4 God so luvd da world

Now call me old fashioned but is there something fundamentally (ha ha..) wrong with translating the Bible into SMS language? Or is it just me? Until now I've been pretty sanguine about the suggestion that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, measured in my assessment of Piss Christ, bemused by the intelligent design contortionists (sorry - no link - don't want to encourage them...) and moved by The Last Temptation of Christ. I thought I was fairly balanced. Neutral. Open minded. But this?

I can just imagine Bible scholars all over the world stopped mid-air in their endless debates about the subtle and major differences between Greek and Hebrew, the transcendent and the immanent, the cup and the lip.

Is the power of the Bible in the poetry of the language and richness of metaphors, or is it really just the story - the telling of the literal, the gist, the synopsis? Is there a pierced modern day St Pauline surfing the information superhighway, ripe for her SMS to Damascus?

I then started to wonder whether there are any sacred cows that can't be milked for their SMS goodness. Why stop at the Bible? For instance, would Elizabeth Barrett Browning have snagged her man if she'd texted this?

how spunky r u?
jeez - whr do i stRt?
Im rly rly stoked
my fElnz 4 u cud fil da entrtainmNt cNta
or mAbE evN da melburn crickt grnd!
but ur pritE hot in frnt of da TV 2, evN in yr tracky daks
& Im not stuffin u round here or tryin 2 mAk myslf look big
itz jst Im so Xited i cud spit
ur da best thng since da teenaj mutnt ninja turtls & dey wer KEWL
thinkN bout u mAkz my hed spin
fair dinkm if NEthing hapnd 2 me i reckn i'd stil dig u heaps

Jesus...

(thx 2 hankerific 4 da photo)