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Wordful Wednesdays The Second: The Bible!

Yes, I'm doubling up on Wordful Wednesdays this week.  My blog, my rules.

There's a ranking to the books I read. It goes something like this:

1. Can't put it down. Read it to the exclusion of all else (except the Bible).
2. Can put it down, but it's interesting enough to keep me reading (but possibly while reading a couple of others).
3. Not really gripping me, but I've got nothing else going.
4. Not liking it, but I've gotten this far, so why not finish it?
5. Hate it, but I'm too stubborn to stop.
6. Hate it and no one will ever know I started reading it.

I guess I also should've mentioned the "Didn't pass my thumb-through test" category.  Sometimes I'll request a book from the Library, but then decide not to read it at all.  In retrospect, perhaps I should've done that this time.

This year, I've had at least one book from each category. Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bible!, by Jonathan Goldstein was Category 5. It's hard to overstate just how much I disliked this book.  In fact, I have a difficult time putting my finger on anything I even remotely liked about it.

Really, it's a stinker of a book.  Of course, it was always within my power to just take the blasted thing back to the Library and spend my time reading something I, you know, wanted to read.  So it really comes down to a stubborn refusal to admit that the time I spent reading this book was time I couldn't get back.  And I also hoped that in sticking it out, I could somehow consider the time not wasted.  And I read a book, after all.  That counts for something.

Besides, now I can give an informed evisceration of the book.

It's positioned as a "re-imagining" of Bible stories, but I guess I would've expected some actual "imagination" to be used (yes, deliberately misused quotes).  There were two ways the book could have been successful and/or entertaining:  It could've presented profound takes on the stories, or it could've been just plain funny.  Instead, the stories were both immature and boring, and there was very little humor. I had high hopes for it after reading the first paragraph of Goldstein's treatment of Adam & Eve:

In the beginning, when Adam was first created, he spent whole days rubbing his face in the grass. He picked his ear until it bled, tried to fit his fist in his mouth, and yanked out tufts of his own hair. At one point he tried to pinch his own eyes out in order to examine them and God had to step in.

I actually found this amusing and hoped for more, well, amusement. Instead, as I mentioned, I found very immature and obvious "interpretations" of Bible Stories.  I really expected the author to have a little more respect for the source material. My bad, I guess.  If I'd found out Goldstein was in the seventh grade, it wouldn't have have surprised me.

I guess I should just share some of the novel "ideas" Goldstein had:

1. Adam & Eve:  Adam was a moron.  Wow, profound.  I know.
2. Cain & Abel: Cain only killed Abel because God wouldn't talk to him.  Yawn.
3. Noah's Ark: Noah heard God talking through his nose whistling.  Seriously.
4. The Towel of Babel:  I can't recall and it's not worth looking back at it.  Suffice it to say that it was neither humorous nor profound.
5. Jacob & Esau:  Rebekah and Jacob with a kind of reversed Oedipus thing going on.  Creepy.  Not funny.
6. The Golden Calf:  A family of Golden Calf makers considers how Moses' anti-idol position hurts them.  With over-reliance on the f-word!  Woo-hoo!  Because nothing says "intelligent humor" like f-bombs!
7. Samson and Delilah:  Samson strong.  Samson dumb.  Samson smelly.
8. David: Here he takes the Goliath, Bathsheba, and Absalom stories and shows how David really just wanted to be a comedian.  And yet it still manages to not have even a trace of humor.  And it ends with David dreading the boring afterlife (which would probably consist of reading this book).
9. Jonah:  Perhaps the most randomly moronic take in the book (and that's saying something) has Jonah being "weird" from youth because of an unfortunate incident involving his brother and his hoo-hah (I do not jest).  Oh, and did you know Jonah incorrectly predicted the destruction of Jerusalem before calling out Ninevah?  So not only is he scarred from his memories of early sexual trauma, but he's also a false prophet.  Funny!
10. Mary & Joseph:  Joseph's jealous of the angel who got down with his fiancee.  And he only loves Mary because she finds his neuroses endearing.

I'm reminded of the episode of Seinfeld in which Jerry suspects that his dentist (Dr. Whatley) converted to Judaism just so he could tell Jewish jokes.  When he approaches a priest (Whatley's former priest, I guess) about this, we get this exchange:

Jerry: "I think he converted to Judaism JUST FOR THE JOKES!"
Priest: "And this offends you as a Jewish person?"
Jerry: "No, it offends me as a comedian."

And that's really where it lands for me.  Well, okay, I'm no comedian, but I enjoy writing, and I think I know what funny is.  I'm not so much offended by this book because of the marred theology in it.  Indeed, I'm sure it wasn't done out of disrespect, but out of a misguided notion that it was somehow funny.  More, I'm offended that such a book could even pass muster with a publisher.

I suppose there's solace in the fact that if this book can get published, the sky's the limit for the rest of us.

You might guess that I'm not recommending this book.  Instead, get A.J. Jacobs' The Year of Living Biblically, which manages to be both hilarious and respectful.  (I had it as my favorite non-fiction title last year.)

(Incidentally, this book didn't really keep me from reading other stuff.  I finished four other books during the time I had this one.)