is Preston Jones who is a professor of history at John Brown University in Siloam Springs, Arkansas. His naturalist counterpart is Greg Graffin. Now if Graffin's name sounds vaguely familiar to you, it's because he's lead singer of Bad Religion, a punk group whose lyrics tend to be not just anti-Christian, but anti-religion in general. What I didn't know about Graffin until this book is that he has a Ph.D in evolutionary paleontology from Cornell University. Yes, you read that correctly. His dissertation was titled, "Monism, Atheism and the Naturalist Worldview: Perspectives from Evolutionary Biology."

Jones' and Graffin's email correspondence makes for very thought-provoking reading. The book is not a primer in evangelizing the lost as some may be tempted to think, but rather an open-ended dialogue between one person who sees value in religion and another person who doesn't. Neither is converted to the other's opinion by the end of the book, but it is the conversation itself that is of most value.

I should also point out that although Jones initiated the conversation, his writing never makes Graffin come across as an evangelism project. In fact, Jones was a fan of Bad Religion from its very early days in the early 1980's. Since Jones genuinely appreciated the honesty of Graffin's music, his impulse one day to send Graffin an email was done with the utmost respect for the man.

What is contained in the book is an extended conversation that takes place over a a period months, mostly in 2003. While the messages are kept in chronological order, certain themes emerge that form the sections of the book. This won't seem unusual to you if you've ever kept a long-running conversation going with someone through any means of correspondence. Although the conversation is forward going, the topics wax and wane. This is certainly true for this book. The table of contents list a number of conversations including the following: religious inquisitions, hating God, theism vs. naturalism, foundations for morality, the Fall, free will (Graffin does not believe in free will of any kind), Christianity and violence, and proximate vs. ultimate meaning. Other topics are covered as well.

The book also contains a series of intelligent study guides. I call them "intelligent" because these guides are not afraid to ask hard questions regardless of whether one is a theist or naturalist. Further, each study guide comes with research questions which will take a fair amount of preparation on the part of the participants. This is definitely not designed for a "show up and talk about it" group.

The book is a good "get out of your comfort zone" read. As I said, neither person converted the other to his point of view, but I have no doubt the conversation may be ongoing. What is of value is that certain stereotypes about the other's position may by have been dismantled for both participants. Surely Graffin came to realize in his discussions with Jones that there actually are intelligent Christians out there who can hold legitimate conversations about faith, biology, and naturalism. And no doubt Jones was stretched by Graffin as many of his arguments were countered one-by-one.

If there is any evangelistic value to this book, it is to show that to gain an audience with some non-believers, one has to show genuine respect and be willing to communicate openly, honestly and (most importantly) intelligently over the long haul. There is no room for hit and run, cold-turkey evangelism with someone like Graffin. Those are the kind of folks he philosophically and intellectually eats for breakfast.

"Quite apart from success is the challenge of thinking through the relationship between Biblical priorities and current pastoral practices. The modern pastor in America is expected to be a preacher, counselor, administrator, PR guru, fund-raiser and hand-holder. Depending on the size of the church he serves, he may have to be an expert on youth, competent on a Gestetner [an older name for a photocopier], something of an accountant, janitor, evangelist, small groups expert, an excellent chair of committees, a team player, and a transparent leader. Of course his own home must be exemplary, and he should never appear tired or discouraged since he must be spiritual, prayerful, warm-hearted, and passionate but unflappable. He should spend no fewer than forty hours a week in sermon preparation, no fewer than thirty of forty hours in counseling, at least twenty hours in regular visitation of his flock, another fifteen in door-to-door evangelism, at least twenty in administration, another ten in hospital calling, a further ten to forty (depending on the area) in ministry to the poor and deprived--leaving about fifty for miscellaneous matters (especially being available if anyone wants to see him at any time of the day or night). And then a neighbor will ask his wife, 'Excuse me, I don't mean to be rude, but I'd really like to know: What does your husband do the rest of the week apart from, you know, his work on Sundays?'"

D. A. Carson and John Woodbridge, Letters Along the Way: A Novel of the Christian Life

Tags: ministry

Before the beginning of great brilliance, there must be chaos.

