Christianity in a Nutshell: Britain's '100-Minute Bible'

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It may be the word of God, but that hasn't spared it from regular man-made tinkering. From 15th-century printers to 20th-century modernists, every age has sought to adapt the Bible.

So now, for the era of restless consumers and fickle attention spans, a British publication distills the original into a form you could read at one sitting. Instead of 780,000 words and 1,200 chapters, there are just 20,000 words in fewer than 60 pages.

Not surprisingly, the "100-Minute Bible" is generating robust debate in Britain, where even Shakespeare is no longer immune to a culture of abbreviation.

Proponents say it is a gateway to the classic, a crash course …