Evangelicals match liberals' slang-stuffed Bible

"There was no room for them in the inn," says the famous Christmas reading from Luke.

Now, try this ersatz variation: "Crisis! 'No vacancy' signs in every B&B window."

That's a sample from "The Word on the Street," a slang-ridden paraphrase of Old and New Testament passages by Britain's Rob Lacey, a performance artist whose stagings of Scripture include the "2-Minute Bible."

These have been busy months for Brits trying too hard to update Holy Writ. Lacey's book, issued by the evangelical monolith Zondervan, follows the left-wing "Good As New," John Henson's ultra-loose paraphrase of the New Testament.

Lacey's Lord's Prayer begins, "God in heaven, you're our Dad," sounding rather like Henson's treatment of Jesus' baptism where a heavenly voice declares, "That's my boy."

Which is preferable, the Dad Bible or the Boy Bible?

At least Lacey stresses that his book is actually "not The Bible" but merely a "bridge" to draw people to "the real thing."

While Henson -- oddly -- received the archbishop of Canterbury's benediction, professor David Trobisch of Bangor (Maine) Theological Seminary pronounced Lacey's work "acceptable on scholarly grounds" with "little to correct but much to praise."

Henson paraphrased entire biblical books. Lacey selects passages, then links them with summaries of what he's skipping past. "I fast-forward through the bits we generally ignore anyway," he explains. Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua and Judges zip by in nine pages.

Nor does Lacey rewrite the substance as readily as Henson does when he dislikes something. Lacey's sins are mainly of taste rather than political correctness. However, experts will bemoan Lacey's mingling of passages from the four Gospels.

Some famous old Revised Standard Version phrases compared with new Lacey Britishisms:

* Creation (Genesis 1:31). Old: "God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good." New: "Fantastic. I love it!"

* Eve (Genesis 2:23). Old: "Then the man said, This at last is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh." New: "Whoa! Now we're talking!"

* The First Commandment (Exodus 20:3). Old: "You shall have no other gods before me." New: "I'm it, the only God! No other god's worth squat."

* Psalm 8:1. Old: "O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is thy name in all the earth!" New: "Oh God, you're ace and you blow me away."

* Proverbs 6:6. Old: "Go to the ant, O sluggard." New: "Look at an ant, you couch potato."

* Ecclesiastes 1:2. Old: "Vanity of vanities! All is vanity." New: "What's the point?! What IS the point?!"

* God's reply from the whirlwind (Job 38:2). Old: "Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?" New: "Who d'you think you are?"

Lacey does provide some interesting concepts, as in the opening of Genesis: "First off, nothing ... but God. No light, no time, no substance, no matter." And because he wrote during a severe medical crisis, there's poignancy in his Psalm 23:

"I crawl through the alley of the shadow of cancer;

"I know you know the answer, and the battle won't rattle me.

"You're around, and I've found there's something about your empathy,

"Your symphony of sympathy, that comforts me. ..."

Not bad. But overall, what IS the point?!