Saturday, January 24, 2009

The Adventures of Manga Jesus

I was never much into Manga. I knew some people who were, and I respected that, but I honestly do not even remember cracking open a Manga book. The closest I got was an Archie comic and, manga illiterate though I may be, I realize it's not at all the same thing. So when I first saw the Manga Bible at work (although I was not working there yet at the time) I was intrigued and amused. I picked it up, looked at it a bit, called my mom over to see what I had found, shared a little laugh (look at the Bibles they're coming up with nowadays), and didn't think much of it anymore.

Then last week a local youth leader was in looking for Bibles for some of his youth, and this was one of the ones he chose. He commented on it when he came to the counter, and I pretty much agreed with what he said. Personally, I'm not terribly interested in reading about the adventures of Manga Jesus and his Manga Disciples. I'm afraid I'd burst into hysterical laughter every time I opened my Bible, which might interfere with serious study. It's kind of like The Word on the Street (affectionately known as the Gangsta Bible), I bought that one entirely for my own personal amusement. But the thing is, this does have the potential to get some people reading the Bible, which is cool. And it has the full text of the NLT, which is my personal favourite translation, because it strikes a nice balance between conveying the exact wording and the thoughts of the original scriptures. So if reading about the adventures of Manga Jesus brings them closer to God and teaches them about His word, good for them. Personally, though, I'll stick to my Life Application Study Bible.

1 comment:

Ryan B said...

Haha. Who comes up with this kind of stuff? I've never seen a manga Bible.