A Bible that highlights "creation," which apparently means plants and animals but not people. Hmmm.

Despite my sympathies with its contributors, this Bible is just pure marketing crap. Designed to cash in on newly found environmental concerns among evangelicals and separate them from their money.

Great idea with being eco-friendly, not so great on the green lettering. Seriously?

This only raises the question, what color lettering are Matthew 21:18-22 and Jonah 4:6-11?

I want a Blue Bible (with verses supporting the Democratic agenda in blue) and a Red Bible (with verses supporting the Republicans in red).

I want to see whether the story of Balaam's donkey would red or blue.

I give thank$ for the ble$$ing that i$ thi$ new ver$ion of $cripture. It i$ $o fanta$tic to $ee the$e editor$ follow their conviction$ and belief$ about the $ignificance of a Chri$tian re$pon$e to the environmental cri$i$. I'm $ure thi$ ver$ion i$ intended to further the cau$e of Chri$tian environmentali$m, and will $pur u$ on to greater effort$.

Then of course there was the "Rainbow Study Bible" that color-coded every single verse into a category.

Oh, c'mon. Say "Balaam's ass". It's the only time you can say it in church.

Lets Worship the EARTH!!!!

All of this business about environmentally friendly content overlooks the fact that any paper product is recyclable, and comes from a source (trees) whose healthy growth (and occasional replacement) is essential in the carbon cycle.

If they wanted to enhance the recyclability of the book when it became worn out, they would have made it only in paperback.

As an engineer who has watched the environmental movement from the first Earth Day, one can only marvel at the succession of draconian, Luddite solutions which are more successful in making their proponents feel good than in advancing the cause of the environment.

I hate to see Evangelical Christianity taken in by this kind of thing. It's one thing to want to fix a problem, but let's fix it rather than do window dressing such as this. It's gotten so bad that an atheist like Brendan O'Neill makes more sense on the subject than many Christians, as I detail here:

http://www.vulcanhammer.org/?p=451

How we interact with creation is definitely a theology we are very week on. But I think there is tremendous danger in reading the bible as a how-to manual.

Besides I prefer to highlight my bible with a sharpie, makes things easier.

That's funny Caleb LOL.

I actually think this is a good idea - especially for reaching an acutely enviro conscious generation. The theory of survival of the fittest has seen us rape the earth for our own profit, so it's about time Christians came to the green coloured table and stated that following Christ includes the redemption of ALL creation, including humanity.

Yeah, I agree. Talking about subjective criteria, how possibly does "How God and Jesus interact with, care for, and are intimately involved with all of creation" not encompass every word of Scripture?

Also, looking at "how nature responds to God," I am curious if Ephesians 2.1-3 and Romans 3.10-18 are in green since they correspond to how human nature responds to God?

Of course, if the publishers were really concerned with being green then why didn't they just make "The Green-Letter Bible" an online-only thing, seeing as how the internet is made of 100% post-consumer 0's and 1's?

After living through the WWJD era, where it was apparent that very few of those, whose bodies were adorned with a variety of WWJD merch, ever actually stopped to contemplate what Jesus really would do, I am left with nothing but dire cynicism for adequately defining my assessment of the degree of positive environmental impact that will be pronouned upon society by the advent of a "green" Bible. Yikes!

At the end of the day this is not about doing anything green, this is clearly a marketing tool designed to sell additional copies. Personally, I appreciate the idea of books published in a green friendly fashion. That stated I'd rather have a good, comprehensive and consistent theology of earth care from an orthodox, evangelical, Christian perspective rather than an arbitrary collection of green inked verses in a bible. I don't feel that this is a serious attempt to consider how followers of Jesus ought to be stewards of God's creation, but rather another attempt to market a book to a specific audience.

wow- really? ok, but why?

Interesting book review, but just one question that the Brandon might want to edit in...how much is this "new" bible being priced at?

Come on, the late Larry Burkett & Crown Financial Ministries have been "highlighting" verses for years to make a point, i.e., there are more verses about money in the Bible than any other subject. Or so they say.

Thanks for your comments, everyone. To answer a question some of you have asked and that others have alluded to, The Green Bible retails at $29.95. You might enjoy the video at the books Amazon.com web page: http://www.amazon.com/Green-Bible-Harper-Bibles/dp/0061627992/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1222361563&sr=8-1

As you comment, I'll be curious to hear what you all think about the idea of highlighting themes in general (not necessarily environmentalism). Good idea? Bad idea?

Brandon

"As you comment, I'll be curious to hear what you all think about the idea of highlighting themes in general (not necessarily environmentalism). Good idea? Bad idea?"

Um personally, I would rather highlight my own bible, thank you very much.
The reason being that highlighting indicates a noteable passage that some may disagree on it's noteability.
But as I think about it...I guess some highlighting is okay namely because of the popularity of the often used phrase...like, oh... John 11:35 "Jesus wept"
Or John 3:16, "For G-d so loved the world..."
which are common enough in our lexicon.
But I think it should be minimized to prevent introducing biases that may lead impressionable individuals to...um...well, to create a tangent that evolves into a heretical theology.
That would be my concern.

