Aussie-rules Bible brings God to Outbackby Ed Johnson
Friday, August 25, 2006
Sydney, Australia -- 'God was tinkering around in his workshop when out of the blue he knocked up the whole bang lot . . . God said: 'Let's have some light,' and bingo -- light appeared."
So begins the biblical account of the creation, not in the stuffy language of King James, but retold in the colourful Australian vernacular known as Strine.
Broadcaster, journalist and devout Christian Kel Richards has translated the best known passages from the Good Book into the everyday language of the Outback, hoping to introduce the gospels to a wider audience in a country where church attendance has fallen below 10 per cent of the population.
The first instalment,
Aussie Bible (Well, Bits of It Anyway!) was a runaway success and has sold 100,000 copies since it was first published in 2003.
Around 90 pages long, it depicts the three wise men as cattle drovers camped around a fire and angels as Aborigines. The Virgin Mary is a "pretty special sheila" and the baby Jesus is "God's toddler."
More Aussie Bible, recently launched at a sausage sizzle barbecue outside a Sydney cathedral, gives the same Aussie treatment to the Book of Genesis, Proverbs, John's Gospel and John's first letter.
"It all started in London where a teacher called Mike Coles was head of religious education at a school in the East End of London," Mr. Richards said. "He found that most of his pupils didn't have a clue what many Bible passages are about. So he began retelling some of the stories of the Bible in the street language of the East End: Cockney rhyming slang."
Inspired, Mr. Richards began his own translation using the earthy language of Australian ranch hands and swagmen.
Gone are the thees, thous and verilys of more traditional versions, as he tells the story of Adam and Eve and the Fall of mankind in the Garden of Eden.
"There was this sheila who came across a snake in the grass with all the cunning of a conman. The snake asked her why she didn't just grab lunch off the tree in her garden. God, she said, had told her she'd be dead meat if her fruit salad came from that tree, but the snake told her she wouldn't die.
"So she took a good squiz and then a bite and passed the fruit on to her bloke. Right then and there, they'd realized what they'd done and felt starkers."
Daniel Willis, chief executive of the Bible Society of New South Wales, which published both instalments, said he was blown away by their success.
"Kel has retold the stories in a language that people in the street can comprehend and feel the full force of the imagery -- the slap in the face, the sting in the tail," he said.
Psalm 23 is rendered in the style of a bush ballad -- the poetry of Australia's vast, arid wilderness -- and begins: "God is the station [ranch] owner and I am just one of the sheep. He musters me down to the Lucerne flats and feeds me there all week."
Aussie Bible follows a long tradition of trying to make the Gospels more accessible.
Christian Surfers International -- a group of wave-riding evangelists -- is spreading the Lord's word to young surfers (known in beach slang as grommets) with the Grommet's Guide to God.
For Mr. Willis, it is all about helping people discover Christianity.
"Ultimately we want people to engage with the God of the Bible and find out for themselves that God loves and cares for them," he said, adding that prison chaplains had found Mr. Richards's work invaluable.
"As Kel says, 'The Bible really is God's message to humanity . . . Rip into it, you'll find it's as bright as a box of budgies.' "
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The Holy Bible has been translated into all the major languages, plus a few others.
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Daq the tagh joH'a' ghajtaH cha'vo'chal je the tera' -- Genesis 1:1 in Klingon
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In the beginning Gloria created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was nanti form, and void; and munge was upon the eke of the deep. And the fairy of Gloria trolled upon the eke of the aquas. -- Genesis 1:1-2 in Polari, the slang of British homosexuals in the early 1900s
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At time t=0, Elohiym implemented the heavens and Earth.
Now Earth had low information content
And Elohiym said, "Let there be electromagnetic radiation, and there was electromagnetic radiation."
-- Genesis 1:1-3 in technical English
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Den had one big storm ova dea, an da waves was bussing ova da boat, so da boat almos wen huli. But Jesus still yet stay sleeping in da back on one pillow. -- Mark 4:37 in Hawaiian pidgin English
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En la komenco Dio kreis la cielon kaj la teron. -- Genesis 1:1 in Esperanto
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In-ay e-thay eginning-bay Od-gay eated-cray e-thay eaven-hay and-ay e-thay earth-ay. -- Genesis 1:1 in Pig Latin
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Hello Dad, up there in good ol' Heaven, Your name is well great and holy, and we respect you, Guv.
-- Luke 11:2 (the beginning of the Lord's Prayer), in Cockney
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In da Bginnin God cre8d da heavens & da earth. Da earth waz barren, wit no 4m of life; it waz unda a roarin ocean cuvred wit dRkness. -- Genesis 1:1-2 as a text message
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