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Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Storytime 

I'm going to cheat and let someone else write a blog entry for me. Back in the halcyon days of my childhood, I often enjoyed reading Bible stories. As I got older, I "grew out" of them and was expected to read the actual Bible. (It took me a while to start enjoying that, but that's another story.) Finally, when I had kids of my own, I got to encounter Bible stories again. As I read them to my children, I discovered that all retellings are not the same. Some editing to the tale needs to be done, of course, to make them more understandable to children. Sometimes the author would put their own spin on the tale to flesh out the narrative or to draw a lesson out of the story. Sometimes these embellishments were enjoyable, sometimes they reeked to high heaven. (no pun intended)

Well, there are no Bible story books for grown-ups, but if Gila Weiss ever writes one, I will certainly get a copy to put on my shelf. Please enjoy her retelling of the story of Balaam and his verbose donkey. (And here's a link to the original, in case you want to see what liberties Ms. Weiss has taken with the text.)

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