Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Which Biblezine is the one for you?

Ever heard of Biblezines? They are Bibles that look and feel (and even smell!) like glossy magazines. The generally contain the whole text of the New Testament (in the NCV translation), but much much more. And they are targeted at all sorts of different kinds of people, just like normal magazines are. Revolve, the first Biblezine, came out in 2003. It's aimed at teen girls, and full of photos and advice. (Here's a page from the 2007 edition.) It was the best-selling Bible of that year, so Thomas Nelson Publishers has now published Biblezines targeted at teen boys (Refuel), women (Becoming), men (Align), kids (Magnify), for young men of color (Real), tween boys (Explore), baby boomers (Redefine) and even the young masked spirit-warrior fans of Bibleman.

I own two or three Biblezines (students are fascinated by them) but have long wanted to be able to compare the whoel range without buying them all. The nice folks at Christianbook.com have some sample pages from each on their website, including, for purposes of contrast, the opening page of the Gospel of Matthew. Here they are - can you guess which is which? (In each the text is as interestingly different as the layout. And if you click to see the larger view, you'll also get the source 'Zine.)