Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth (“Bible” backronym)

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Entry from June 10, 2013

Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth (“Bible” backronym)

“Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth” is a backronym (back acronym) for the word “BIBLE.” The backronym has been cited in print since at least August 1992, when a jail chaplain in Baraboo, Wisconsin, wrote that he’d heard it from a prison inmate. “Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth” was the title of a cut on a 1995 rap album.

A backronym for “HOLY” is sometimes also made, as in the book titles Humble Obedience Leverages Your Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth (2010) and Here Only Lies Your Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth (2010).

4 August 1992, Wisconsin State Journal (Madison, WI), Pg. 5A, col. 5:
Of course I am referring to the Bible and I like the way I heard it from a prison inmate in the form of an acrostic: “Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth.”
—George Coolidge, jail chaplain, Baraboo

Google Groups: comp.sys.amiga.datacomm
David Prothero
11/28/93
(...)
B.I.B.L.E.=Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth

Google Books
Deadline:
A Novel
By Randy C. Alcorn
Sisters, OR: Multnomah Books
1994
Pg. 306:
At the top of the second page the word Bible had been turned into an acrostic, reading “Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth.”

OCLC WorldCat record
Liquid swords
Author: Genius, (Musician); RZA, (Rapper)
Publisher: Los Angeles, CA : Geffen, 1995.
Edition/Format: Music CD : CD audio : Popular music : English : [Explicit versionView all editions and formats
Summary: This album has consistent tones making it an album that gradually gets under your skin. They mix gritty songs and battle rhymes making it very prominant hip-hop album.
Contents:
Basic instructions before leaving earth (featuring Killah Priest).

OCLC WorldCat record
Humble obedience leverages your basic instructions before leaving earth : a compliment to your ...
Author: Wesley J Malcolm
Publisher: [S.l.] : Authorhouse, 2010.
Edition/Format: Book : English

OCLC WorldCat record
Here only lies your basic instructions before leaving earth : h.o.l.y. b.i.b.l.e.
Author: Tramaine Harrison
Publisher: [S.l.] : Publishamerica Inc., 2010.
Edition/Format: Book : English

Posted by Barry Popik
New York City • Government/Law/Military/Religion /Health • Monday, June 10, 2013 • Permalink

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