Biblecast

For the first time in the world, the entire Bible is being read live, cover-to-cover, in one sitting over the internet.

So at 8am this morning, guess which gormless mug had gullibley volunteered to read for the first 15 minutes?

The timeslot had been a strategic choice – apart from anything else I knew I’d be the only participator with the opportunity to rehearse the night before. I may have been practising with a different translation, but I still didn’t want words like Pishon, Havilah and Gihon catching me by surprise.

So at 8am I sat in Carey Baptist College, drew breath, and began to read aloud the first book of Moses, commonly called Genesis, hopefully to listeners all around the world.


The clock behind me must have been wrong – because Jody took this picture during the exact syllable that I began, before quietly closing the door, shutting me in alone.

After about 7 minutes, I realised the downside to my decision – I was the project’s guinea-pig. No-one had done this before me, so part of my job was to get everything wrong first.

Like the microphone, which was ever-so-slowly sinking lower and lower on its loose stand.

My chin. My neck. My chest.

Oh dear. Mic stands require 2 hands to adjust them, and I was already holding a huge CEV Bible, and couldn't let my eyes stray from the text.

So I did the only thing I could do - I continued reading as I quietly sank lower and lower in my seat, trying not to think of all those teachers at school who had told me never to slouch.


Outside the room’s closed door, project manager Tim was listening to me on the internet, but could not see me, and so was wholly unaware of my spine’s increasingly stressed contortion. I had to somehow get a message to him, but without stopping the broadcast. Despite the sinking microphone potentially offering me an audience of about 3 billion, I was ironically quite alone in my predicament.

And yet I wasn’t. Whilst making an idiot of myself in front of the entire, yes the entire world, I knew I could still find comfort through God’s everlasting word, so I continued calmly reading, and wondered if the next reader might find me on the floor.

”For as long as you live, you will crawl on your stomach and eat dirt.”

Ha. The Bible. It really jumps the shark in chapter 3.

More on the Biblecast here.