James Dobson repudiates the TNIV translation because of its use of gender accuracy in texts where the context is clearly aimed at males and females together. Meanwhile, Dobson's organization Focus on the Family is offering a book containing photography from Mel Gibson's movie The Passion which quotes biblical passages exclusively from the New Living Translation (NLT) in English (accompanied by Latin and Aramaic). The NLT is a translation that also renders passages using gender-accurate methods. Focus on the Family is asking for a $25 donation in order to receive the book ($16.49 at Amazon.com).

The question is this: Why is the NLT okay, but not the TNIV?

Tags: TNIV, NLT

Since I published a blog entry yesterday around 1:30 AM about a Baptist Church in Mississippi voting to exclude blacks from membership, a couple of interesting developments have occurred.

First, The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal pulled the story from their website late yesterday. This Lamp reader (and my former student!) Josh Clark took it upon himself to contact the newspaper to inquire why the story was no longer online. Here is the response he received:

The article linked to was not supposed to be for publication. It appeared for a few minutes on our site, but it never appeared in print. The writer and her editor decided not to publish the story for lack of comments from the church, but they failed to inform us on the online side it had been killed. The reporter has asked Christianity Today's web site to pull the segment about her story, but was told it could not do it until this weekend.

A more thorough version of the story will be published in Saturday's Daily Journal.

It's interesting that the paper would claim that the story only "appeared for a few minutes on our site." I first discovered the story around 2 PM Thursday on the Christianity Today Weblog. It was certainly still online when I posted the story 13 hours later here on my blog. I was unaware the story had been pulled until This Lamp reader Rae Whitlock noted in the comments of yesterday's post that the link was broken. I'm not exactly sure how long the story was on the Daily Journal's website, but I know that it was there for at least 24 hours. However, considering the original article is dated August 19, I want to assume that it may have been online for the better part of an entire week.

Second, now the story is back up in an expanded version at the original link (see "Pastor Claims Church Voted to Reject Black Membership, Resigns"). Regarding the content, the only piece of new information is an official denial from the church that the vote ever took place. This turn of events is not overly surprising as denial is usually the first response to accusation. And with the pastor gone, it becomes a "your word against ours" conflict. Pardon my bent for mischief, but the church's denial could easily be tested if a large group of the community's non-white population were to show up as visitors to tomorrow's service. Such a move might be a good way to peacefully protest the church's racial attitudes anyway.

Assuming that this story is true (I've yet to see anything to really suggest that it is not, and this is confirmed by the Daily Journal's attempt to handle it delicately), I hope that the central figure in this--the 12-year-old boy, Joe--is not forgotten.

I remember my own joy at becoming a follower of Christ. Everyone shook my hand; there were smiles and pats on my back. Even though I was a child, I felt like I had made a very grownup decision. My public profession of faith was followed by a class in church beliefs and then my baptism. I look back at that experience with fond memories. It was a very positive and life-changing experience.

But then I think of Joe. Years from now, will he look back at the time when he "accepted Jesus into his heart" (a quote from the original DJ article) with fondness or bitterness? I can't imagine that Joe would have any means to separate his decision to follow Christ from the chain of events that followed soon afterward.

“But whoever causes the downfall of one of these little ones who believe in Me—it would be better for him if a heavy millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea."
(Mark 9:42 HCSB)

As tragic as the situation is, if years from now Joe is tempted to turn his back on his decision to follow Christ, I hope he will remember the other two individuals (and their families) who sacrificed their church membership with him. It can certainly be no small thing that a police officer--a leader and authority figure in the community--and more significantly, the pastor of the church himself chose to be excluded with Joe and his family rather than remain with a group whose actions demonstrated they were not worthy of the name, Christian.

As for Fellowship Baptist Church, God is not through with them yet...one way or another. A day will come when they have to answer for their actions

“Behold, I am going to deal at that time
         With all your oppressors,
         I will save the lame
         And gather the outcast,
         And I will turn their shame into praise and renown
         In all the earth.”

