TedCarnahan

Parody, the Bible, and the Web

A Church article with View Comments posted 25 October 2008.
Tags: bible, bricktestament, lego, lolcats, parody, web

Recently I have become aware of a couple of extremely interesting new interpretations of Biblical texts that are peculiar to new media.

The first is The Brick Testament. I really don’t know what to make of it. At times it is somewhat campy, and at many other times it misses the point entirely. But, as one of my classmates pointed out, sometimes it can do a pretty good job interpreting a text. For example, this rendition of the story of the Levite’s concubine does convey the cold brutality of what happens to the woman and the seriousness of the text in a graphic way. Mostly, though, it’s parody. I don’t recommend it as a faithful interpretation, and “The Reverend” behind it freely admits that he’s not really ordained, but as a conversation starter it is quite interesting.

The second is the LOLCat Bible Translation. It’s certainly even less of a faithful interpretation – mostly parody, really, and full of crass and foul language – but it has some real gems, too. Here are the instructions God gives Noah about constructing the ark (Gen 6.14):

14 Make gynormus bote calld ark ov gophr wud; maek roomz in teh ark, An cover it wif tar on teh insidez An outsiedz. An noah sed wait a minit u cant getz wood frm gophrs, u has 2 use treez. An Ceiling Cat sed i can callz a tree a gophr if i wantz cuz i iz Ceiling Cat. so stfu An go getz ur hammerz An sawz An stuff. An noah sed k, brb.

If that didn’t make any sense to you, here’s the Wikipedia article on LOLCats. After linking to that I think I have to cancel it out by posting the NRSV text too, for comparison’s sake:

14 Make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch.

Both sites address questions of adult content. The Brick Testament tags each story to indicate nudity, sex, language, violence, etc. The LOLCat Bible has language guidelines, but they seem unevenly enforced and at best make it appropriate for teens.

Know of any other projects along these lines? Let me know.