29 Sep 2007 12:37 pm
The iBible and YouVersion
Calm down, the iBible is just a joke, but not too far off from reality. Someone emailed me about the “YouVersion” - a Web 2.0 experiment that marries social networking, virtual collaboration, and blogging, to the Bible. Its sort of a glorified myspace meets wikipedia with an obvious marketing rip-off of the multi-billion dollar youtube. At first I thought it was a joke, taking a snark at the self-centered ness of American evangelicalism - here is a bible that’s all about you; but sadly the makers of the youversion do not report to jest at all. They want you to insert your favorite links, upload pictures of your cat, and add homemade video to your favorite scripture passages to create your very own customized electronic canon. To their credit, I signed up and as far as I can tell, at least they stop short of allowing folks to edit the texts itself. Bummer, because I was sort of looking forward to inserting myself next to Moses in parting the Red Sea, naming some random animals with Adam, and walking on water. Perhaps I could even slay Goliath, storm Jericho, surf the Sea of Tiberias, and have the 144,000 bow down and worship me. Queue commercial - “The you version - Its all about you - what do you want to believe today?”
September 29th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
Pastor Don,
Since this is just a joke (iBible) I guess there’s nothing to worry about or is there?
I personally don’t like this kind of humor, call me old-fashioned but it really hurts when the world pokes fun at everything pertaining to God and what I believe. What we believe and trust to be true is no laughing matter!!
Enjoy the week ahead….everyone is anxious to arrive!!
In God’s love,
Tina Thomson (Bob’s wife)
September 29th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
Mrs. Tina,
I do not think the makers of the iBible joke were non-Christians poking fun at Christians. I think they are probably believers using humor to point out a serious problem of self-centeredness in our culture that too often bleeds over into our Christian sub-culture.
September 29th, 2007 at 8:09 pm
Here is a link to the “real” iBible:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&Item=150163711100&Category=94862&_trksid=p3907.m29
“Introducing the iBlble Pro, the world’s first electronic bible that features the complete King James Version bible in both text and audio formats! That’s right, now you can Read the Bible, Listen to the Bible, or do both at the same time using only this unique hand-held device.”
Tim
October 3rd, 2007 at 3:24 pm
I reckon YouVersion might become a really good website. There are so many sermons etc. (in audio, video and text format) spread all over the internet - this is a great way to pool them together by topic.
It is not about creating your own cannon but sharing study of the bible.
October 4th, 2007 at 5:18 am
David,
I agree, the youversion may prove to be a helpful resource and I did not comment on the potential benefits like I should have done. I offered a one sided critique primarily flowing out of the goofy self-centered marketing name for the site.
October 5th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
It is a rather strange name isn’t it?!?
October 7th, 2007 at 2:32 pm
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