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Summary: Please take religion seriously
Review: This book simply cheapens religion and brings it to the level of another "how to" book aimed at insecure young women. Is it necessary to assume that all young women are too illiterate to really read the beautiful language of the King James version?
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Summary: It's about time!
Review: Hey, please forgive the bible-bashing, christian hating bigot who's review you'll read next. He's got it all wrong and doesn't know a thing about proper interpretation of scripture, when it should be taken literally, what applies to all generations, and what applies only to the people of that time. Dude, take a chill pill. This magazine is amazing and long awaited. I have a 13 year old niece who's gonna get this in the mail very soon. It will speak to her like no Sunday school ever can. Only christian teen camps get this good! I highly recommend it.
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Summary: Another crutch for the weak-minded.
Review: Are you a 17 year old girl who can't take responsibility for her own life? Need a bunch of Southern hypocrites to tell you how to live? Searching for an excuse to be judgmental and bigoted? Then this is the book for you! No longer will you have to worry about subtle life experiences and moral ambiguity. Just do what the good book (or your Christian husband) tells you to. That way you can grow up ignorant, sheltered, boring, uncultured, and republican just like your pointless parents!
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Summary: Offensive to both conservatives and liberals.
Review: A truly breathtaking work of vapid extremist guiltmongering, this volume takes a fascinating book -- or collection of books, really, if you're the sort of person to treat the Bible as literature and study its origins -- dumbs it down, wraps it in "hip" language and glossy paper, interprets it in the most repressive, mind-numbing manner possible, and then hawks it to young women at an impressionable age, when they're trying to establish their own identity.To quote Mark Morford, an excellent San Francisco columnist: "Revolve is basically a sheep in wolf's clothing, a prim training manual for future well-Valiumed housewives who let their husbands rule the roost and don't strive too hard for anything and don't think overly much or who have long given up notions of exploring the diversity of the world, or divinity, or sexuality, or much of anything, really." Amen to that. Thinking Christians, who want their daughters to UNDERSTAND their faith -- not merely accept it in the same way that they ape the latest fashion propagated by the "cool" kids at school -- should avoid this book like the plague. All non-Christians should take note of the continuing efforts of a very small segment of the Christian population to brainwash the rest of society into conformance with their anti-sex, anti-feminist, anti-pretty-much-anything-joyous-or-beautiful-or-even-slightly-risky, narrow-minded worldview.
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Summary: Evil and manipulative-Jesus would hate Resolve
Review: "Make sure that Jesus would be pleased with what you wear. You don't have to look frumpy, just make sure you look like a child of God." -Resolve What?! Please, girls...can you really believe this crap? Jesus cares about what you wear? Come on. Don't buy it. Don't listen. Who do these people think they are? Twisting the Bible around to fit their narrow conservative view of the (your) world ?! This whole magazine if full of contradictions and mixed messages. Please be strong enough to see it and withstand it. You will not go to hell for thinking for yourself. "Be kind to your neighbor"...unless of course he is of a different race or sexual orientation than we think is OK. Does that sound right? Jesus did not judge people, he tried to help them, all of them; male, female, black, white, orange and yellow. The people that put this magazine out are the same ones that don't want you to go to college because you might actually read real books there and will learn a lot about how you can do and be and think WHATEVER YOU WANT. And then all their brainwashing about how you are "supposed to be-because that is what (they say) Jesus would want" would go out the window. Good riddance. If you had your own thoughts you might not be available to cook and clean and stay at home and keep your mouth shut (all what Jesus expects of women?) Doesn't sound right to me. How about you? And you might learn that Jesus doesn't really wan't you be submissive and a second class citizen. Jesus wants you to go out into the world, find yourself, your true self-not the one this magazine tells you you should be. You could help other people and make the world a better place or you could be a stock broker and make a lot of money. Whatever. The point is you can do whatever it is and it you don't need to conform to some Resolve standart in order to make whatever you want to happen, happen. This magazine is crap that tries to scare people into being a certain way. That is wrong. Jesus would not like that..at all. In truth, you are an individual that has her own ideas that aren't always going to match up with what some old white guy that wrote this magazine or what your pastor says. You don't have to wear what everyone else is wearing and don't have to do what you are told if it doesn't feel right. This is the USA - be free, it is your right.
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Summary: Teaching people that being illiterate is good
Review: Having read the interview with the woman whose brainchild this thing is, I find myself yet again thinking that the Christian Right prefers people undereducated. Her reason for dumbing down the King James bible? "It is Shakespearic! That's the problem. All those thous. I can honestly say my heart breaks because the church has made it so difficult for people to grasp the concepts of the Bible."
