Which Bible books do you enjoy as myth?

[rwp]

Does anyone enjoy any of the books in the Bible as myth? Have you read any of the books for casual entertainment (as you might read a novel)?

[El Greco]

I absolutely love "The Mansions of the Gods". I never get tired of reading it.

Although I'm not sure whether it's in the Bible or the Asterix series.

[Marquis de Carabas]

Song of Solomon is great erotica. Mmmmm juicy pomegrnate.

[Forty-Two]

Job's pretty good. God makes a bet with the Tempter, Job loses everything, and he and his friends argue for several chapters. Then another character comes out of nowhere and gives a pithy speech. Then God gives a speech that basically amounts to, "I don't have to justify Myself to you. I do as I damn well please." Then, as inexplicably as he lost everything, Job gets replacement stuff, including a replacement family. There is pretty much no moral to the story.

[Tricky]

As a kid, I always enjoyed the David and Goliath story. 'Course, my name is David, so that made it more fun for me. But then, I always liked Davy Crockett (King of the wild frontier) too.

Funny, nobody names their kid Goliath.

[Darth Rotor]

Does anyone enjoy any of the books in the Bible as myth?
I can't, since I am a mythter, but like the Marquis, I very much enjoy the Song of Solomon.

DR

[Darth Rotor]

Job's pretty good. -=- There is pretty much no moral to the story.
Yes there is. The moral of Job is "life isn't fair."

This is consistent with a number of other biblical themes that promise to the Faithful a sorting out, and a reward, in the afterlife.

DR

[GodMark2]

Job's pretty good. God makes a bet with the Tempter, Job loses everything,

You mean, God takes away everything.

...and he and his friends argue for several chapters. Then another character comes out of nowhere and gives a pithy speech. Then God gives a speech that basically amounts to, "I don't have to justify Myself to you. I do as I damn well please." Then, as inexplicably as he lost everything, Job gets replacement stuff, including a replacement family. There is pretty much no moral to the story.

You forgot the most important part, where Lucifer gets thrown into the split earth for the heinous sin of questioning God in the first place. Job is uninportant to the story, it's about Licufer's doubting God's statement that "Job is my most faithful servant". That's where the moral comes from: "Don't question God, even when he makes no sense, or he'll smack you down."

[HeyLeroy]

As a kid, I always enjoyed the David and Goliath story. 'Course, my name is David, so that made it more fun for me. But then, I always liked Davy Crockett (King of the wild frontier) too.

Funny, nobody names their kid Goliath.

I worked with a guy named Atilla.

[Apathia]

My favorite is the Book of Ecclesiastes.
Just opening it at random, I find this great line:

"Consider the work of God; who can make straight what he has made crooked?"

Ecclesiastes 7:13

[Azure]

You forgot the most important part, where Lucifer gets thrown into the split earth for the heinous sin of questioning God in the first place. Job is uninportant to the story, it's about Licufer's doubting God's statement that "Job is my most faithful servant". That's where the moral comes from: "Don't question God, even when he makes no sense, or he'll smack you down."

Preach it brother! :D

Just kidding, of course. :p

[slingblade]

Wich bible books do I enjoy as myth?

um. eww.

Might as well ask me which needles I prefer to have stuck in my eyes.

[Brainache]

Well I kind of like the myth about the bloke who shows up at a wedding and starts laying on free booze. Who could not love a messiah like that?

[Kopji]

I was bored the other night and looking for some good reading material. I cleaned up several good books, including a very thick 'The Essential Plato' that I use to flatten pictures and books when I scan them.

And Lo, there, on the chair waiting to be put back after a night of serious reading was the trusty ol' Bible. Whoa! What providence! Here I was looking for some great fiction reading and there it was calling to me. It may have been the great actor and humanitarian Charlton Heston who said I could open the Bible to almost any page and make a movie out of it. I gave it a try. And then another try. Finally after the third try I settled on Matthew 14, a chapter titled:

"John the Baptist Beheaded" / "A Multitude Miraculously Fed"

I did not quite remember the story that way so I dug in. It turns out that the two stories are not really related, so I put the book away for the evening.

[Ausmerican]

None really. The Greek/Roman deities and the Norse myths seem to have way cooler stories and more interesting characters. When I was a kid I could read The Odyssey, the stories about the 12 labors of Hercules or the stories about Thor and the other Norse gods for hours on end. The Bible stories always seemed very slow and boring by comparison.

[Fitter]

I worked with a guy named Atilla.
I worked with a guy named Al Tilley.

[Tricky]

I worked with a guy named Al Tilley.
Al Tilley the bum?

[Meadmaker]

The Bible stories always seemed very slow and boring by comparison.

