Illustrated Stories from the Bible (that they won't tell you in Sunday School)

[quadz]

and the sunday sermons that don't stray too far from the themes covered in the traditional storybooks.

False. LOL?

What church did you attend? (I'm not seriously asking that because you've said it 12 million times)

It seemed to me at the time, the church membership consisted predominantly of older white people.

But what I mean by "sermons that don't stray too far from the themes covered in the traditional storybooks", is that based on a combination of personal experience, random sampling, and intuition, I feel it's a safe bet that there are scant few preachers out there who are venturing into difficult parts of the Bible that they don't already have ready-made answers or explanations for.  It's one thing to intone in an authoritative voice, "And it came to pass, that at midnight the LORD smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt" (storybook fashion) ... It's quite another to inquire as to the reasonableness of that action by said diety. 

And then there's...

22 While they were enjoying themselves, some of the wicked men of the city surrounded the house. Pounding on the door, they shouted to the old man who owned the house, "Bring out the man who came to your house so we can have sex with him."

 23 The owner of the house went outside and said to them, "No, my friends, don't be so vile. Since this man is my guest, don't do this disgraceful thing. 24 Look, here is my virgin daughter, and his concubine. I will bring them out to you now, and you can use them and do to them whatever you wish. But to this man, don't do such a disgraceful thing."

 25 But the men would not listen to him. So the man took his concubine and sent her outside to them, and they raped her and abused her throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go. 26 At daybreak the woman went back to the house where her master was staying, fell down at the door and lay there until daylight.

 27 When her master got up in the morning and opened the door of the house and stepped out to continue on his way, there lay his concubine, fallen in the doorway of the house, with her hands on the threshold. 28 He said to her, "Get up; let's go." But there was no answer. Then the man put her on his donkey and set out for home.

 29 When he reached home, he took a knife and cut up his concubine, limb by limb, into twelve parts and sent them into all the areas of Israel.

...Yep. My mom read that to me as a kid.  But I don't recall ever hearing it in church.  Nor on the TV with the televangelists blabbering away.

The author is the one that chose to define his view points based on a gimmick. It's becoming very tortured logic for you to take some of these viewpoints that don't overlap. You are ignoring the fact that the pen-and-ink drawings were obviously used to make a reference to the kids versions of the same stories. You're contradicting yourself by trying to continue the notion that that is an unfair conclusion and then pointing out that that is half of the purpose of the book.

I don't understand why you seem so preoccupied with the pen-and-ink drawings.

You consciously seek out this kind of material and your subjective opinion that it is not provocative for provocative sake is pretty obvious.

Huh?  I thought I indicated that I would have been pleased if my $16 had purchased a book consisting just of the stories, but that I was impressed to find the deeper commentary following each story.  I don't recall offering an opinion on whether the material was "provocative for provocative sake" - although I guess that is what you are inferring from, "from my point of view - half the point of the book is that many adult christians will no doubt be surprised to see what's in their own Bibles.  And I truly believe presenting the stories in pictorial form is a valid and effective way to get the point across."

What I've stated repeatedly, is that I feel the pictorial depictions are reasonably accurate.

For the sake of argument, let's stipulate that the pictorial depictions are both reasonably accurate and knowingly provocative.

I think they're mostly provocative because of their accuracy.  Sure, there's some extra coloration due to a particular viewpoint, but no worse than the opposite rosy coloration of traditional Bible storybooks. 

But - let's recall the claim that I believe we're debating:

There is a difference between disagreement and provocative attacks. This book is obviously a non-constructive attack rather than a logical argument; which seems to me that his arguments are based more in reactive emotion rather than logic. Either way, would this not be the equivalent of idiots like the 700 club that describe "athiests" like they are a cult trying to steal your soul?

I claim the book is an oaisis of reason and logic -- and that whether or not its material is provocative has no bearing on that distinction.

I know from previous statements that you already agreed with everything in the book before buying it. So picking up something that is already the norm for yourself places you on a list of people that I would not ask to find out how controversial this book is.

Can we please stop focusing on controversy and focus instead on accuracy? 

Controversy doesn't interest me much - it's purely relative.  Ayyan Hirsi Ali's book, Infidel, is so "controversial" she has to live in seclusion and can venture out only under armed protection.  I've read the book.  I didn't personally find it 'controversial'.  I'll bet you wouldn't find it very controversial either.  But some people sure do.  Does the fact that some people find her book controversial or "non-constructive" have any bearing on the truth-value of her work, or whether it is based on logical arguments?

Of course not.  The same applies to Illustrated Stories from the Bible. 


Incidentally, on the same day I bought Illustrated Stories from the Bible, I also bought, The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb.  It was back-ordered and hasn't arrived yet.  Maybe you'll like that one better--it's supposed to be strictly literal, with as little coloration-of-viewpoint as possible.  I'm looking forward to it, as the artwork looked badass.


Regards,

quadz

[peewee_RotA]

Eastern:

...

Pacific: (?)

...

I'm going to stop the conversation right here to point out that we were both up at 5:00am arguing about this.

  nerds

[Whirlingdervish]

Jesus wept.

 

[|iR|Focalor]

Jesus wept.