My friend Jack Hitt emailed me this one (though I see Tbogg has it up too):
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) – A talking Jesus doll is due to go on sale in May, along with versions of Moses, the Virgin Mary and David, as a teddy bear maker tries to find a market with churches and religious families.
The foot-tall Jesus doll will be able to recite five Biblical verses at the push of button on its back, while the Moses doll will recite the Ten Commandments. The Mary doll will recite a long Bible verse.
Joshua Livingston, one of the original founders of Valencia, Calif.-based Beverly Hills Teddy Bear Co. has returned to the company to head its new Biblical doll unit, One2Believe. In the past, Beverly Hills Teddy Bear mostly manufactured bears and other plush toys on a contract basis for other retailers.
Actually, and this is no joke, there’s already a company which makes Talking Jesus dolls. And what I particularly like is that their version of Talking Jesus recites —
— the Ten Commandments.
I assume that even this site’s largely secular audience will understand what’s wrong with that.
…various nitpickers are insisting that this would not be theologically inconsistent, because Jesus, as a Jew, would have been intimately familiar with the Commandments. Well, sure, and Abraham Lincoln was undoubtedly familiar with the writings of Thomas Jefferson, but if you’re making a talking Abe Lincoln action figure, trying to convey the essence of the man with a few ounces of molded plastic and an embedded thirty second sound chip, are you going to have him reciting excerpts from the Declaration of Independence or the Gettysburg Address…?
…Greg at the Talent Show has more…