God: Big Wheel and Ceiling Cat

A new Bible translation is enthralling both web junkies and kitty lovers. According to PopSci.com, there's a new effort to translate the Bible into lolspeak, a cutesy mix of "baby talk and IM speak" usually accompanied by pictures of furry animals. God becomes "Ceiling Cat." Genesis 1:1 somehow turns into, "In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez An da Urfs, but he did not eated dem."

One wonders about the people orchestrating this project --- Christians with a dual passion for the Word of God and lolspeak? It isn't the first time someone has given the Bible a new twist, however. People expend efforts on quirky Bible versions to reach new audiences all the time.

Most recently, SMSBible conveniently allows you to text 150-character Bible passages to groups of people. In Australia, Christian author Kel Richards wrote the Aussie Bible. The Angel Gabriel's speech to Mary in Luke 1 goes like this:

You are a pretty special sheila. … Don't chuck a wobbly. God thinks you're okay. You're about to become pregnant, and you'll have a son, and you're to call him Jesus. He will be a very big wheel … and he will be in charge of the whole show forever.'

It's no joke. Richards told Christian Science Monitor that chaplains use it for prison ministry, and others have told him the book inspired them to read the full-length Bible: "It's accessible. It's not a big black book the size of a telephone directory."

Bible rapper Matt Bar used rap to hold the attention of his middle school Hebrew class and then attempted to spur a Bible rap movement. He sees his rap as poetry: "Through iambic pentameter, Shakespeare reached depths and through rap, I also believed that you can reach the real spirit of things."

In Britain, a teacher put the Bible into cockney rhyming slang and even got an endorsement from the Archbishop of Canterbury, who said, "This version puts the energy and passion back into the stories."

The 100-minute Bible is perhaps the most energized version. This one is tailor-made for the "harried and hurried generation" and allows you to get the gist of the Gospel in two minutes.