Books of the Bible

An English teacher I knew long ago created a course for her students called "The Bible as Literature."

The objective of that course was to examine the many books of the Old and New Testaments as stories, poems, and essays in and of themselves. She demonstrated that the Bible contains essential and basic stories of creation, fall, sin, betrayal, murder, catastrophe, recovery, quests and even love, and could be examined as a piece of literature with plot, theme, characters, setting, conflict, and point of view.

But the Bible has also been the inspiration for any number of pieces of literature that borrowed its ideas, names, themes, and even stories, using these elements to fashion a new story that would, as a result, seem familiar.

Think of one of the most famous opening lines in a book: "Call me Ishmael." This is the first line of Herman Melville's "Moby Dick." The line establishes the narrator, for some the main character through whose observations and interpretations we see all other other characters play their parts. But if we also consider the Ishmael of the Bible, the narrator becomes still more.

Ishmael was a son of Abraham and Hagar, a handmaiden of Abraham's wife, Sarai. She fled to the desert and learned from an angel that she was "with child," and that her son, who will be called Ishmael (God hears), will beget a great nation. 

The name "Ishmael" has come to have another meaning, symbolizing orphans, exiles, and social outcasts. Melville's Ishmael isn't cast out but chooses to wander on the sea, but also shares with the Biblical character a miracle of a rescue when he is nearly drowned.

The point being, if you know the Biblical story, you'll see the parallels and the deeper significance of the character and his situation.

Other books, like C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, specifically "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe," the first book in the series, actually retells a portion of the Bible using fantasy characters to reset the tale. In Narnia, Christ is a gentle lion, Aslan, who, with the help of some ingenious children, rescues the kingdom of Narnia from eternal winter. 

Another "re-telling" is the poetic masterpiece, "Paradise Lost," by John Milton. Milton looks at the story of the fall of the angels and the temptation of Adam and Eve, and uses the opportunity to explore not just the biblical themes of heaven, hell, sin and redemption, but to present Satan as a more complex and nuanced character, and to view Adam and Eve both before and after their sin. 

Steinbeck's "East of Eden" "...explores themes of depravity, beneficence, love, the struggle for acceptance and greatness, the capacity for self-destruction, and of guilt and freedom. It ties these themes together with references to and many parallels with the biblical Book of Genesis (especially Genesis Chapter 4, the story of Cain and Abel)." (Wikipedia)

And of course when a character name like Adam, Eve, Jonah, Cain, Samson, Rebekah or Rachel show up in a book or film, you might get some insights into their arc and meaning if you recall the book that first made the name famous.

Through time and repetition, the Biblical stories, names and themes have become part of a deeper language widely shared.