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Category: Theology

Storytelling

I am currently spending a week on residential training in preparation for ordination to the priesthood.  Yesterday we had the privilege of spending the day learning with Simon Airey.  Simon is chaplain part time to Grey College in Durham but for the other half he is a Storyteller.

I came across storytelling as part of my MA course, “Preaching in a Narrative Culture”.  Simon spent the day with us looking at things from a much more practical level.  Making stories our own, whether wisdom stories or folk tales.  We then went to look at how we could work towards telling the bible.  Firstly as a way of performing the text as written.  To inhabit the text and then to orate it to the audience as story.  The key to story telling is to go beyond the text and learn to tell the tale from memory.  It is time to learn the lines of the script and make them our own.

The other form of telling was to write Midrash.  A Midrash is a reimagining of a biblical story and requires a deep understanding of a passage.  Then you imagine the story from a different perspective.  Perhaps you write the story from another characters point of view.  I personally have done this a few times.  The first time I told the story of Jesus at the Wedding in Cana from the perspective of the servant who has run out of wine.  The last time was a few months ago when I rewrote the temptation in the wilderness from the perspective of the Devil. 

Simon was quite inspirational.  I commend him to you and I humbly suggest that you may give storytelling a go some time soon.

Marked

I have just finished reading Marked by Steve Ross.  I was sent it by a friend who was feeding my comic book addiction.  Here’s a quick review by Alan Grant:

Steve Ross’s graphic novel ‘Marked’; is an exceptionally impressive achievement. The New Testament’s Gospel According to Mark is re-told in comic strip using contemporary life, characters and culture. The result is startling, remarkable and completely unique: the horrors and demons of 2,000 years ago are dragged drooling and screaming into the mean streets – and meaner people – of today. Steve’s chilling message seeps out from under his bold words and images: nothing has changed in two millennia, and Mankind will always fail, unless… somebody cares enough to save us. –Alan Grant

From my own perspective, I was greatly impressed with it.  However, I am a comic book nerd who knows the gospel of Mark.  There have been other attempts to reimagine religious narratives in graphic novels and some have been more successful than others.  For example Deepak Chopra and Shekar Kapur’s Ramayan is an artistic delight and authentically manga experience.  However, the Bible is usually given the well meaning but saccarine 60’s pastel shades of the ghost of sunday school past.  Even the artistic talents who worked on Judge Dredd seemed heavily influenced by the images of their childhood.  Marked however has no such hangups.  This really does look like it belongs up there with Judge Dredd.  The art work is really good.  Mark’s Gospel has been placed into a futuristic post apocalyptic setting that intrigues the reader to carry on.

I have only a couple of concerns.  What is it for?  It doesn’t follow a true enough course to the Gospel itself although it does make you want to ask more questions.  Is this a springboard into the text for someone who has never really encountered the biblical narrative or is it a thought provoking encounter for people like me who have a good knowledge of the original?  Is it both and at the same time actually neither?

The Book – The New Testament as a Magazine

I was intrigued by a post over on Jonny Baker’s blog about a glossy magazine version of the bible.  I ordered it weeks ago but missed the post and had no way of collecting it from the sorting office until the wonderful wife went and picked it up on her way home from work.

I was originally sceptical about how well the full new testament would work as a magazine.  Magazines tend to be short and to the point with small articles.  I envisaged vast amounts of text printed on floppy pages with a couple of pictures here or there.  Instead I found something that looks visually stunning.  It actually feels like it needs to be read.  It is wonderful!  The images are thought provoking and linked with some key passages from the text.  There are many wonderful contemporary depictions of familiar scenes such as the birth of Jesus.

This is clearly not a Bible you are going to want to sit down and read verse for verse with a commentary.  That is not its purpose – there are many different study bibles out there.  This serves a much more important market – those who have never read the bible before and are unlikely to do so because of the format.  We live in a world where a vast majority rarely pick up a book to read.  The internet and magazines are the predominant reading material – and this is who may well pick this up.  As they flick through they may only glance at the occasional piece of text but as with all magazines, key verses are highlighted.

I was at first worried about the durability of this visually stunning glossy mag.  I was quite concerned about the £22 I had paid for it.  What if it becomes less pristine?  What if it looks like it has been thumbed through as though in a doctors surgery waiting room awaiting the next grubby paws to come along and leaf through it.  Hopefully it will become just that.  Hopefully whilst I am making a cup of tea for a couple who have come to talk about the prospect of a marriage in their local parish church they will pick it up.  Hopefully they will paw through it.  Hopefully they will perhaps see what I see – the hope of the world.  Perhaps when it looks a little too dog eared from people finding out about Him, I will buy another one and leave it lying around where people can get their hands on it!

Available from Bible Illuminated and Amazon and you can check out a sample chapter here.

Jesus Heals!

So as we wandered  around Borders contemplating how none of the sections had quite the book we were looking for we came across this – a perfect metaphor!