The Tabloid Bible

by Nick Page

Book Overview

Nick Page's bestselling Tabloid Bible is back by popular demand, and now in full colour and complete with sidebars of shame. The Tabloid Bible tells both well-known and obscure Bible stories as the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0664258433
• ISBN13: 9780664258436
• Release Date: July 1998
• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 8.2" x 11.0"

Customer Reviews

The Bible as you've never seen it before

The Tabloid Bible is exactly what it says on the tin: the stories of the Bible presented in tabloid format. I encountered this book in a study session on the Tower of Babel. "TOWERING CONFUSION" yells the headline. "Tower of Babel Crashes; Project Ends In Chaos":The Tower of Babel project has collapsed due to what the management team called "an unprecedented communication breakdown."And so on, until:The project was finally abandoned yesterday after a statement by the managing director at a packed shareholders meeting. "Xxyshhibbothuth mi varg," he said. No translation was available.At the bottom of the page is an advert: Luxury apartments and houses in the rural paradise of Sodom and Gomorrah. 4 and 5 bedroom homes available. Luxury fitted kitchens, jacuzzis, and those "fun" rooms for all manner of "adult" entertainment. [...] Sodom and Gomorrah--Building a Better Class of Home in the Gutter....And you know what the headline on the next page is going to be, don't you... The Tabloid Bible is pure, unmitigated fun: "JESUS FEEDS FIVE THOUSAND" runs a headline quoted on the back cover; "'He Cut The Bread Very Thin,' Claim Skeptics." The book captures the essence of each Bible story in no more than a page and a half. Whilst it pokes fun at its source material, projecting twentieth century culture willy-nilly back onto the Biblical stories, and shows the typical partisanship of tabloid newspapers--sometimes in favour of the Biblical characters, sometimes against them--it is never disrespectful to the Bible or Judaism and Christianity. Indeed, Biblical text is often sneaked in in quotations attributed to people on the scene of each story. My one, small, criticism is that occasionally the text seems a bit immature. This book is ideal for everyone from teenagers in need of a way to relate to the Bible, to people like me who know most of the stories back-to-front anyway. This edition is a bit of an odd bird: the original edition is British, and whilst the text has undergone a surface-level Americanisation--USAn spelling introduce, along with references to "mom" and "bowl" championships--it remains riddled with references USAn readers might not get, for example to the Millennium Dome. In summary: highly recommended, but if you don't want to take my word for it, have a preview of its content. :o)

Supplement with The Complete Guide to the Book of Proverbs.

This is a delightful overview of the Bible full of outrageous humor. The headlines are insightful, interesting and fun. A less irreverent but equally enjoyable supplement to this book is THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO THE BOOK OF PROVERBS by Cody Jones. Numerous characters from throughout the Bible are pointed out who illustrate King Solomon's witty observations on human nature. Many of the riddles and mysteries of Proverbs are explored with surprising new answers. Proverbs are a treasury of God's wisdom and give practical applications of Biblical values in punchy memorable sayings.

Attacks tabloid folly without demeaning the source material.

I read the original British version of this while preparing to interview Nick Page for "The Door," a religious satire magazine. This is a wonderful, funny book -- but Page is careful to make fun of tabloid attitudes and stupidity, not the Bible stories themselves. Not to be missed.