HUNGARY: Little Red Book

A Bible-study bestseller

In any Western country, publication of a book entitled The Small Encyclopedia of the Bible would hardly have been noticed. But when Hungary’s state-owned printing house announced that the title would be one of 135 works introduced during the country’s annual book week, the news was sensational. Like every other Communist regime, after all, Hungary’s propagates atheism; and while in practice it tolerates religious observance by its 5.8 million Catholics and 2.6 million Protestants, the Bible itself is available in only a single church bookstore in the country. It is frequently out of stock.

Fascinated to discover what a Communist analysis had to say about the opium of the people these days, Hungarians snapped up The Small Encyclopedia’s entire 78,000-copy press run well before book week ended, making the book one of the year’s bestsellers.

The Good Book, it turns out, is not so much good or bad as it is simply there. Describing the Bible as an intrinsic part of secular as well as religious culture, Authors Gusztaá Gecse and Henrik Horváth announce that their goal is to explain it as “a human and literary creation.” In a favorable editorial, the Communist Party daily Népszabadság listed three reasons for Communists to gain familiarity with Christianity’s handbook. One was to understand such Bible-based expressions as “Solomonic verdict” and “scapegoat,” another to “enrich the dialogue with believers.” But the most important, said Népszabadság, was that knowing the Bible “can in fact strengthen official ideology.” The editorial did not explain how, but its author’s own scriptural wanderings presumably had not included Psalm 14, which begins: “The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.” ∙