The Bible, whatever it’s other flaws or virtues, is undeniably an impressive compendium of entertaining stories. Of course, it can be tough slogging to read the whole thing from start to finish, suffused as it is with miscellaneous begats and exhortations against the eating of shellfish.
Fortunately, you can now get your Bible stories in easily-digestible comic form, from Holy Bibble. Cannan and Lucas have set themselves the task of rewriting the entire bible as humorous sequential art. Admittedly, some poetic license is occasionally taken with the material — I’m pretty sure there was no trip to Japan in the original Scriptures. But all of the stories are based on real Bible narratives, and you do learn a lot by reading them.
For example, we’ve all heard the story of Lot and his wife. Yahweh had decided to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah for their various sinful activities. Lot, being virtuous, was given advance warning, and fled with his wife and two daughters. But his wife couldn’t resist looking back one last time, and was turned into a pillar of salt. God works in mysterious ways.
But the afterstory is so much more interesting. Lot and his daughters apparently thought they were completely alone, and there was some question as to how the family line would be able to continue. The women decided to take matters into their own hands — they got their father drunk and raped him in order to get themselves pregnant. The scheme worked, and they eventually gave birth to sons who fathered the Moabites and the Ammonites, two rival tribes to Israel.
The unwitting seductions actually happened on two successive nights, so one may question whether Lot shouldn’t have figured out what was going on. On the other hand, his daughters may have had some issues, as Lot had previously offered them up to a rampaging mob of Sodomites. At least, that’s what I gather from the comics; but apparently it’s all in the book.
Cain’s trip to Japan, though — pretty sure they made that up.
Update: David Plotz at Slate blogs the Bible!
You dissin’ ma Bible, Sean?
From an anthropological viewpoint, it appears that Christianity is leading our Western Culture down a path of de-evolution. Furthermore, the only way for our culture to derail itself from from this de-evolutionary pathway is to jump-off this degenerative Christian bandwagon.
Sean,
you write quite a lot about religion and related topics, considering that you are an atheist 😎
Yup, it’s all in there. Lovely story.
For more Bible stories in fun form, see:
http://www.thebricktestament.com/
I particularly like the Flood.
Of course the Lot/Sodomites scene was the origin of the famous question about the sex of angels (if male, female, none, or both… the sin of Sodomites depends a lot, er, of the answer)
That Brick Testament must have been quite an exhaustive project. You can’t blame Rev. Smith for playing with Lego on a full-time basis. (Has anybody thought of a ‘Brick String Theory’ book for kindergarten yet?)
Upon first viewing, I did not realize that Holy Bibble was a parody. Admittedly, on a subsequent look, Cannon and Lucas are masters of the spoof! By the way, Janet- I especially like the ratings guide on the Brick Testament.
Cynthia wrote:
From an anthropological viewpoint, it appears that Christianity is leading our Western Culture down a path of de-evolution.
What do you have against Mark Mothersbaugh?
From an anthropological viewpoint, it appears that Scientific Materialism is leading our Western Culture down a path of de-evolution. Furthermore, the only way for our culture to derail itself from from this de-evolutionary pathway is to jump-off this degenerative Scientific Materialistic bandwagon.
From an anthropological viewpoint, it appears that Atheism is leading our Western Culture down a path of de-evolution. Furthermore, the only way for our culture to derail itself from from this de-evolutionary pathway is to jump-off this degenerative Atheistic bandwagon.
Don’t diss religion.
A universe which has always existed, is a universe without a scientific explanation.
The story of Lot is old testament and has absolutely nothing to do with Christianity.
anon,I have nothing against Mark Mothersbaugh. But then again, I have never tried surfing the Wave of Devo.
Elliot, what makes you believe that mainstream Christianity does not recognize the Old Testament?
Discussing to what degree ‘Christianity’ appreciates the OT isn’t very relevant. Some might believe that it’s been inspired by the Holy Spirit and therefore important, others will point out that Jesus himself refined the values from the OT and that it’s moral content applies only to a rather primitive society.
Cynthia,
Certainly Christians recognize the Old Testament as do Muslims. You just seemed to be taking a shot at Christians when they didn’t even exist at the time of the story of Lot. I am not disagreeing with your comment however 😉
I am not sure what you mean by mainstream Christianity. There seem to be a wide variety of groups that characterize themselves as Christians.
Lot is hardly irrelevant. I read a post a long while ago about Lot that has always stuck with me. To quote:
Full post available at http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=50323
Cynthia,
I’m posting this as a totally committed atheist. I sympathize with your point of view but feel constrained to point out that it is ultimately mistaken.
