The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Year: 2015
Author: Zach Weinersmith
Length: 72 pages
Satire is a fine line between comedy and offense. While I can’t fault The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness for being precisely what it says—abridged beyond the point of usefulness—there’s definitely a bias present in its scant 72 pages. I can take a joke about my faith pretty well, mostly because I understand the reference being made and can identify what’s funny about it. Sure, The Holy Bible: Abridged has a few amusing bits in it, but there are almost too many portions that feel too irreverent to be funny.
The Bible is a long book, and I know most people probably haven’t read through the entire thing. This book tries to remedy this situation by providing a brief comedic sentence about each book in the Bible. Sure, it gets the point across quite succinctly sometimes, but it misses the point in many of its summaries. I think what it fails to capture is the overall story of the Bible, which itself cannot be adequately represented in 66 witty sentences.
To be honest, I’m not entirely sure who this book is for. Is it for people who believe the Bible (and have probably already read it) looking for a few cheap laughs? Is it for people who are against what the Bible says, looking for a few pointed jabs at Christianity? I have a feeling it’s probably the latter, but it’s at least a somewhat amusing exercise in trying to condense down a notoriously complex topic into highly abridged summaries. In the end, it’s a short book, and I welcome others to form their own opinions of it. For me, I found it kind of “meh.”
A complex book abridged down to uselessness; I give The Holy Bible: Abridged 2.5 stars out of 5.
1/2
