JourneyOnline
“THERE was this sheila who came across a snake-in-the-grass with all the cunning of a con man. The snake asked her why she didn’t just grab lunch off the tree in her garden. God, she said, had told her she’d be dead meat if her fruit salad came from that tree, but the snake told her she wouldn’t die. So she took a good squiz and then a bite and passed the fruit on to her bloke. Right then and there, they’d realised what they’d done and felt starkers.”
So begins Kel Richard’s account of the fall of mankind retold using ‘strine’, or Australian vernacular in ‘More Aussie Bible’, released this week in Sydney by Bible Society NSW.
‘The Aussie Bible (Well, bits of it anyway!)’ – Kel’s re-telling the Gospel story using the Australian vernacular, was released in August, 2003. Now a runaway best seller with 100,000 copies sold, this second instalment starts at Genesis with Kel giving the ‘Aussie’ treatment to the Book of Genesis, Proverbs, the Gospel of John and John’s first letter.
‘More Aussie Bible’ starts with creation; “God was tinkering around in his workshop when ‘out of the blue, God knocked up the whole bang lot’. Then there was Joseph, the stockman, who got from his dad this “lairy coat – lots of colour and no taste” – that made his brothers “dead jealous”.
Like the first volume, ‘More Aussie Bible’ encourages readers to get their own copy of the ‘fair dinkum’ New Testament with a coupon offer at the back.
“Ultimately we want people to engage with the God of the Bible and find out for themselves that God loves them and cares for them,” said Daniel Willis, CEO of Bible Society NSW. “As Kel says, ‘The Bible really is God’s message to humanity – and here’s a bit more of it in the bewdy, bottler language of Aussies.
Rip into it – you’ll find it’s as bright as a box of budgies!’ ”
‘More Aussie Bible’ is illustrated by Graham Wade and will retail for $6.95.
Photo : NATIONAL NEWS
