The Bible

Synopsis: Using ancient magic, an all-powerful deity, “God”, creates a complex world called “The World”, comprised of many diverse races, cultures, and landscapes. But before long, chaos ensues, and God must scramble, think on his feet, and often improvise his way through conflict resolution. Mid-story, God devises a clever plan: he personifies himself in the body of a human superhero, “Jesus”, hoping that being “on the ground” will make it easier to restore order to The World. But God’s plans for Jesus don’t exactly as he’s hoped…

The classic fantasy epic, The Bible, has been a favorite of the Sci-Fi/Adventure enthusiast for a long time now, even managing to transcend the traditional demographic of the genre and appeal to suburban “soccer moms”, sports enthusiasts or “Nascar dads”, and Roman Emperors alike. It is one of the most popular and talked-about novels of all time.

It’s not surprising, really. With its richly imaginative account of impossible events coming to pass and its enormous cast of major and minor characters (the stern old wizard, “Moses”; the scorned princess, “Eve”; the bumbling, good-natured old coot, “Noah”; and the dashing, slightly emo -and occasionally overly sanctimonious- superhero protagonist, “Jesus”), The Bible literally has something for everybody.

Which is not to say it’s not without its flaws. Quite the contrary. No good literary scholar would ever call The Bible “perfect” or “inerrant”, and I am quite sure none of them ever have. In terms of narrative structure, The Bible is, like its similarly fantastical cousin, the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, something of a mess. The introduction, again like the first of The Fellowship of the Ring is way too long, almost as though no editor even bothered to consider removing the superfluous expository stuff. Check out, for instance, the chapter “Deuteronomy”, which seems almost arbitrarily thrown in and offers almost nothing in terms of character or plot development. And coming after the promising, action-packed absurdity of “Exodus” (seriously: plagues, locuts, tons of deaths, entire bodies of water parting in the middle, and rousing mountain-top speeches, it’s the stuff summer movies of made of, and one wonders why Jerry Bruckheimer hasn’t already secured the rights; get Michael Bay on the phone!), it’s just a really talky, academic, boring let-down.

The first half of The Bible is often so slow and plodding, in fact, that many would-be fans of the book give up on it halfway. These people are often dumped into a “fan group” called “Jews”, who apparently spend a lot of time analyzing the first half of the book (to be fair, there’s a lot of material to dig through, which is part of the problem) and don’t seem to want to even bother with the gripping conclusion.

The only consistently present character in the first few chapters of the book is God, and the author uses poetic license to play with the character’s attributes. For instance, in the early going, he seems almost confused (at one point he doesn’t seem to know where the character “Adam” is, which is odd considering a) he’s supposed to know everything and b) there’s only one person around!) and unsure of his own powers. Later, he just seems really irritable and unstable. Sometimes he comes off as wise and loving. Regardless, the author gets away with this because the God character is supposedly so unlike us (and, of course, therein lies how much he tells us about us…) that it doesn’t matter how he’s painted; we just have to accept it at face value, and it works as foreshadowing for the, shall we say, unpredictable nature of the forthcoming Jesus character.

One of the narrative faults of The Bible is that the central protagonist doesn’t even appear (he’s actually not even born) until roughly the mid-way point. Now, I know what you’re saying: “But, John, Luke Skywalker doesn’t even appear until 20 minutes into Star Wars, and it takes forever for The Lord of the Rings to introduce Aragorn!”

Okay, true. So The Bible is just as guilty of this as just about anything else in the genre, and I shouldn’t single out this particular book for this particular feature (I will just point out, however, that Harry is pretty much there from the get-go in the “Harry Potter” series…I’m just saying).
But once our hero, Jesus, finally shows up (and in grand fashion, too; *hint*… think: “I believe he was created by the midichlorians…”) the story really picks up steam. Like the character God, often referred to as the hero’s “father” (don’t ask), the character of Jesus is hard to pin down: at times judgy, emo, whiney, wise, friendly, aloof, and cryptic, Jesus is one of the most complicated characters in the whole realm of fantasy epics.

To pull off telling the story of the character, The Bible employs an ingenious literary technique that Kurosawa fans would fawn over. Rather than take a direct approach to the narrative, the story is told, Rashomon-style, from four different perspectives! None of them actually line up exactly with the others, and so it is up to the reader to decide who (if anybody!) is telling the real story. They all seem to agree on certain things, foremost of which is that Jesus is definitely imbued with magical abilities (he brings people back from the dead and cures blindness, for starters). And they all seem to agree that Jesus is there to complete a quest that is his destiny and that only he can fulfill (sound familiar?!). Inevitably, Jesus finds himself in a worldful of hate courtesy of the villanous Romans (think Uruk-kai, with better etiquette and teeth). If I told you whether or not he manages to “destroy the ring”, so to speak, I would be giving too much away. Let’s just say that, when things look their worst, and when all seems lost…well…

The ending of the The Bible (*SPOILER ALERT* or at least what seems like the ending…) has often been criticized for employing the ancient dramatic tool of Deus Ex Machina, and the criticism is fair. But still, the stirring finale feels earned and satisfying on an emotional level, if not on an intellectual one.

Much like Lord of the Rings, The Bible concludes with volumes upon volumes of “appendix” material, largely “written” by a narrator named Paul, which puts a lot of the preceding events into context and sheds some light on their overall meaning. It is not necessary to read these “extra features” and many readers claim they prefer to interpret the story their own way, but for the obsessive fan, they stand as a nice inclusion. The whole thing ends with a sort of “preview” (this time the narrator calling himself John, later dubbed by fans “Saint John the Divine”) of a high-concept, action-packed “sequel” that would seemingly put a lot of the ho-hum elements of the original to shame. Probably due to the ambitious nature of the “sequel” (rumored to be dubbed “The Bible 2: Book of Revelations”), most fans and scholars have come to accept that either it will likely never come to pass, or that the authors never intended on realizing the concept as separate project.

If there’s one glaring problem with The Bible, it’s probably that the thing is written in a tone and language (again like Lord of the Rings) that often seems quaint, dated, and inaccessible (lots of “thee” and “thine” and “thou”, etc.) Younger readers often complain it just doesn’t register with them anymore. And the book has been around for so long (what seem like dozens, or maybe even hundreds of years) that of course it has been through countless re-edits and reissues and updates, often in multiple languages (sorry, LotR fans –no Elvish yet!). This does tend to make The Bible hard to read and leaves one wondering what might be missing from (or even added to!) the original.

Still, it’s hard to deny the pure, outlandish imagination that went into writing the novel, a book so ahead of its time that it’s often compared to the works of, among others, the great H.G. Wells. Despite its flaws, imperfections, short-comings, and logical inconsistencies, The Bible is worth the price of admission (especially since, if you’re astute enough, you might even be able to find a free copy…).

RATING: *** (out of 4)

YES, IT’S TRUE: While usually credited to “God” (presumably a pen name), The Bible, like most studio movies in our time, was actually written "by commity" by a “panel” of authors. Some say there are at least a couple dozen contributors, and a handful of scholars argue that the number might even by well over a hundred!