With the rise of electronic Bibles, I think what would be really cool is to have an e-Bible that you had a drop-down menu that would highlight the appropriate verses in a coordinated color corresponding to whatever particular lens you wanted to read the Bible through:
green, Republican or Democrat (thanks Caleb), men's, women's, children's, complementarian, egalitarian, prosperity,liberation, worship, prayer, fasting, social justice, care for the poor, purpose-driven, emergent, Reformed, Arminian, revolutionary, charismatic, non-charismatic, dispensational, amillenial, post-millenial, ...

That, I might buy. Or maybe I'll just stick with mine that has God's words in black. Oh, and if somebody uses my idea, I want my share of the profits. :-)

thanks for writing this, brandon. i saw a full-page ad for this Bible and was intrigued by it. my instant reaction was that it was a cool idea and i especially liked the eco-friendliness of the book itself, but i, too, wasn't sure about the "theology" of the thing.

the more i thought about it, the more i remembered all sorts of editorial liberties and marketing ploys that have been used to sell and embellish the original text over the years... for me, "women's bibles" come to my mind as especially dubious. this one, at least, is promoting a cause that i'm happy to see getting some attention.

ultimately, if the passages in green accurately reflect God's messages of creation care (perhaps a big "if"), i don't think the mere color would be distracting enough for people to lose the other meanings of the text.

so for me, if i "had" to buy a Bible that was anything other than plain text with nothing in the margins, it might very well be this one.

Oh, for mike's sake....

Marketing. Sheer marketing. If being green weren't the next 'cool' thing for these urbanites living in the surburbs, drinking free-trade coffee from Starbucks (which tastes like distilled mud) in disposable cups with plastic lids and trekking their two point seven-five children around to their seven activities a day, shilling out thousands a month to a private evangelical school... we wouldn't have such tripe.

It's not easy being green. Why didn't we have a recycled Bible to begin with? Or vegan (that is 'animal-product-free')?

We already have paper covers, metal covers, woven covers, plastic covers, fake and real leather, manga (I'm sure it's out there), DVD, NT only, family Bibles, illustrated, baby-versions for children too young to read when the rest of the world doesn't even had one... Why are we always late -- decades late -- to the party? And when we show up, we have to wear a freaking chandelier to prove we give a flip?

We were charged from the beginning to look over the earth. And the helpless. And the orphans. And the widows. Now we need some book to do this? That we buy at our local xtian bookstore? Puhleeze.

If we give a rip about what we are supposed to, it is not earth-worship, it is conservation. Environmentalism and conservation are VERY different. It all goes back to Who Is Your G-d? Even if you put people before G-d, you are breaking a commandment.

Just goes to show, they will buy. This shows conscience, now. We are dividing into the Political Camps and this is part of it. They will know we are Christians by our accessories.... Materialism. Yeech.

And amen to Jarrod, Martin, Nate, Allen, Travis... oh, anyone cynical enough to see though this for what it is. And keep your sense of humor. (So, if you burn the optional hemp cover, can you see the matrix? Nah, we all know that hemp is just rope.)

There is so much that I can say about what I think of this - a good portion of which you've summed up very very nicely - but I think I will just come out and say that I think something like this is just plain heresy if there ever were such a thing.

It's one thing to highlight the words of Christ - he is, after all, the basis for the Christian religion - but to start willy nilly adding color to a particular pet issue of the publisher?

False.

It seems that these people need to stop and ask themselves: "Am I aligning myself with God, or am I trying to force God to align with me?"

"Is a green-letter Bible the answer to our environmental crisis?"

There is NO crisis!! Say it with me, "there is NO crisis!"

My concern is that the focus of this bible is on the the creation and not the Creator.
I know we need to be good stewards of the earth and what God created, however I think this is a little to out there.

Cj, maybe the word "crisis" isn't appropriate, the word can be defined in many ways. But your response seems to another way of saying this isn't something we should care about. Maybe that is the only goal of this bible. To increase awareness amongst the Christian community that the environment isn't a social issue that only the far left be concerned with. Whether or not it is a "crisis" is still to be determined, but you can not ignore the pollutants in China, India, in major metropolitan areas of America. People are getting sick. Those are the facts. This is His creation, we are His creation. These things aren't exclusive issues.

Christians do have a responsibility to care for the earth and the people who depend on it. The poor are particularly harmed from toxic waste in their communities, global climate disruption, urban air and water pollution. The Old Testament celebrates the act of creation in Genesis and the need to care for the land in later chapters. The Jewish people were an agrarian people who depended on the earth's productivity. Jesus warned against hoarding wealth. Many of our environmental problems derive from modern consumerism. We need to open our ears to the cry of the poor and our hearts to the species that are being lost because of our greed and indifference. It is not about being politically correct or marketing, it is about caring for the least of these and opening up to the wonders of creation. If this book inspires any reflection and action, I applaud the editors.