A Different Kind of Vogueing

[Guest]

This is nearly incredible. Note the comments on the King James, Shakespeare, and current reading levels. I've emphasized one of the most stupid things I've ever read. - Perdita

NY Times Magazine - September 14, 2003
QUESTIONS FOR LAURIE WHALEY
Fashion Bible - Interview by DEBORAH SOLOMON

"Revolve,'' a Bible for teenage girls designed to resemble a fashion magazine, has zipped up the Amazon.com sales list with record speed. Isn't that unusual for the New Testament? How did you come up with the idea?

We at Thomas Nelson Publishers in Nashville did some research and found that teens don't read the Bible. They say it is too freaky and too big and it doesn't make sense. The only thing they read is fashion magazines, so we thought, What if we made the Bible look like a magazine?

But Seventeen and Glamour, with their emphasis on acquiring the latest Marc Jacobs purse, seem a bit out of sync with the antimaterial thrust of the Bible.

That is true. The teachings of Vogue and other pop-culture magazines contradict the teachings of Christ.

Christ himself was not exactly a fashion plate.

I would say that Christ resisted fashion. He was not treated like a king, and he did not have the apparel of a king. He walked a lot, and it wasn't as if he was wearing Cole Haan.

Why appropriate the format of fashion magazines to hawk the Bible? Doesn't the medium nullify the message?

Not at all. God is not at all opposed to a fashion magazine or its format. All we have done is said that teen girls are reading magazines, so we're going to put the Bible into the format of a magazine. We have removed the obstacle of the black-leather packaging.

Some literary scholars have suggested that the Holy Bible would have been a better read if they had left the New Testament out. But you chose to exclude the Old Testament from ''Revolve.''

The Old Testament is three times longer than the New Testament, so how could we have included it? That would have made for a magazine about the size of a Sears, Roebuck catalog!

But you found room to include sidebars on fashion and romance and to raise the question ''Are you dating a godly guy?'' What translation of the Bible did you use?

We use the New Century Version. It translates the Bible thought for thought instead of word for word. The King James translation reads at a 12th-grade reading level. Most people in our country today do not read at that level. The New Century Version reads at a fifth-and-a-half-grade reading level, which is about the average where people can comprehend.

Can you provide us with an example of your efforts at translation?

O.K. One of my favorites is Psalms 1:1. The King James says, ''Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly.'' I learned it when I was 8. I'm a third-generation pastor's kid, and I didn't have a clue what it meant.

How do you prefer to translate that line?

In the New Century Version, it says, ''Happy are those who don't listen to the wicked.''

But the King James Bible is a piece of imaginative literature on par with Shakespeare.

It is Shakespearic! That's the problem. All those thous. I can honestly say my heart breaks because the church has made it so difficult for people to grasp the concepts of the Bible.

And yet you were able to grasp the concepts sufficiently to extract fashion tips from them.

A ''Revolve'' girl makes a point of dressing modestly. She might wonder to herself, Would God find this too revealing or too suggestive?

But Mary Magdalene, who was Christ's girlfriend, favored low necklines and loads of jewelry.

Mary was a friend of Christ. From the Bible, we have no indication that there was any sexual relationship with her.

You could argue that Christ was drawn to her precisely because of her flamboyant clothing.

Christ was drawn to everyone. I think he loved Mary regardless of her clothing.

But he does not love girls who call boys, at least according to ''Revolve''! It's positively regressive for ''Revolve'' to suggest that God made men to be the leaders in romance.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

I am speechless...

 

[Quasimodem]

At one point, putting the New Testament out in a Translated Version as a paperback called "Good News" was almost heresy.

When off-Broadway produced a version of The Passion Play as found in The Book of St. Matthews, where Christ and his Apostles where clowns, “Godspell,” the heavens shook. (The heaven's, not The Heavens.)

When Andrew Lloyd Webber released his audio only, rock opera, "Jesus Christ, Superstar!" they were diatribes in the pulpit, but the world survived. In fact, for a brief period, there were Jesus Freaks, and it looked like youth might discover religion.

