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Another goodie I heard about from Erik Olson:
The Brick Testament is a series of episodes from the Bible done in Legos. Some are twenty or thirty panels long, with word balloons for the dialogue.
Most are charming — it’s hard to not be cute when you’re a Lego — but the two last episodes in his New Testament section struck me as dubious at best. One is an extended version of “Wives, be subject to your husbands,” leading up to a happy Lego vision of a man in a recliner watching TV while his aproned wife brings him a drink. (Clearly, the site’s creator hasn’t considered the implications of 2 Kings 21:13.) The guy does get some fun out of “The head of every man is Christ / The head of woman is man / The head of Christ is God,” swapping around Lego heads and bodies by way of illustration.
The other episode that I thought was in questionable taste was his “Instructions to slaves” section. If I had as many Legos as he obviously has, I’d have illustrated those passages with something other than brown-skinned Legos in loincloths working in a Lego cotton field, overseen by a whip-wielding white-skinned Lego that looks like a 19th C. European.
Come to think of it, I wouldn’t have picked those passages to illustrate at all. “The Errors of the Corinthians” would have been much more fun.
The Internet truly is not only stranger than you imagine, it's stranger than you can imagine...
Whoever put this together chose to enact enough of the deeply obnoxious bits of the Bible that it almost makes me think it's a put-on. They're clearly committed to their art, as they went to the trouble of painting in cleavage for Eve in the "fig leaf" section. And the Lego couple shown, um, gettin' busy in the "Instructions on Marriage" section were pretty disturbing.
(Yes, I know that there's a Lego porn site out there somewhere... I just didn't expect Lego porn on a religious site...)
According to my friend Tara, lego expert, the figures used are Star Wars action figures.
Or, as she said when she saw the index, "Look! Jesus is Luke Skywalker!"
P.S. If you're not sure whether or not this is a put-on, check out the rest of the guy's site.
I hadn't looked at the rest of the site yet. It's an inspired put-on, that's for sure.
I stand by my earlier comments about Lego sex, however.
Some of the early New Testament ones are pretty good, but I think my favorite silly moments are the thought-bubbles over the animals' heads in the Flood sequence.
And yes, Lego sex: definitely wrong. (But at least we were spared the sight of the Holy Ghost coming upon Mary...)
Lego makes a "studio" set that contains a digital camera and comes with editing software. I wonder how long before we get a lego version of the Ten Commandments?
And LEGO spake these words:
I: I am LEGO, thy obession. Thou shall hold no other construction set before me.
II: Thou shalt not make unto thee any duplicate bricks, nor plates, nor beams, nor the brown platforms that act as the earth beneath.
III: Thou shalt not take the name of LEGO in vain, even when you step on the 32 gear wheel in bare feet.
IV: Remember the Sabbath Day, and keep it holy, by building more.
V: Honor thy father and mother, for they brough t you bricks.
VI: Thou shalt not destory bricks.
VII: Thou shalt not comingle bricks.
VIII: Thou shalt not steal bricks.
XI: Thou shalt not disparage thy neighbors bricks.
X: Thou shalt not covet bricks, even those gold 4 beams that they only made for that one Star Wars set.
I have to second Janet Lafler's comment. The Brick Testament is definitely a put-on, and the Rev. Brendan Powell Smith is apparently not a real Reverend. No serious evangelical would put a Sunday-school like Bible site together this way. For starters, they probably wouldn't be as clever. Thanks for noting it.
Jim Meadows