Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Let him without sin edit the first line

Last Sunday we had the classic "woman caught in adultery" gospel. Everybody knows this story so we all know the lines and can recite them along with the priest. But the lines aren't the lines anymore because somebody (and you know who you are even if we don't) CHANGED THEM, and not for the better. For example:

“Let the one among you who is without sin
be the first to throw a stone at her.”

How does that compare with the classic: "Let him without sin cast the first stone"? OK, it's more grammatically correct but it sure lacks punch. Later in the gospel, Jesus says:

"Go, and from now on do not sin any more"

WHAT? How is that better than "Go and sin no more"? It isn't. And for us old timers it's like changing a classic speech from a Shakespeare play: "I see some soft light coming from a window which I presume belongs to Juliet who is a very pretty girl." or a classic movie: "do you think that today might be your lucky day, do you think so, young man?" see, you probably didn't even recognize that classic Dirty Harry speech.

Last year I was stunned when they changed Jesus' line "Render unto Caesar.." with something totally forgettable (see I already forgot it). What if Obi Wan Kenobi suddenly started saying: "Luke, employ the mysterious power that binds all things together commonly referred to as 'the force' "

If you want to do something to clean up the Bible, please, SOMEBODY go through Paul's letters and rework those long run-on sentences he's so fond of. If anyone is up to the challenge, can we replace those incomprehensible pastoral analogies with something more meaningful to modern audiences? Frankly, most of us don't even know the difference between sheep and goats so it's unlikely we'd be able to shepherd them properly, or at all.

No comments:

Post a Comment