{"id":3383,"date":"2008-10-18T15:54:00","date_gmt":"2008-10-18T15:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2008\/10\/the-bible-as-science-fiction\/"},"modified":"2008-10-18T15:54:00","modified_gmt":"2008-10-18T15:54:00","slug":"the-bible-as-science-fiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2008\/10\/the-bible-as-science-fiction.html","title":{"rendered":"The Bible as Science Fiction"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.worldjewishnewsagency.org\/enoch.jpg\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.worldjewishnewsagency.org\/enoch.jpg\" border=\"0\"><\/a>IO9 suggests that <a href=\"http:\/\/io9.com\/5065088\/what-other-classics-need-to-given-the-odyssey-treatment\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">it is time for sci-fi versions of familiar Bible stories<\/a>. That could be interesting. If one ventures outside the Bible slightly, one gets books like 1 Enoch which already fit the genre. Enoch\u2019s \u201cascension\u201d shows the same sort of pre-modern cosmology I talked about in my last post, although the parallels make it more natural to talk about his \u201cabduction\u201d.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<div>Of course, the <em>Left Behind<\/em> movie also fits the genre \u2013 when I watched it (before teaching a course on Revelation, since I suspected I might get asked about the series by students), I kept expecting Mulder and Scully to show up and investigate what was going on.<\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>All kidding aside, however, this provides a nice opportunity to ask a key question raised by the last few posts. How do you \u201ctranslate\u201d stories from the Bible into your own worldview today? How do you update the cosmology, if at all? It is one thing to notice the differences between the ancient cosmology assumed by the authors of the Bible and our own. It is another to figure out how (if at all) one can bridge the gap and appreciate the message expressed in the context of that ancient worldview, and perhaps even re-express its meaning for our time.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/7622297540113836091-1704772761700333437?l=exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com\" alt=\"\"><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>IO9 suggests that it is time for sci-fi versions of familiar Bible stories. That could be interesting. If one ventures outside the Bible slightly, one gets books like 1 Enoch which already fit the genre. Enoch\u2019s \u201cascension\u201d shows the same sort of pre-modern cosmology I talked about in my last post, although the parallels make [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Bible as Science Fiction<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"IO9 suggests that it is time for sci-fi versions of familiar Bible stories. That could be interesting. If one ventures outside the Bible slightly, one\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2008\/10\/the-bible-as-science-fiction.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Bible as Science Fiction\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"IO9 suggests that it is time for sci-fi versions of familiar Bible stories. That could be interesting. If one ventures outside the Bible slightly, one\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2008\/10\/the-bible-as-science-fiction.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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