by Dave Simmons

Created on: July 26, 2008

I'm going to vote no on this, but only the strictest possible interpretation of the title. Which bears a little closer examination, before I explain why. "Will people eventually write their own version of the Bible, in the manner of, say, Wikipedia?"

First of all, it might be worth reminding readers what Wikipedia is. The whole idea of any Wiki database is to provide a reference work that's collaborative. Depending on the popularity of the subject, this can involve anything from a few dozen to a few thousand people editing the pages. Now, I took that the title to suggest that people are going to be deciding what their personal beliefs are and entering those into a Wiki database. What would be the point of this if, a day later, someone else is going to edit them and put different, perhaps rapidly contrasting beliefs in place? This happens on Wikipedia.org all the time, to the point where moderators actually lock certain subjects to avoid vandalism. But who gets to decide which subjects to lock in a Biblical wiki? And for that matter, who decides who gets to be a moderator, and have that level of control over other's personal beliefs?

So, the wiki part is problematic, to be charitable. Then you have to look at the 'Bible' part of the debate. If you're someone who subscribes to this book, I was under the impression that it was supposed to either be the literal word of God himself. Either that, or the divinely inspired gospel of his apostles, made flesh through his inspiration. If that's the case, what's the point of an online version which people can edit to their heart's content? Surely they're all not divinely inspired, coming together in a huge group to write a flawless set of instructions on how to live? And if, by some odd chance, every person who contributes IS divinely inspired, why bother writing the manual out? They already know what's what.

So, as I said at the beginning, I voted 'no' on this, simply because it's a bad concept to begin with. You might as well ask whether Jesus will start a blog or not, or if God is on Facebook. But when you look at the question a little more vaguely than I've been doing, isn't this what people do anyway?

The book's been around for what, 2,000 years, some of it a lot longer. It's gone from the Hebrew to Koine Greek, to Latin, to English. There are more interpretations and versions out there than possibly any other book in print. And I've noticed a couple of curious tendencies among people who believe in the Bible. Firstly, the more fervently they claim it to be the word of God, the more ignorant they tend to be in what's actually in the book. I often wonder if some of them have ever opened the covers at all. Secondly, the more fervently people claim to follow its teachings, the more bits they tend to miss out. They're fine with 'thou shalt not kill', but miss the part about not eating seafood, or wearing blended fabrics, for instance. Some of them will claim at this point that Leviticus, to pick a particularly problematic book, isn't relevant in today's society, and is overriden by the New Testament. Except, it seems, the bit about homosexuality, which remains incredibly relevant and topical. Or the parts about an eye for an eye, which apparently set a precedent which overrides 'turn the other cheek', depending what mood you're in.

For a book which is supposed to be immutable divine law, people have been doing such things for centuries. The only reason they don't do this online is the practicability of it.

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