CNN, Reuters, The Sydney Morning Herald and the BBC have all been knocking on the door of author and broadcaster Kel Richards to learn more about his latest work The Aussie Bible (well bits of it anyway). “I’ve been bowled over by it,” he says of the worldwide interest in his book, launched last month, which takes the story of Jesus’ life from the New Testament and re-tells it in chronological order using the Aussie idiom.
Inspired by a Cockney Bible, Kel’s version draws primarily from the Gospel of Mark, plus bits of Matthew, Luke and John and a few well-known psalms.
The author worked methodically from an inter-linear New Testament, with Greek on one line and the English equivalent on the next. “I knew it would be a loose paraphrase from the beginning,” says Kel. “But I still wanted it to be one that treated the text with respect. So it had to be done line by line, word by word.”
The Aussie Bible may be fun, clever and well researched, but does it have much practical use in spreading the word of God? “It’s a bedside, bathtub or beach Bible,” explains Mr Richards. “It’s not some-thing you would use in liturgy or in a Bible study group. But it is important we have the Bible in a form which can be read the way we would pick up a biography of a great cricketer, or a John Grisham novel, and just enjoy reading it.
“It is a terrific book to give away to someone who is not a Christian,” he says, “because it is enjoyable and readable.”
Martin Johnson from the Bible Society NSW says that it was precisely these sorts of outreach possibilities that persuaded his organisation to commission the book.
“There is a deliberate strategy to get people to read the fair dinkum, full bottled story of Jesus’ life,” says Mr Johnson. A coupon at the back of The Aussie Bible entitles the bearer to $5 off a complete copy of the New Testament from any Bible Society bookshop.