--Laurie Whaley Strangely, I would think that if the King James Bible (a great work of literature) is too hard for most people to read because of the complexity of the language, that you'd attempt to teach people to READ BETTER. Instead, what do you do? You create a fashion magazine with an intellectual level of someone about halfway through fifth grade (that's what Ms. Whaley says it is), with concepts like "The fire of God's love burns out the sin the same way the hot steam routs the dirt out of your pores. This kind of relationship with God will do more to improve your looks than any amount of facials." WHAAAAT?!? I can imagine Jesus spinning on the cross like a pinata, if that's how we need to communicate the value of faith. As an atheist, I have read the Bible, some of the Talmud, most of the Koran, and the Baghavadghita. All of them use poetic language to tell stories of morality and faith in the unseen. When the religious create things like Revolve, it makes me celebrate my unbelief, rather than consider other possibilities. And for those who tell me I'll be burning in hell, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." Hope you all know where that came from.
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Summary: Share with your local high school library
Review: Nelson Bibles, a highly regarded Christian publisher, has done an exceptional job of making the New Testament friendly, relevant and exciting to girls in their teens. This is a great idea and the people behind it -- including the focus groups of teenage girls who gave their input -- have done an excellent job. My wife and I have bought copies for a couple of high school libraries in our area. We sent out ten letters to librarians, offering to make the donation, and two of them have responded so far. One said that she already had Bibles in the library and that she thought REVOLVE would be an especially good one for high school students. We're also going to offer to donate a copy to our local public library. Many people find their teenage years to be lonely and difficult, and many of us have experienced the pain of making bad decisions in our youth. We hope and pray that the REVOVLE New Testament will be a source of comfort to many, and a source of guidance and salvation, revealing God's love and grace.
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Summary: New Testament Whitewash Inconsistent With Its Teaching
Review: This book makes a special appeal to young women by adopting the style of magazines designed for them. Many salient biblical lessons intended to help the target audience are highlighted in sidebars. For good reason, this book does not highlight the passages of the New Testament that demean, degrade, and disenfranchise women from all independent intellectual and spiritual pursuits. It's difficult to understand how an author purporting to endorse New Testament teaching could cast it in the image of a fashion magazine, given Paul's injunctions that women shouldn't dress fashionably and that if a woman doesn't cover her head in church, then her hair should be cut off: "In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with braided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array." [1 Timothy 2:9] "For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn." [1 Corinthians 11:6] Young women told that the New Testament holds the solution to any problems they may have should consider the following passages: "Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence." [1 Timothy 2:11-15] "Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church." [1 Corinthians 14:34-36] Furthermore, this book only contains the New Testament, and not the Old. Perhaps this is an improvement, for the Old Testament treatment of young women is indeed much worse, though fully sanctioned and praised by New Testament writers. Readers wishing to look further should look up the following passages pertaining specifically to young women: "Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." [Genesis 3:16] "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." [Exodus 22:18] "Yea, though they bring forth, yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb." [Hosea 9:16] "Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father. [Genesis 19:32-36] "Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes." [Genesis 19:8] "Thus saith the LORD God of Israel ... I gave thee ... thy master's wives...." [2 Samuel 12:7-8] "And if a woman have ... blood, she shall be put apart seven days: and whosoever toucheth her shall be unclean until the even. And every thing that she lieth upon in her separation shall be unclean: every thing also that she sitteth upon shall be unclean. And whosoever toucheth her bed shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the even. ... And if any man lie with her at all, and her flowers be upon him, he shall be unclean seven days; and all the bed whereon he lieth shall be unclean. ... But if she be cleansed of her issue, then she shall number to herself seven days, and after that she shall be clean. And on the eighth day she shall take unto her two turtles, or two young pigeons, and bring them unto the priest, to the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. And the priest shall offer the one for a sin offering, and the other for a burnt offering; and the priest shall make an atonement for her before the LORD for the issue of her uncleanness." [Leviticus 15:19-30] Traditionalists raised on the King James version of both testaments may profit by reading "Revolve" alongside an online bible (...)
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Summary: It is great if it gets kids back into the Word of God
Review: While a 40 something like me probably would not touch this with a long barge pole, any book that gets todays MTV, short-attention span, generation back into reading the Word of God - which is far more important than any rock group, TV program, cool trainers or whatever else - must be a good thing. So let's cast generation prejudices aside and work along with today's teens to get them really excited about what is the most life changing eternally important book ever written - the Bible! Christopher Catherwood, author of CHRISTIANS MUSLIMS AND ISLAMIC RAGE (published by a rival Bible publisher, Zondervan - but reading the Bible is more important!)
Rating: 
Summary: very hyocritical
Review: This bible is basically good, and very interesting, except for one major flaw. There are many articles and advice columns throughout the book that stress the importance of being a modest young woman, such as dressing conservatively and not calling boys (which I don't really agree with). But the models on the pages of the book are not dressed conservatively at all. Some are in spaghetti strap tanks, halters, and there is even a pic of a girl laying in a guys lap, which is clearly a contradiction of the advice given throughout the book. If I was affected by the pics (and I'm 21) think of how they might affect a 12-16 year old girl who's not yet fully comfortable with her own style? Other than that, the book is good.
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