The Brown Bible

eh, don’t get upset over this. “creative artwork” on this Christian Bible isn’t much different than having Barbie Dolls with different ethnicities.

They’re both pure fiction, although it could be argued that the bible, with all its mixed messages, death, disease and contempt for humanity .. is far more harmful than Barbie could ever be.

Isn’t this just one more step (or branch) in the evolution of the bible stories? I don’t see how this version is any less true than the version it is based upon.

More like thousands. Many of the stories about Jesus seem to be made specifically to convey to readers from various cultures the impression that he was a really special person – the virgin birth, the “adoption” by God during his baptism, etc.

I like the “Jesus and parents as Indians” thing. It helps seeing that they’re a collective myth, that they can take the appearance of any part of humanity. I’d love to see them as Africans, as Indians from the Andes, as Inuits… It can’t be less accurate that the traditional Western Jesus with his flowing, blond hair and beard and his light-coloured eyes.

Maybe they could publish one with the Jesus from South Park for people who watch Comedy Central.

Beh.

Christians suck at this adaptation thing.

Here they took local festivals to different deities and turned them into Christian things… but things didn’t went exactly as they wished.

Aztec and the rest of the Mesoamerica’s cultures had deities that required an exchange for favors, called “mandas” (mandates, orders or commands, freely translated). If you didn’t fulfilled your end of the deal, things could go very very bad for you.

Now the people from these ancient cultures that are still left belive Saints will help, in exchange for mandas, and if you fail to deliver what you promised you’ll go to hell.

Virgin Guadalupe was white in Spain, but oh surprise, sun-tanned for Mexico. Oddly enough, she supposedly appeared in the middle of a bunch of roses on the same hill that for centuries was used by Tonantzin, an ancient deity, to appear every year to her loyal people. BTW, one of her many titles was Chicomexochitl, or “Seven Flowers”, so she was a floral goddess.

Surely Christians would prefer a little “creative licence” with the appearance of Jesus (I’m not aware of a biblical description) over the idea of allowing those poor brown non-Americans to burn in hell for eternity.

Come to think of it, wouldn’t you expect the bible to have at least one description of Jesus? Two really. Different ones, of course.

@Matt Stone

There does not seem to be any indication that the text has been abused in any way, and the changes that are identified seem to be exclusively associated with the explanatory notes and illustrations. In other words, they are superficial.

methinks Bart D. Ehrman would beg to differ; see specifically ‘top 10 verses that were not originally in the new testament’ in Misquoting Jesus and the implications this would have on any sect of Christianity that practises snake-handling, glossolalia, or laying-on-of-hands healing.

also, i seem to remember some kerfuffle about whether ‘virgin’ had been mistranslated from ‘young maiden’ in early scriptural resources…does anyone know any reputable sources i can go research this from?

I swiped the following from The Jewish Response to Missionaries, by Rabbi Bentzion Kravbitz of Jews for Judaism. The book is available in PDF format at their website, and contains a useful collection of counter-missionary arguments (bold and italics are R. Kravitz’s):

In an attempt to prove the concept of the “virgin birth,” the book of Matthew 1:22-23 states: “Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, ‘Behold a virgin shall be with child and will bear a son and they shall call his name Emmanuel,’which translated means, G-d with us.” Missionaries claim that this is the fulfillment of a prophecy recorded in Isaiah 7:14, that actually reads: “Behold, the young woman is with child and will bear a son and she will call his name Emmanuel.”

There are numerous inaccuracies in the Christian translation. For example:

1) The Hebrew word, “almah”, means a young woman, not a virgin, a fact recognized by biblical scholars*;

2) The verse says “ha’almah”, “the young woman,” not “a young woman”, specifying a particular woman that was known to Isaiah during his lifetime; and

3) The verse says “she will call his name Emmanuel,” not “they shall call.”

Even apart from these inaccuracies, if we read all of Isaiah Chapter 7, from which this verse is taken, it is obvious that Christians have taken this verse out of context.

This chapter speaks of a prophecy made to the Jewish King Ahaz to allay his fears of two invading kings (those of Damascus and of Samaria) who were preparing to invade Jerusalem, about 600 years before Jesus’ birth. Isaiah’s point is that these events will take place in the very near future (and not 600 years later, as Christianity claims). Verse 16 makes this abundantly clear: “For before the boy will know enough to refuse evil and choose good, the land whose two kings you dread will be forsaken.”

In fact, in the very next chapter this prophecy is fulfilled with the birth of a son to Isaiah. As it says in Isaiah 8:4, “For before the child shall know to cry, ‘My father and my mother’ the riches of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria shall be taken away before the king of Assyria.” This verse entirely rules out any connection to Jesus, who would not be born for 600 years.

* Some missionaries argue that in an ancient translation of the Bible called the “Septuagint,” 70 great rabbis translated the word “almah” in Isaiah 7:14, as “parthenos”, and that this Greek word means a virgin. This claim is false for several reasons: 1) The 70 rabbis did not translate the book of Isaiah, only the “Pentateuch,” the five books of Moses. In fact, the introduction to the English edition of the Septuagint states concerning the translation, “The Pentateuch is considered to be the part the best executed, while the book of Isaiah appears to be the very worst;” 2) In Genesis 34:2-3 the word “parthenos” is used in reference to a non-virgin, a young woman who had been raped; 3) The entire Septuagint version that missionaries quote from is not the original, but from a later, corrupted version.

hoverFrog said,

Come to think of it, wouldn’t you expect the bible to have at least one description of Jesus?

The very fact that the Bible does not contain a description of Jesus suggests that his appearance was not crucially important to the authors of the New Testament. There is the vaguest hint that, since he blended into the crowds, his appearance was nothing special. Maybe the more crucial matters are to be found elsewhere? Maybe your expectations need to be re-examined?

As for the Isaiah prophecy, well, I would not read too much into this since the writers who recognized it as prophesying Jesus were quite evidently far more concerned with the “pierced bit” than the “appearance” bit. Nevertheless, the fact that they saw no essential conflict on that score would tend to support what I have already said above, that on the surface there was nothing special about him. Jesus and the apostles always challenged people to look deeper than surface appearances. Wouldn’t it be more puzzling if they did get hung up on his appearance?

Karen said,

This is a common evangelical practice. I remember … missionary literature … often depicted biblical characters who looked like the local population … There’s no real discussion of fine-tuned ethics when it comes to evangelism. The ends always justifies the means.

On the contrary, there has been much discussion of ethics in evangelism in recent decades and what has emerged is recognition that what is truly unethical is “cultural imperialism”. That is, the pushing of western culture (customs, cuisine, language, art, etc) onto Christian converts, as the conquistadores did, as if spiritual conversion necessitated cultural conversion. Missionaries have become far more conscious of respecting local culture and distinguishing between essential issues and peripheral issues. The more unethical thing here would be to push Euro-American artistic conventions onto the local population. It would alienate converts from their culture, in a totally unnecessary way, and potentially lead to confusion as to what the gospel is really all about. Your suggestion that cultural contextualization is more unethical suggests to me that you have not really understood the essence of the gospel, and that there is no difference between American culture and Indian culture in Christ Jesus.

cheers cipher…!

This is nothing new. The bible has always changed to suit the reader. In the first 200 years, christians did not eat meat. Then a Roman emperor who converted to Christianity decided to make it more popular by changing it to accept meat eating. The muslim view of jesus as a vegan is supported by the “Essene Gospel of Peace, Book 1”. But I’m no expert on these things either.