There is nothing wrong with retelling an old story in a new guise to get past the ennui of its constant repetition. However, the author concedes that she has experienced difficulty with the language. She, then begins to make a series of pronouncements fundamentally flawed, or totally opposite, to even the most liberal of interpretations.

One can’t help wondering whether it is the spreading of their “Bible” as a gospel, or the spreading of their “Bible” as a commodity, that has shaped its content, as well as its form.

Aside form that, an English-speaking person who states – apparently with pride – that she can’t understand Shakespearian syntax, gives me whim-whams. With ten to fifteen minutes of concentration, even an imbecile can grow an “ear” for Shakespeare.

I know, ten minutes is beyond their attention span.

In an age where college degrees are prerequisite to becoming hamburger assemblers, the fact that people no longer read with a Grade 12 comprehension, but rather have regressed to a Grade 5.5 level does not suggest to me, the need for a new, “Illiterates Bible,” even if it were a competent translation. What it tells me, is that the country requires massive education reform, and fully funded, and attended, adult literacy programs.

Sheesh!

 

[Jenny _S]

At one point, putting the New Testament out in a Translated Version as a paperback called "Good News" was almost heresy.

When off-Broadway produced a version of The Passion Play as found in The Book of St. Matthews, where Christ and his Apostles where clowns, “Godspell,” the heavens shook. (The heaven's, not The Heavens.)

When Andrew Lloyd Webber released his audio only, rock opera, "Jesus Christ, Superstar!" they were diatribes in the pulpit, but the world survived. In fact, for a brief period, there were Jesus Freaks, and it looked like youth might discover religion.

There is nothing wrong with retelling an old story in a new guise to get past the ennui of its constant repetition. However, the author concedes that she has experienced difficulty with the language. She, then begins to make a series of pronouncements fundamentally flawed, or totally opposite, to even the most liberal of interpretations.

One can’t help wondering whether it is the spreading of their “Bible” as a gospel, or the spreading of their “Bible” as a commodity, that has shaped its content, as well as its form.

Aside form that, an English-speaking person who states – apparently with pride – that she can’t understand Shakespearian syntax, gives me whim-whams. With ten to fifteen minutes of concentration, even an imbecile can grow an “ear” for Shakespeare.

I know, ten minutes is beyond their attention span.

In an age where college degrees are prerequisite to becoming hamburger assemblers, the fact that people no longer read with a Grade 12 comprehension, but rather have regressed to a Grade 5.5 level does not suggest to me, the need for a new, “Illiterates Bible,” even if it were a competent translation. What it tells me, is that the country requires massive education reform, and fully funded, and attended, adult literacy programs.

Sheesh!

Amen! There are already enough plain english translations around that there is not need for another that caters to the illiterate, unwashed teens.

My nephew spent the last 12 years in a highly rated private school with a five-star rating, graduating with honors. He is very socialized but can't read. What does that tell you?

 

[Guest]

I am speechless...

Yeah, I was too, babe, so I posted it.

FYI, people, there are "translated" editions of Shakepeare, i.e, his language turned into so-called modern English.

more cynical than dismayed, Perdita

 

[Quasimodem]

...FYI, people, there are "translated" editions of Shakepeare, i.e, his language turned into so-called modern English...

The only "translation" I accept, was its translation into dance, for "West Side Story."

Dance & Camera work

(The acting stank in my less than humble opinion!)

There are some good film adaptations, but they can never be the play.

Thankfully, I live only thirty minutes from the Stratford Shakespearian Festival, Stratford (with an Avon River ) Ontario.

 

[Jenny _S]

Yeah, I was too, babe, so I posted it.

FYI, people, there are "translated" editions of Shakepeare, i.e, his language turned into so-called modern English.

more cynical than dismayed, Perdita

A *kick* to the translator's codpiece and slash with Hamlet's bare bodkin!

How can one translate Falstaff's scene instructing the night watch into modern english?

