Funny you should mention that... one of my intermittent writing projects involves that very concept.
Harold Bloom, in The Book of J, seeks to analyze one version of Torah (the first five books of what Xtians call the "Old Testament") as literature, and the role of God as a character in a work of fiction. I liked the idea, and decided that nearly the only modern fiction a character like that could appear in with "verisimilitude" is science fiction (see also, Clarke's First Law).
... although, the genre being as splintered as it is these days, a more appropriate classification for the Bible might be "magic realism".
There is a lot of strangeness in the Bible, and a lot of contradiction, and a lot of things that simply are not accounted for by the physical world we understand so much better than the people who began the telling of those stories. There is also a lot of beauty, bravery, loyalty and love in some of those stories - and you don't have to believe in anything more than the nobility of mankind to appreciate them.
re: the Bible as SF
The whole thread (68 posts)
- Curious about correlation between political beliefs and religion here
- Agnostic here
- Why is this on Flame?
- Conservative Christian.
- re: I believe that:
- Is there a correlation?
- Liberal Jew
- Well, this is "Flame". One thing you ought to know, Art.
- Atheist
- re: Atheist
- re: Curious about correlation between political beliefs and religion here
- Agnostic, and the voice of the hard (non religious) right on these boards. (n/t)
- Agnostic & Moderate
- Believer - more Buddhist than Jewish, was raised Roman Catholic. (n/t)
- agnostic
- Agnostic
- a small edit here and there