         (Zephaniah 3:19 NASB)

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Final note (for now): History on the internet can be a tricky thing and too easily facts can be revised. Therefore I am attaching below two separate PDF files. The first contains the original story placed online by The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal and the second document contains the revised article posted today. Here are the two files: djournal.20080819 and djournal.20080826.

Tags: prejudice

This almost sounds like a story from the first half of the 20th Century, not something that would take place in 2006.

In July the ironically named Fellowship Baptist Church in Saltillo, Mississippi, held revival services. During those revival services, 12-year-old Joe, a boy of biracial descent "accepted Jesus into his heart." On August 6, at the church's business meeting, the all-white congregation voted to exclude blacks from its services, including Joe because they did not want him to bring his family members to worship services.

Unbelievable. Stunningly unbelievable. I cannot come up with strong enough words to describe my feelings for this church's decision. Such actions are nothing less than antichrist in the truest sense of the word.

The only bright spot in the entire event is that the church's pastor, Rev. John Stevens took a stand and chose to resign that very night rather than stay another day in service to a racist church. One other family, that of a Tupelo police officer, also left the small church that averages about 30 members. According to the Christianity Today Weblog, this story is surprisingly getting very little attention from the press so far.

I encourage you to read the full story "Pastor Leaves After Church Turns Away Biracial Boy" from the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal. [Note: the link to the news story now points to a revised version and not the original one I referenced when I wrote this blog entry. For more information and access to both versions of the story, see my follow-up blog entry.]

Lest anyone forget, let me remind everyone right now that there is no room for racial division at the cross of Jesus Christ. Galatians 3:28 says ,

In Christ’s family there can be no division into Jew and non-Jew, slave and free, male and female. Among us you are all equal. That is, we are all in a common relationship with Jesus Christ.
       (The Message)

Fellowship Baptist Church is aligned with the Baptist Missionary Alliance. Unfortunately, I do not know any of this denomination's distinctive beliefs. However I am glad to say that my own denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention is officially opposed to all forms of racism. Article IX of The Baptist Faith and Message, "The Christian and Social Order," clearly states that "In the spirit of Christ, Christians should oppose racism...." That doesn't mean that we merely say we are against racism; it means that Southern Baptists are called to take an active role to counter racism wherever it appears.

If the Baptist Missionary Alliance has any similar beliefs against racism (and they certainly ought to), then Fellowship Baptist Church should be DISfellowshipped.

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Redacted 8/26, 11:30 AM.
Related Reading: "Follow-Up to the Mississippi Church Racial Controversy"

Tags: prejudice

A Guest Rant by Andrew Wells

There are plenty of news stories these days that indicate we have entered the “bizarro world,” but sometimes you still hear something shocking. It was announced earlier this week that a British television company will be editing Tom and Jerry cartoons so that there will not be images of the characters smoking. Usually it is an image of Tom the cat with a blindfold on, taking a last puff before an especially unpleasant demise. They will also be editing The Flintstones and Scooby-Doo cartoons for the same purpose.

I understand that there is a need to explain our culture and our heritage to children, and to make sure they understand it in the proper context. That includes cartoons. Cartoon Network did a special a couple of years ago that looked at Japanese racism in World War II cartoons, including racist slang and mentioning interment camps.

But come on…smoking? Tom and Jerry hit each other with frying pans, shovels, etc., set each other on fire, blow each other up, shoot at each other. They practice just about every form of cartoon violence possible. And this company is going to edit out smoking? Shouldn’t they be worried that children will be imitating some of Tom and Jerry’s other inappropriate behavior?

Furthermore, kids see smoking just about everywhere. Hollywood had a contract (written or unwritten) with the tobacco industry for years to show characters using cigarettes. Court documents have revealed that Joe Camel was especially created to get the youth market, and that tobacco advertising has been aimed toward children for years. Cutting it out of a cartoon, good intentions or not, is like putting a band-aid on a trauma wound.

But that’s not what really makes me mad. No, what is insane about this is that the company received a complaint from only ONE person. Not a group, not a bunch of people, just one person. A company caved in to one complaint.