The historical development of Western Culture — its “evolution” — was utterly dependent upon Christianity. Without it, the things we most cherish about the West would not have come into existence. It would have been stuck in its slave-based, technologically stunted Greco-Roman phase, or more likely would have become just another oriental civilization. The Western moral traditions that you take for granted — individualism, equality, optimism — are ultimately Christian. Christianity, unlike oriental religions, even left room for Western rationalism to grow and flourish. Christianity, then, rather than being “degenerative”, is the very soil from which the West emerged.
You also need to realize that you just can’t build a civilization without some means of restraining human inborn impulses. If you drain Christianity from Western civilization, it will coast along on Christian traditions for a few generations. But a rising fraction of the population will realize the obvious — crime pays. And, in the absence of a restraining Christianity (or a secular alternative), a growing number will act on this realization. You cannot expect any civilization to survive, if you destroy its ancestral religion without simultaneously introducing a secular alternative that is at least as effective in restraining inborn impulses. [Of course, you could introduce another mystical religion. But who wants that?]
The problem is that we don’t yet have a viable secular alternative to Christianity. If you’ve got one, great. Let’s test it out on some village and see how well it works. But until Cynthiaism is up and running, let’s refrain from mindlessly trashing the backbone of Western civilization. [So far, the track record of secular religions (~60 million dead from Communism, Nazism, and Fascism) doesn’t look too good.]
Look, we all realize sometime in junior high school that 1) the Bible is full of crazy stuff, and 2) Christians have throughout history done bad things. But we can’t get stuck there. We really must at some point outgrow our sophomoric prejudices and realize that the benefits of Christianity — especially in its modern form — have well exceeded its detriments.
an interesting assumption i think implicit in the previous post is that ethical behavior is predicated on having a higher (supernatural) authority. so, lacking a higher authority, is there a reason to act ethically?
Tim: A universe which has always existed, is a universe without a scientific explanation.
Good thing we don’t live in such a universe.
Maybe we do, Anti-Tim. Maybe we live in a universe (for example, one containing all the individual “universes” embedded inside this higher dimensional spacetime, a la M-theory) which has always existed, or we live in a universe which had a beginning. Either way, the universe does not have a scientific explanation for its existence.
The question is: If something has always existed, does it require an explanation for its existence?
Excellent point, Belizean.
For more, look at “How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization”. I’m reading it now! Wow! What a cool and interesting book!
Good news, everyone. I actually got an A in this crazy statistical mechanics course. Now I can focus on some qualifying research.
Tim: For an answer to your question, consult the works of Thomas Aquinas, in particular The Summa Theologia. That dude was a genius of a Catholic theologian and philosopher.
The historical development of Western Culture — its “evolution” — was utterly dependent upon Christianity.
True, but the next part
Without it, the things we most cherish about the West would not have come into existence. It would have been stuck in its slave-based, technologically stunted Greco-Roman phase, or more likely would have become just another oriental civilization. The Western moral traditions that you take for granted — individualism, equality, optimism — are ultimately Christian. Christianity, unlike oriental religions, even left room for Western rationalism to grow and flourish.
begins with an unsupportable statement and continues into overly broad and simply false overgeneralizations about other cultures. Rationalism has been found in many cultures at different times, and throughout most of the Christian era has been present in a number of very different Oriental cultures and absent in Europe.
We don’t call the golden age of Christianity the Dark Ages for nothing.
That’s true as well, but rationalism in other cultures was founded in a different manner. Take for example China. The so-called irrigational system established a firm basis of power for later warlords who controlled power and knowledge and sometimes discarded findings by earlier dynasties. Western scientific and mathematical findings (brought over by Jesuits a.o.) were simply ignored or ‘overruled’.
The ‘holyness’ of the Quran provided similar problems in the Middle East. I remember a quote from a Muslim general, who, after conquering foreign territory, found books by an early (Muslim) physicist. He ordered to destroy them – if it’s contents were false, the Quran would contain the truth; if the books told the truth, well, the Holy Quran would still contain a better truth.
You can argue about the start of the scientific method (the foundation of ‘magazines’), but the tradition of monasteries in which original studies could be undertaken (in the common language of Latin) and foreign findings (for example from Arab scholars working by themselves) investigated certainly helped.
And then there’s the right to own property. Christianity was special in that it guaranteed that no despot could take property from his subordinates. (It has something to do with Jesus or Moses not touching other people’s sheep.) Trade and produce were therefore a safe way of making a living. This is said to underlie the start of the trading economy of the Middle Ages.
This stuff is way too complicated to discuss on a blog, consider this my $0.02.
PK, you are wrong wrong wrong. How someone can mix a few historical facts and get the complete opposite of meaning is just amazing. In fact you are so wrong you are not even wrong but just plain ignorant.
Tim: Either way, the universe does not have a scientific explanation for its existence.
Why? Because you said so? How do you know that we won’t find one?
Besides, even if it is impossible to explain the origin of the universe from within the universe itself, this does not imply the existence of anything you would call a God, and it certainly doesn’t imply the existence of any of the gods of any of the major religions.