The first page of the Gospel according to St. Luke, or the “Di Gud Nyuuz bout Jiizas azkaadn tu Luuk.”

KINGSTON, Jamaica – When English teacher Faith Linton first proposed translating the Bible into Jamaica’s patois tongue in the late 1950s, most people shook their heads.

Some on the deeply Christian island believed it was sacrilegious. Others opposed it because the mixture of English and West African languages was widely disdained by the elites as a coarse linguistic stepchild to English, the only official language in this former British colony.

“There was shock at the mere suggestion,” said Linton, now 81, a longtime board member of the Bible Society of the West Indies. “People were deeply ashamed of their mother tongue. It was always associated with illiteracy and social deprivation.”

Decades later, Linton’s vision is becoming a reality: After years of meticulous translation from the original Greek, the Bible Society is releasing in Jamaica print and audio CD versions of the first patois translation of the New Testament, or “Di Jamiekan Nyuu Testiment.” Full story.

I saw an LOL Cats version of the Bible this weekend. Do you have a favorite version?

Atmospheric Ruminations blogger via Facebook: “There’s a pier that extends out into the bay near where I live (Oregon Coast). I was parked there one day, just loafing around, when I saw a book on the picnic table nearby. Being curious, I wondered what the book’s title was, and maybe I’d steal it if it was any good. The title? “HOLY BIBLE”. Well, since that’s the book which contains the Ten Commandments, I thot, “wow, if I steal a Bible, I’ll probably be sent to the lowest depths of Hell.” So I left it where it was and proceeded quietly on my way.

Question: How many of the 10 Commandments can you name without looking at Exodus 20?

A centuries-old Matthew-Tyndale Bible.

One nice thing about having my eldest son home for the holidays is that he’s a fount of quirky web site knowledge. He showed me this article where I learned that the Bible is the most frequently shoplifted book.

“…But perhaps the most intriguing bookworm of all is the bibliokleptomaniac, or what we like to call the kleptobrainiac. These people are book thieves, the nerdiest outlaws this side of Hogwarts…”

Also ranking high on the list of purloined books:The Virgin Suicides, The Naked Lunch and On the Road.

Who steals books? “It’s mostly younger men stealing the books,” he told Rabb, “They think it’s an existential rite of passage to steal their homeboy.”

Feel free to purge your conscience before the start of the of the New Year. Have you ever shoplifted anything? If so, what?