These decisions have to be made on a case-by-case basis, I know. If nine people have their cars set on fire through faulty wiring, then it makes sense that the company inform the public and issue a recall so that more people won’t get hurt or even killed. But this makes no sense. Nothing is at stake here. How can you say Tom and Jerry is the only single cause for your kids to start smoking? But litigation, whether you win or lose, is expensive and bad publicity, and I guess the company didn’t want to risk it. So as the result of one person not taking responsibility for what their children are seeing--because that is what should be happening here--all of us lose a little bit of our childhood.

I wish Chuck Jones and Tex Avery were still alive. They directed some of the best Tom and Jerry cartoons, and I bet they would have something wickedly funny to say about this. As it is, I hope their ghosts find all the people involved in this and drop anvils on their heads. But not before giving them a blindfold and one last puff of a cigarette (and I just know that some of you are going to criticize me for that comment).

Andrew Wells can be reached at arwell012002@yahoo.com.

Tags: Andrew

I've installed a RapidWeaver plugin called SiteMap from Loghound.com to create an alphabetical index for my site. Now, by clicking onto the link on the left, you have an alphabetical listing to all of my 350+ blog entries plus all the other pages on this site.

Enjoy.

And now for something completely different...

The M.G. Rhyming Revue is a studio-produced, eclectic collection of songs based on nursery rhymes aimed more at adults than children. That's not to say that children wouldn't like these songs, but it will take an adult with life experience to fully appreciate them. The music is written, scored and produced by Philip Wade, minister of music at Cypress Baptist Church in Benton, Louisiana. Philip also provides the lead vocal on many of the tracks.

It's no secret that most Mother Goose (the source for the "M. G." in the title in case you missed it) nursery rhymes had their origin long ago in historical, often political contexts. But later they were reduced to quaint little poems removed from their original contexts and quoted over and over by preschool children. Perhaps their origin combined with an adult's familiar but ignored recollection of these rhymes makes them the perfect venue for exploring the complex grown-up world we now live in.

Consider the familiar rhyme about Jack and Jill, but with a twist:

Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water.
Jack fell down and broke his crown,
And Jill came tumbling after.
After all was said and done, Jack said, "This won't do."
They went on down to the county court and said,
"I think we'll sue!"

These words provide the beginning of the second song on the album, "Everybody's Got to Get Their Own." This song, which is performed in the style of a contemporary country and western ballad, explores the litigious society we live in and the desire to obtain wealth from any means possible. Unfortunately for Jack, he learns that often what goes around comes around, but I won't give away any more than that.

Here's a brief rundown of the rest of the tracks:

• "Be Quick" is based on the nursery rhyme "Jack Be Nimble" and gives advice to those who would be slow to commit in a romantic relationship.

• "Don't Be Afraid" borrows from "Little Miss Muffett" to explore the fear of the unknown.

• "Nothing More Than This" is a hopeful duet reminiscent of the songs in a better animated Disney movie. It is based on "Starlight, Star Bright."

• "Old Woman" uses "Old Mother Hubbard" as a basis to explore the stressful tasks that mothers of large families often face when they don't have enough help in the home.

• "Peter" is performed in the genre of Russian Cossack folk music. It explores the difficulty husbands often have understanding their wives' desire for emotional intimacy. It is adapted from "Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater."

• "Piggies," based on "This Little Pig Went to Market" encourages parents not to neglect the brief amount of time they have to influence children before they grow up and move away from home.

• "Wake Up!" is probably my favorite track. It is an a cappella rendition of "Little Boy Blue" that deals with laziness and procrastination.

• "You Can't Unbreak an Egg," as you might have guessed is based on "Humpty Dumpty." This song, done somewhat in the style of a march, examines the consequences of our decisions and taking responsibility for one's actions.

• "Only the Memories" is the sole non-nursery rhyme song in this collection. It's the kind of song that would be appropriately sung at a high school graduation. Perhaps it is featured last on the CD because it is a song about growing up and provides a bridge between childhood when we first learn these nursery rhymes and adulthood where we have to face life head-on and often learn hard lessons.