Try the Koran. I did, but after a few pages, I was snoozing. Maybe if I had found the part with the 72 virgins, it could have kept me awake.

(Are they always the same 72? If so, they would have to remain virgins. I would think that would kind of lessen the attraction to heaven. I hope the next would-be martyr thinks of that before he straps on the explosives.)

There's the story of Esther, read at Purim every year. Of course, it isn't very much myth, since God doesn't make an appearance.

The story of the Exodus isn't bad. At least it makes a decent movie.

[Kopji]

The 72 virgins are in a Hadith somewhere, not the Quran. And it might be 72 raisins instead of virgins. Wouldn't that really suck if you blew yourself up, showed up in heaven and only got some raisins for it?

[Jorghnassen]

None really. The Greek/Roman deities and the Norse myths seem to have way cooler stories and more interesting characters. When I was a kid I could read The Odyssey, the stories about the 12 labors of Hercules or the stories about Thor and the other Norse gods for hours on end. The Bible stories always seemed very slow and boring by comparison.

I think it's due in part to the fact that the Greek and Norse myths are from long dead religions of which only the good bits got recorded, preserved and rewritten nicely out of cultural interest. I'm sure if you edit out all the bureaucratic details (kept because the religion has been quite alive for 2000 years and more) and put some good writers on it, you can get a lot of good stuff out of the Bible. I mean, look at what Anthony Burgess did with Jesus of Nazareth...

[Ausmerican]

I think it's due in part to the fact that the Greek and Norse myths are from long dead religions of which only the good bits got recorded, preserved and rewritten nicely out of cultural interest. I'm sure if you edit out all the bureaucratic details (kept because the religion has been quite alive for 2000 years and more) and put some good writers on it, you can get a lot of good stuff out of the Bible. I mean, look at what Anthony Burgess did with Jesus of Nazareth...

Not sure thats true. Marvel comics tried a series based on Jesus and it didn't do well. Ditto Pope JP2. Thor and Hercules however have been successful comic characters for years and Hercules had a pretty damn popular TV series as well. The OT at least had some action but Jesus has very little to offer in terms of excitement.

[ImaginalDisc]

Nothing in the Bible is remotely entertaining. It's even more dull than the Koran. The Koran at least has some drama here and there. Incidentally, if you are ever without water, and you need to pray, it is permissible to use clean sand for your ablutions instead of water. The Koran only mentions that on every second or third page, in case you forget.

[Jorghnassen]

Not sure thats true. Marvel comics tried a series based on Jesus and it didn't do well. Ditto Pope JP2. Thor and Hercules however have been successful comic characters for years and Hercules had a pretty damn popular TV series as well. The OT at least had some action but Jesus has very little to offer in terms of excitement.

Marvel's take on Thor (and probably Hercules too) was complete crap too, but he's a fighting god type so those stories could please the Marvel fans. On the other hand, non-violent peacemakers aren't going to work in superhero comic form (plus more (influential/powerful) people will take offense if you go too far from the source material when it comes to Jesus and the Pope than with Thor and Herakles, which is financially even more risky than a commercial flop).

Now I'm not saying the Bible mythology can be edited to be as good as the Greek and Viking mythology (I have books on Egyptian, Arabian and Chinese mythology, and it's just not as good), but I'm sure it'd be more appealing if it had gone through the same treatment as all other mythologies have.

[UndercoverElephant]

Does anyone enjoy any of the books in the Bible as myth? Have you read any of the books for casual entertainment (as you might read a novel)?

Revelations is a ripping yarn, by anyone's standards.

[ImaginalDisc]

Revelations is a ripping yarn, by anyone's standards.

Which part? The part that reads like it was isnpired by a bad acid trip, or the part that reads like it was inspiried by meeting a guy having a bad acid trip?

[UndercoverElephant]

Which part? The part that reads like it was isnpired by a bad acid trip, or the part that reads like it was inspiried by meeting a guy having a bad acid trip?

Both! :D


17:1 One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke with me, saying, "Come here. I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who sits on many waters,

17:2 with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication, and those who dwell in the earth were made drunken with the wine of her fornication."

17:3 He carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness. I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet-colored animal, full of blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns.

17:4 The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her fornication.

17:5 And on her forehead a name was written, "MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF THE PROSTITUTES AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH."

17:6 I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. When I saw her, I wondered with great amazement.


Sounds like the acid was spiked with something harder.

[ceo_esq]

Not sure thats true. Marvel comics tried a series based on Jesus and it didn't do well. Ditto Pope JP2.

