Inspired. Absolute. Final.

There is a billboard on the New Jersey Turnpike right around exit 8A.  Near the split going north.  It could actually be around exit 10.  Or 13.  I have no idea since it eventually blends in with all the other billboards which are advertising more earthly needs.  Such as lawyers who can beat any DUI charge and some guy who will clean anybody's gutters for only $199.99, no matter the size of the house.

This billboard is an advertisement for The Holy Bible.  It doesn't really specify New or Old because, I imagine, that would be too much information to digest while cruising along at 77 mph.  When it comes to billboards on the NJ turnpike the copy better be concise and easy to process because the drivers have more important things to concentrate on.  Like trying to avoid being rear ended by the bullies in their Cadillac Escalades who tailgate you so close you can't see their headlights if you aren't doing 85 in the fast lane.  The sign does a good job of getting your attention.  Even at 77 mph there is no question that they are indeed talking about the Bible of Yahweh.  As opposed to say "The Saltwater Fisherman's Bible" of which I also happen to own a copy.   It might seem superfluous that the publisher of the number one selling book of all time has to pay for billboard advertising.  But even the most popular brands in the world, like Coke and McDonalds still have very hefty marketing budgets to beat out the competition.  That's how they stay so prominent.  Coke has Pepsi to compete against, McDonalds has Burger King breathing down its neck, and the Bible has what, The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin?

Any book with the word bible in the title, we must assume, is basically a users manual.  Like "The Bible of Digital Photography".  And fundamentally, the Bible is The users manual for the human race.  At least the westernized half.  And furthermore, it has become the prevailing view of the Christian Right that most of us have not RTFM.  That's why they feel the need to advertise it on the NJ Turnpike.  A perfect metaphor for the Road to Hell. We are all so busy rushing through our lives that we barely give any thought to what really counts in life; our relationships with other people, our relationship with our self, and our relationship with our creator (in the Jeffersonian tradition).  I have absolutely no argument with the idea that, like assembling an unusually frustrating piece of Ikea furniture, we need to be smacked in the head by our spouses and told to rtfm already.  My issue with this particular admonition is that number one, this user's manual is 2000 years old, number two, it was originally written in the arcane Aramaic language, and number three, even the experts have been arguing about most of its injunctions since Constantinople first decreed that it be the official manual for the western world.

As for the readability of translated manuals I have only to refer you to the user's guide for your new Japanese digital camera to illustrate the confusion caused by supposed literal translations.  The Japanese tend to create buttons to turn default modes off, while we in the West prefer buttons to turn modes on because we consider individualism a virtue above the rest.  So when a Japanese manual says push this button to turn something on, they really mean off.  If you have ever owned a Subaru or Honda, you know what I mean.

Secondly, because The Bible can be so mysterious, even for scholars, we are endlessly forming study groups and discussing how we can apply its lessons to modern life.  It is kind of like using an MS-DOS manual for a Windows 7 computer.  The hardware is basically the same but the software certainly has changed.  To be fair, the Bible was once updated from 1.0 (The Old Testament) to 2.0 (The New Testament) but we are now living in 10.0 and our designer surely had to know what would happen once a virus named Beezlebub 1.0 infected the system.

I am not arguing that the Bible wasn't inspired.  It most certainly is.  I am just saying that proclaiming it Absolute and Final seems a bit Talibanish to me.  Without the violence of course.  I hope even the most fundamentalist among us wouldn't incite violent and deadly riots in the streets if some Afghani Mullahs ignorantly burned a few bibles. But you get my drift about taking an ancient document too literally.  In the interest of full disclosure I must admit I have never actually read The Bible.  I have attempted to fully read it.  I have also attempted to fully read The Origin of Species and Democracy in America, two of my favorite books that I have never read.  They were written in the nineteenth century and who but a handful of college professors and history geeks can actually read anything written in archaic prose.  That's why some genius came up with the "For Dummies" series.  User's manuals for the rest of us.

I am not saying one should formulate their world view based on these modern, but dumbed down guides but their existence proves my point.  I also believe a more apropos billboard for the modern texting world might look as follows:

LIFE.  RTFM.

But ultimately the fact that an intelligent designer left us with such an opaque manual seems neither intelligent nor practical to me.   No offense intended.