I recommend The M. G. Rhyming Revue to you. While many of the songs are fun, don't mistake this album as a collection of nursery rhyme spoofs. This is not "Weird Al Takes on Mother Goose," but a rather a clever attempt to take something from our distant fond memories and combine it with the realities of life. As I mentioned, children will enjoy these songs, too--so it's appropriate for the whole family--but only adults will catch the broader themes.

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The M.G. Rhyming Revue is available from Big Shoe Enterprises for $16.99. Split tracks and piano/vocal scores are also available. At the website, you can also listen to samples from the songs.

Over at Douglas Groothuis' blog, he has a rather intriguing discussion about the increasing lack of lecterns in classrooms. In "The End of the Lectern," Groothuis describes his experience teaching an introductory philosophy class at a school that generally does not keep any kind of teaching podium in the classroom. He writes about his discomfort in trying to teach without a lectern:

I feel rather undressed without a lectern in a classroom or without a good solid pulpit in a church. (Do not give me a music stand! These contraptions cannot even support the weight of a good-sized Bible.) This affection for the lectern is not merely an idiosyncrasy on my part (I hope). The solid object from which a teacher or preacher speaks serves as the anchor for one’s notes, books, and articles. It provides a center point for engaging the class with the voice and the documents. Without a lectern, one loses this point of focus and gravity. One is reduced to standing directly in front of the class, perhaps holding one’s notes in one’s hand and grabbing a book off to the side once in a while. It is not good.

Why the disappearance of the lectern? Groothuis says it's the increasing dependance on PowerPoint for teaching. Teachers are keying in their notes on their laptops and teaching from presentation software. I've been teaching in one form or another--whether in high school or college classrooms, Bible studies at church or in homes, or occasionally behind a preacher's pulpit--for twenty years now. I'm no Luddite when it comes to technology--I use it quite a bit and am doing so simply to write this blog entry. But I agree with Groothuis that dependance on technology in teaching, or worse technology as a substitute for teaching is a mistake, and I'll tell you why.

Do you remember the Kobayashi Maru in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan? To prove that the Wikipedia has some good uses, let me quote from it in regard to the Kobayashi Maru:

In the Star Trek fictional universe, the Kobayashi Maru is a starship that serves as the subject of a graded training exercise at Starfleet Academy, in which command division cadets are presented with a no-win scenario as a test of character.
...
James T. Kirk takes the test three times while at Starfleet Academy. Prior to his third attempt, Kirk surreptitiously reprograms the simulator so that it is possible to win. He justifies it by arguing that putting cadets in a no-win situation was cheating, and so he had to cheat in return. He receives a commendation for original thinking.

Well, I had my own personal Kobayshi Maru when I was just starting out as a teacher. In 1990 I was finishing up my undergraduate degree in English Education. This involved 12 weeks of student teaching at the local public high school. Near the end of this experience, I was to be observed and evaluated by my supervisor at the university. She was not my original supervisor, but one who had been assigned to me near the end of my degree program and we had no real personal relationship with each other. All I knew of her was from her reputation--that she was tough, hard to please and could be unmerciful. She was known for making students repeat their student teaching experience.

Although this was 1990, I was already using a computer extensively in my preparation. I was the first student teacher to prepare all quizzes, tests, and handouts by computer--using MS Works for DOS, no less. Of course, I had to print everything in bold so that the results from a 24 pin dot matrix printer would copy successfully onto the purple ink of the ditto machine. And of course, because I had prepared a test on the computer, I could easily go back and correct mistakes as opposed to the documents that the older teachers used which were full of handwritten corrections and had been for the twenty or thirty years they used them because they didn't want to retype it on their typewriters. I impressed the teacher I was working under at the high school with my overhead transparencies. Overheads produced from typewriters were difficult to see. But using a computer I could actually raise the font to a legible size. This was well before PowerPoint became mainstream.

Near the end of my student teaching experience, my supervisor was scheduled to come and evaluate me. Everything was riding on this, so I had to do well. But i was less than hopeful. This was my kobiyashi maru--my seemingly unwinnable scenario. Why? Because this particular supervisor had a reputation for sabotaging her students simply to observe how they would react. She didn't care how well they could teach a lesson. She didn't care how much learning might actually be going on in a classroom. She just had some kind of sadistic desire to make her students squirm, and if possible, fail.

