This past Christmas I gave myself a treat and bought The Book Of Genesis Illustrated, by world famous underground artist R. Crumb. Crumb includes every word of Genesis and lavishly illustrates the entire thing in his unique style. It's painstakingly researched and spectacularly detailed. If you've not yet seen it, I highly recommend it. I'd recommend it even if you're a church-avoiding heathen.
One thing on the cover jumped out at me, however. There's a big ol' "adult supervision" warning label right on the front. Really? A warning. On the Bible. The book you read in church. The book little old ladies carry under their arm as they walk to Sunday services.OK, I get why they put the warning there. It's one thing to write about Adam and Eve cavorting nude in the Garden of Eden, but another thing altogether to show it. It's the same thing when it says "Cain knew his wife." When you show him "knowing" her then it's no longer G rated.
But that said, it just seems like the Political Correctness gone overboard when you put a content warning on the freakin' Bible. Congratulations, PC Police. You just made the Holy Scripture R-rated. You win.
That looks pretty awesome. I may have to get my hands on it. Also, really, the Bible is pretty R-rated...it's just that in text form, it's not as explicit as illustrations would be, depicting all the gore, nudity, etc. So, the warning makes sense to me, as Crumb's going to be straight-forward and not Hallmark/Disney-ing it up like other illustrated Bibles would.
ReplyDelete