"And what if we come upon a thief in the night?"
"Then let him make like a true thief and steal away"

Much of Shakespeare is buried in the feel of the words not the meaning. That feel can never be translated into modern english.

 

[ffreak]

Who is this company, the Dumb and Dumberer Publishing Group?

Based on their theory, somewhere over the next decade or so, we'll have to put all instruction manuals in picture format with little fuzzy creatures using no more than ten words per page telling people there is a cloud in the sky that wants them to be good and buy more of the products displayed on each page.

So God is too complex a thought for young people unless dressed in a midriff-revealing top with no back and hot-pants?

Once, when I was a naive young man, the place I worked allowed lunch time discussion groups to get together and study the bible. Everyone was to bring their own bible and it didn't matter which translation they liked. I thought it would be an opportunity to discuss the intellectual differences between the scholars. The first day a fellow decided to quote a section of the New Testament. I followed along in my King James (I like the Shakespearian refinement of our language) and when he was through I raised my hand. "I don't know what the differences are in the translation you're using," I said, "but you seemed to have skipped several verses." He said "That doesn't apply to us today." The skipped passage had to do with honesty. I left.

The only part of this I take comfort in is: the marketplace they are trying to address will either take umbrage (even if they don't know what the word means) at the insult to their intelligence, or won't even have the attention span the publisher is dissing to bother to buy a magazine that has so much 'preachiness'.

-FF (really offended at his comparing the King James to the Latin Vulgate as unreadable by the masses - English is not a dead language!)

 

[Guest]

Shakespeare, Not

Quas, I have an o/p copy of "Shakespeare's Hamlet - A Version by Rouben Mamoulian". Yes, the movie director. I must quote his foreward:

"The text of Hamlet, which has remained virtually unchanged for three and one-half centuries, is here revised. ...

First. The original text of Hamlet not only has become obscure and hard to understand, but, in many instances, invites misapprehensions. ... "

[He lists 14 ! words from the play that "have ceased to part of modern English and 'translates' them.]

"No one likes to read something he cannot understand. ... When words cease to communicate meanings, they are dead; and when they convey meanings unintended by the author, they are treacherous. Why then should they be left in the text of the most viable play, Hamlet, by the most gloriously alive author - Shakespeare?"

[He goes on to say, "It reminds me of a legent (which does not exist, but ought to) about a Japanese peasant..." Egads!]

"The revisions I have made in the text of Hamlet comprise the following: [ready?]

About 2000 words replaced by their modern equivalents.
About 100 lines rewritten.
About 510 lines eliminated.
Changing the spelling of some words throughout the play.
Rearranging most of the words which had to be read as bi-syllables...
Revising punctuation.
Dividing the play into four Acts, instead of five.
Indicating the time intervals between Scenes and Acts.
Determining Hamlet's age at twenty, instead of thirty [Fuck!]
Specifying the probable ages of other characters in the play.
Turning some asides into dialogue.
Eliminating some of the "traditional" actions in the play.
And, lastly, writing stage directions into the play."

The foreward is 58 pp.

 

[Jenny _S]

Re: Shakespeare, Not

"The revisions I have made in the text of Hamlet comprise the following: [ready?]

About 2000 words replaced by their modern equivalents.
About 100 lines rewritten.
About 510 lines eliminated.

Alas, poor Yorik will never be the same (or possibly unheard of in this version).

 

[ffreak]

Why doesn't he just rewrite the Bill of Rights while he's at it. Ashcroft would love him. Perhaps if he were hired to redo history too, we could return to the feudal state, but with 'modern' language.

Doesn't any one with money to invest in these fools realize that by continuing to dumb-down the language, they're also shrinking the very market from which they seek a return on that investment?

Sure - the initial blast into the marketplace may hypnotize the slavering masses, who just want to see the lions get their share of fresh meat. But after awhile, those masses are no longer able to earn sufficient income to bring to the dark alley where they place their inflated offerings for the drek that is slopped out in return.

-FF (arrgh!)

 

[Svenskaflicka]

Christians are ridiculous...