So, the night before my observation, I went through my entire lesson over and over again. I tried to think of various ways she could trip me up, and then I discovered the weakness in my own prepared lesson--a lesson, by the way, that I had to give to her in advance with a list of everything I would use to teach it. I had to ask myself what could happen that would possibly prevent me from being able to teach my lesson in the event of a worst case scenario. In asking that, I had my answer.

So as I began to teach my lesson the next morning, I went to turn on the overhead projector as I always did every class. But this time, the bulb didn't work. No light, and to make matters worse, my whole lesson revolved around that projector. I knew I had just changed that bulb the week before. Further, there's always an extra bulb inside the projector. But when I looked inside, it was missing. My she-demon supervisor thought she had me. I didn't dare make eye contact with her. I didn't want to see what I assumed to be a smirk across her lips or the glow of her devil horns.

Instead, very cooly, I reached down to the lower shelf of the projector stand and pulled out a stack of papers. I said to the class, "Well, I didn't want to give you this until the end of class, but since the projector isn't working, you may look on the handout I've made for you that has the exact same information as my overhead.

I had done it. I had beat the Kobayashi Maru. I was James T. Kirk.

I learned a valuable lesson that day: never depend on technology for my lesson.

And I've learned to ask this most important question: Can I still teach my lesson if my technology fails?

It's not to say that I don't use technology in the classroom. I use technology to type my lessons, but I always print them out to have them with me, and I simply prefer to teach from paper than from a computer screen. Yes, I will use PowerPoint (technically I now use Keynote), but I never let presentation software drive my lesson. It is a tool to aid my discussion; it is not the basis for the discussion itself.

Over the years I have experimented with placing my lessons on a PalmPilot or teaching from the notes view in PowerPoint, but I've never stuck with these methods beyond trying them for curiosity's sake because they don't meet the qualification of my question in bold above. The visuals that presentation software allows me to use are fantastic, and I take advantage of it. However, I never let it become the focus of what I'm doing. I can teach with my notes and the ability to engage my students in discussion and create a better learning atmosphere than a PowerPoint-based lesson any day.

Since the dawn of the computer in the classroom, I've seen professors waste valuable class time because they couldn't get their laptops to "talk" with the projector. I've known of professors to cancel class altogether simply because a projector bulb was out. It's absolutely shameful to the profession to waste the students' time like that. But if everything is dependent upon the technology, what else can they do?

I've walked out of the house with my PowerBook on my shoulder only to have the strap break and have the computer come crashing to the ground. I had the same iBook in for repairs twice because of that in 2001. If I had all my notes exclusively on that computer, I would have been in a real mess. Laptops can break, Palm screens can crack, and projector bulbs can go out. But can I still teach if my technology fails?

The problem with computers is they offer to do everything for us. Yet, when they decide not to work, it leaves us without the ability to go back and do things the way we used to.

I don't necessarily have to have a full podium like Groothuis. A tabletop lectern is fine, and I even simply use a music stand when I teach Sunday School these days. In the regular classroom, I have my PowerBook handy, but it's down on the table--it's not the center of what I'm doing.

And if the technology fails, this teacher can still teach just fine.

If you're a fan of the TNIV like me, you may be frustrated that currently Zondervan does not publish any non-thinline text editions in leather (you can choose from a variety of non-thinline text editions in hardback, but if you want leather, you have to go thinline). And to make matters worse, leather text editions are available from Cambridge BIbles, but not in the United States because Zondervan holds exclusive publishing and distribution rights over here. Plus, sometimes you just want a BIble with a traditional looking binding (no neon or multi-colored patterns).

So I was surprised and delighted to see four of the Cambridge leather TNIV Bibles available through Amazon being sold as used items. However, if you follow the link, you'll discover that these are not used Bibles at all, but brand new Bibles that a British bookseller is offering to American customers. The cost is a bit pricey--from $97 to $114--but it includes the cost to ship the Bibles 10 to 14 day priority airmail, and you get fine Cambridge Morocco (see comments for description) leather. Right now, if you want a TNIV Bible in a grade above bonded leather and if you don't want a thinline at all, this is your only option.