Not sure about the Jesus comic book, but Marvel's take on JP2 was hugely successful. According to its writer Steven Grant (probably more associated with Marvel's Punisher), for years the pope comic book held Marvel's record as the best-selling one-shot title ever. I also think they did a graphic novel a long time afterward.

[ImaginalDisc]

Ceo, you're on my ignore list. Now, every day is like Christmas!

[SirPhilip]

Samson & Delilah. Samson was a great and distinct biblical hero, for many reasons:
He had super strength. He was also super filthy and super angry.
He was also super sexually repressed, like other biblical figures, but he liked women. A lot, as opposed to carpenters with delusions of grandeur and um, choir boys, or flakey angels.
He was a disenfranchised jew at a time when gentiles fit anti-semetic stereotypes, which makes for a super entertaining story.
He liked to club men over the head by the hundreds, a feat which Chuck Norris hasn't really eclipsed.

[ceo_esq]

Ceo, you're on my ignore list. Now, every day is like Christmas!

:rolleyes:

Thanks for sharing.

[Steven Howard]

Samson & Delilah. Samson was a great and distinct biblical hero, for many reasons:
He had super strength. He was also super filthy and super angry.
He was also super sexually repressed, like other biblical figures, but he liked women. A lot, as opposed to carpenters with delusions of grandeur and um, choir boys, or flakey angels.
He was a disenfranchised jew at a time when gentiles fit anti-semetic stereotypes, which makes for a super entertaining story.
He liked to club men over the head by the hundreds, a feat which Chuck Norris hasn't really eclipsed.

And he was dumb as a rock. Seriously, first he marries the unnamed Philistine woman, who gets a secret out of him by pouting "you don't love me" and then betrays him to the Philistines. Then he takes up with Delilah (who I think was also a Philistine, but I'm not sure), who not once but three times tries the exact same routine. "If you really loved me, you'd tell me the secret of your great strength." All three times he makes up some goofy "secret" weakness. All three times Delilah goes ahead and does the thing he told her would sap his strength, and all three times he's then immediately ambushed by Philistines. And then the fourth time she asks him, he tells her the truth.

[Darth Rotor]

Nothing in the Bible is remotely entertaining. It's even more dull than the Koran. The Koran at least has some drama here and there. Incidentally, if you are ever without water, and you need to pray, it is permissible to use clean sand for your ablutions instead of water. The Koran only mentions that on every second or third page, in case you forget.
Al Quran is remarkably dull, however, it does have the advantage of being a bit shorter than the Bible. I think the Bible has better stories, and better poetry.

Al Quran's continuous repitition does allow a bit of a speed read. That said, the translation I read may have lost some of the nuanced meaning. It does promote literacy, which is another plus.

DR

[a_unique_person]

Song of Solomon is great erotica. Mmmmm juicy pomegrnate.

You read something like that and it seems like something a poet could have written today. The rest is just like something a lawyer could have written, or L Ron Hubbard.

[SirPhilip]

And he was dumb as a rock. Seriously, first he marries the unnamed Philistine woman, who gets a secret out of him by pouting "you don't love me" and then betrays him to the Philistines. Then he takes up with Delilah (who I think was also a Philistine, but I'm not sure), who not once but three times tries the exact same routine. "If you really loved me, you'd tell me the secret of your great strength." All three times he makes up some goofy "secret" weakness. All three times Delilah goes ahead and does the thing he told her would sap his strength, and all three times he's then immediately ambushed by Philistines. And then the fourth time she asks him, he tells her the truth. It's a classic case-in-point how lost in translation those Biblical tales got. They make little to no sense. The story obviously revolves around sins of the flesh. While Samson had enhanced strength as a result of retaining his vitality, his weakness was sex. After revealing to her that was the cause, she seduced Samson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samson) to orgasm three times (or more!), and he lost access to his enhanced physical strength, to which she then took advantage of him.

[phildonnia]

I think I always liked the parts with the spectacular miracles and godly manifestations. Genesis, Daniel, even Acts. Job is boring and depressing.

I don't know if Ecclesiastes would be considered "myth" since very little actually happens in the way of heroic adventure, but it's more pleasurable than not to read.

[MaxHardcore]

Job's pretty good. God makes a bet with the Tempter, Job loses everything, and he and his friends argue for several chapters. Then another character comes out of nowhere and gives a pithy speech. Then God gives a speech that basically amounts to, "I don't have to justify Myself to you. I do as I damn well please." Then, as inexplicably as he lost everything, Job gets replacement stuff, including a replacement family. There is pretty much no moral to the story.



Trading Places was heaps better than Job

[Mongrel]

I enjoy any of the stories of the Bible when they're done in LEGO (http://www.thebricktestament.com/).

It's hard not to be enjoyable when LEGO's involved