Sorry for offending people, but that's my opinion. Religion is ridiculous, and should be replaced by good shrinks.

Would God find this too revealing or too suggestive?

So not only should teens worry about what their parents, friends, and potential boyfriends would think about clothes, they should also worry if "God" would approve of their clothes..?



Learn these kids to stand on their own damned legs, and think for themselves!

 

[Guest]

Sure - the initial blast into the marketplace may hypnotize the slavering masses, who just want to see the lions get their share of fresh meat. But after awhile, those masses are no longer able to earn sufficient income to bring to the dark alley where they place their inflated offerings for the drek that is slopped out in return.

Erm, Eff, could you translate that into fifth and a half grade level English?

thanx a bunch, Perdita

 

[Quasimodem]

Just a thought.

Behind every new translation of the Bible there have always stood some recognisable institution of theological thought, making their adjudication of the translators.

In the NY Times Magazine article, the only organization mentioned is the Thomas Nelson Publishers in Nashville, who are printing Laurie Whaley’s liturgical effort.

With statements like: “The Old Testament is three times longer than the New Testament, so how could we have included it? That would have made for a magazine about the size of a Sears, Roebuck catalog!”

One wonder who, other than her mother, is willing to take responsibility for her ecclesiastical efforts.

Or was it rather, as I am beginning to suspect, that she wished to publish a book, and she has neither the style to write for the actual Vogue, nor the ability to cook.

Is this new “Bible” more the product of a lack of faith in her ability to lose weight, so that writing the ever-popular best-selling Diet Book, is out of the question?


Switching to Shakespeare,

Perdita,

Sounds like it is a blessing that Mamoulian never got to film a version.

It appears that it could, in its way, have been almost as ghastly as the 1935 Warner Brothers Shakespearian fiasco.

You MUST remember, it featured the unforgettable opening credit:


A Midsummer Night's Dream


Written by William Shakespeare,

With additional dialogue by

Charles Kenyon & Mary C. McCall Jr.

 

[gauchecritic]

Religion is ridiculous, and should be replaced by good shrinks.

Learn these kids to stand on their own damned legs, and think for themselves!

Good shrinks is first of all an oxymoron and secondly psychiatry is useful only for taking money from peoples pockets and putting into pockets already bulging.

Learn these kids to stand on their own damned legs, and think for themselves!

Gauche

 

[Guest]

Quas, I still haven't completely erased Andy Hardy in diapers as Puck.

I do love Kurosawa's Macbeth/Throne of Blood and Lear/Ran. Whatever translation he read must have been great as he translated both plays into the language of film exquisitely. On the other hand I don't care for Olivier's Hamlet. The Russian director, Grigori Kozintsev, way outdid the Brit with his Hamlet and Lear.

Perdita

 

[Guest]

 

[Guest]

Hi Lime, I hear you. The nuns gave me grammar skills and a love for the English language. Once I left high school and went to a pinko university I quickly became socialized (i.e., sexualized) so no harm done. Religion is personal now, I pay no heed to Rome.

I have to tell you - I misread at first and read 'masturbatory bible studies'. Really.

regards, Perdita

 

[Guest]

 

[raphy]

*sighs and shakes his head in disbelief*

 

[Alex De Kok]

You know something boys and girls, I think the English language may just survive if this bunch of smut-writing people has anything to do with it!

'Literotica Society for the preservation of English'. Perdita for president.

Alex

 

[Guest]

Aw, Alex, you fucking sweet man! How's that for English use?

Perdita

 

[raphy]

Fucking works for me, 'dita.

To shamelessly misquote Wilde - "Grammar before decency"

Raph, manners before morals, always.

 

[Guest]

To shamelessly misquote Wilde - "Grammar before decency"

Raph, manners before morals, always.

Oh, god, you can play on Wilde. He's my literary godfather, we meet in my dreams.

'dita

 

[Quasimodem]

Oh, god, you can play on Wilde. He's my literary godfather, we meet in my dreams.'dita

OH NO!

'dita has a Fairy Godfather