For American customers the only real differences between United States and British editions have to do with spellings and punctuation. Oh, and according to Peter Kirk, these British editions use a different word for rooster (let the reader understand) and there's a small change in Hebrews 4:15. There may be other differences, but again, these are going to be minor. And you're not going to find better binding quality than in a Cambridge Bible.

Here are the Camrbidge editions currently available through Amazon.com:

• TNIV Bible Personal Edition Black French Morocco Leather - $97

• TNIV Bible Personal Edition Burgundy French Morocco Leather - $97

• TNIV Bible Popular Edition Black French Morocco Leather - $113.90

• TNIV Bible Popular Edition Burgundy French Morocco Leather - $113.90

Personal editions are 6.1" x 4.1" with 6.5 pt. type. Popular editions (the better choice in my opinion) are 7.75" x 5" with 9.5 pt. type.

Tags: TNIV

"All down the ages the world has been refusing Jesus because it prefers its pigs."

Paul Phillip Levertoff

The context: Matthew 8:30-34

Two quizzes. I felt like the second one didn't offer enough options to adequately express my beliefs, but at least it shows I'm not an extremist in any area, and I can live with that.

You scored as Zwingli. You are Ulrich Zwingli. You believe that bread and wine are mere symbols of the absent Jesus. You believe in interpreting Scripture reasonably. Zwingli 94% Calvin 56% Luther 44% Catholic 0% Unitarian 0% Eucharistic theology created with QuizFarm.com

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You scored as Neo orthodox. You are neo-orthodox. You reject the human-centredness and scepticism of liberal theology, but neither do you go to the other extreme and make the Bible the central issue for faith. You believe that Christ is God's most important revelation to humanity, and the Trinity is hugely important in your theology. The Bible is also important because it points us to the revelation of Christ. You are influenced by Karl Barth and P T Forsyth. Neo orthodox 79% Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 64% Reformed Evangelical 64% Emergent/Postmodern 61% Fundamentalist 39% Charismatic/Pentecostal 36% Classical Liberal 36% Roman Catholic 32% Modern Liberal 25% What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com

For what it's worth, I do not consider myself Neo-orthodox, but there just weren't enough options in that quiz. Like I said, I really needed an essay section.

No two ways about it, the Bible is a large book. Publishers go out of their way to get around this fact with thinline, compact, and personal size Bibles. Another way they fudge on the size is to use a narrowed typeface. Of course, often this sacrifices readability for a smaller footprint.

A few weeks back when I wrote my review of the New Living Translation, I demonstrated how much more wordy the second edition is over the first by displaying Genesis 1 from both editions in parallel columns. Also making the second edition more text-heavy than the first, according to the NLT website, were the "Many marginal notes ... added to help the reader study manuscript differences and to show the relationship between a literal translation and the rendering in the NLT." All of this makes for a potentially larger Bible. In fact, between more words in the text and added marginal notes, the NLT2 is 10% longer than the NLT1!

Faced with this reality, Tyndale publishers turned to Brian Sooy, creator of the Veritas typeface found in most ESV Bibles and two editions of the earlier 1996 edition of the New Living Translation. Sooy worked with famed calligrapher, Timothy Botts to design a brand new typeface. As stated in "From Genesis to Revelation: Lucerna," we read:

Like any design project, this one had a brief with some technical criteria, to help define and solve the design problem.

• Achieve a better character count (to maximize space and ultimately save paper)
• Eliminate artificial condensing of standard fonts (such as ITC Giovanni).
• Have visual similarities to ITC Giovanni, by Robert Slimbach.
• Make the font "stronger"
• Achieve as good as or better character count than ITC Weidemann or Century Old Style.
• Achieve better character count while maintaining readability.

Tim Botts said afterwards: "I was especially jazzed with the way the new One Year Bible turned out -- a 10% longer text in a stronger typeface -- yielding the same page count! To think we competed with Century OS and Weidemann -- and I think -- won."

