{"id":28522,"date":"2015-02-11T06:05:31","date_gmt":"2015-02-11T11:05:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/?p=28522"},"modified":"2015-02-11T06:05:31","modified_gmt":"2015-02-11T11:05:31","slug":"the-bible-as-fantasy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2015\/02\/the-bible-as-fantasy.html","title":{"rendered":"The Bible as Fantasy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I shared some science fictional explorations of Biblical texts<\/a> by Ben Riddlebarger previously. He has been hard at work since then, and has offered more, including\u00a0Gandalf as Moses<\/a>, Shrek riding Donkey into Jerusalem<\/a>, Peter being asked to perform a waterbender\u2019s feat<\/a>, and David vs. Godzilla<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I appreciate these because they raise questions about how and why people view one set of stories differently than another. Those who lump the Bible together with fairy tales, in general, tend to be ignoring questions of genre, and also to have a\u00a0disturbingly negative view of fairy tales. But some parts of the Bible are\u00a0fantastical in nature, and yet it can be very hard for many people to appreciate them as such \u2013 as literature, in some cases based on historical figures, but in their present form, as stories that need to be considered and appreciated first and foremost as stories.<\/p>\n

The way Riddlebarger\u00a0works a particular\u00a0sponge<\/em> into the Bible<\/a>, however, seems to me a bit of a stretch\u2026<\/p>\n

Take a look at the examples I mentioned, of which I\u2019m including a couple below, and then\u00a0leave a comment about what you think can be learned by relating the Bible to more recent\u00a0works in the genre of fantasy.<\/p>\n

\"gandalf-mosessm\" \"david-and-godzillasm\"<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I shared some science fictional explorations of Biblical texts by Ben Riddlebarger previously. He has been hard at work since then, and has offered more, including\u00a0Gandalf as Moses, Shrek riding Donkey into Jerusalem, Peter being asked to perform a waterbender\u2019s feat, and David vs. Godzilla. I appreciate these because they raise questions about how and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":28523,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5,24],"tags":[450,800,1099,1140,2471,2798,3359,3748,4032,5677,7721,11244],"class_list":["post-28522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art","category-bible","category-fantasy","tag-airbender","tag-art","tag-ben-riddlebarger","tag-bible","tag-david","tag-donkey","tag-fantasy","tag-gandalf","tag-godzilla","tag-jesus","tag-moses","tag-shrek"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Bible as Fantasy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I shared some science fictional explorations of Biblical texts by Ben Riddlebarger previously. 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