We chose some key characters to design with similarities to ITC Giovanni - which Tyndale has been using for many Bibles, condensed 10% for space savings. This was also to show design management that the font would have that warm and friendly look that they had come to appreciate with Giovanni, and that they didn't want to lose. Overall Lucerna has its own character and visual appeal, with limited influence by ITC Giovanni.

So the font is a design solution to these technical and aesthetic considerations. Lucerna has indeed yielded printing/paper savings for Tyndale due to its space-saving design and should prove highly legible for the targeted demographic readers.

Sooy himself named the font. They played around with the name "Tyndale Book," but ultimately chose Lucerna because it is Latin for "lamp" and seemed to go along with Psalm 119:105-- “Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path” (NLT). The graphics displayed a few paragraphs above were the best I could find to demonstrate the look and style of both Lucerna and Veritas. However, you can also see them simply by referring to actual copies of the ESV and NLT second edition.

While recently visiting the history of the Bible exhibit, Ink & Blood (see my review here), Sooy had a surreal moment. As he toured through the antique Bibles, some of which resulted in martyrs' deaths, Sooy realized that he, too, had managed a contribution to the history of the English Bible:

What struck me the most as I stood looking at the Bibles, reading the stories of the translators, and considering their impact on history – is that nobody was trying to kill me (that I know of) or persecute me (other than the left-wing side of the political spectrum) for contributing to publishing a Bible.

It seemed to me to be a strange culmination of events: I had purchased my first Macintosh (The SE30) in 1990, and released my first typeface intended for Bibles in 1995 (Veritas). Seven years later, I began Lucerna, and the first Bibles typeset in it were released in 2004.

It's difficult to describe the sensation I had while standing in the middle of all this history. The Lucerna Project was significant both personally and professionally, and I am aware that I have been given the opportunity to contribute to the history of the Bible. But why me? I'll always be grateful for the opportunity.

Both the Lucerna and Veritas typefaces are clear and easy to read. These are much better than the narrowed fonts that are in some Bibles, especially thinlines. As I said at the beginning of this post, the Bible is a big book. I hope that publishers will remember that not every Bible coming off the press has to necessarily be a thinline or a compact Bible. There are lots of us out here who don't mind carrying a larger Bible if that means that the text will not be crowded and the pages will not be too thin to write our notes on.

I note that the Veritas font is available for purchase, but Lucerna is not. Veritas was created independently with Bibles in mind, but Lucerna was created under contract for Tyndale. Nevertheless, I wonder how easy it would be to use a font like Veritas (cost = $75) and simply print my own wide-margin Bible. The idea seems more appealing everyday...

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For Further Reading:
• "From Genesis to Revelation: Lucerna"
• "From Parchment to Postscript" (Design Matters Blog)
• "Outreach Edition Font" (ESV Blog)

HT: "Picking the Font for the NLTse" (Andrew Dodson's Blog)

Photo of Brian Sooy borrowed from http://www.flickr.com/photos/69297311@N00/sets/654658/

Tags: NLT, ESV

...is not a movie I saw this weekend. But what a fun phrase to say: snakes on a plane, snakes on a plane.

Want even more fun? There's a nifty page on the movie's website in which you can give a few personal details about your friend or loved one and he or she will receive a personalized message (by email or phone!) from Samuel L. Jackson. How cool is that?

Go to http://snakesonaplane.varitalk.com/

There seems to be a lot of discussion in the blogosphere recently about wide-margin Bibles and Bible note-taking in general.

This will catch you up to speed:
1. A little over a week ago, I wrote a blog entry surveying the current offerings of wide-margin Bibles by various publishers organized by translation. See "A Survey of Wide-Margin BIbles By Version." My goal was to encourage readers to interact with Scripture in a physical way by taking notes in their Bibles. In keeping with my philosophy of "the best Bible is the one that connects to you," I tried to represent as many as translations as possible.

2. In researching that blog entry, I came across J. Mark Bertrand's excellent article on the value of wide-margin BIbles: "Marginal Interest: Why You Need a Wide-Margin Bible." His justification for using wide-margin BIbles was so well-stated, that I merely pointed to his site rather than make my entry any longer than what it already was. See also Bertrand's story about his influence on the ESV Journaling BIble and his post today,