God as a Literary Character

God as a Literary Character

            Before this course began, my knowledge of this Bible was very limited. Although my parents had me undergo confirmation of the Catholic religion, I am a non-religious person. I had never read the Bible before this class and the only knowledge I had of it was from listening to all of those sermons when my parents would drag me to church. Over the duration of this course many different elements began to be brought to attention. It became much easier to identify God as nothing more than a literary character, created for nothing more than to instill good and positive morals in to people’s minds.

            One thing that I could not help doing throughout the entirety of this class was comparing the readings to the movie Year One. The Book of Genesis was where I developed most of my interest during this semester. I had always known of Cain slaying Abel but it wasn’t until I read of the tale that I learned there was more there. I knew that Cain killed Able out of jealousy because God accepted Abel’s sacrifice of meat and fat over Cain’s sacrifice of produce. Although, I had no idea that Cain immediately felt remorse after doing so and that it was the creation of one of the Seven Deadly Sins “Jealousy,” as well as the expression “Be your brother’s keeper.”

            One of the most powerful things that were learned over the course of this semester was that God was a very vengeful and strict character. In numerous occasions he slew people for not obeying his commands. The killing of Onan for spilling his “seed” on to the Earth instead of impregnated his partner. Also, there is the entire Book of Job which is a perfect example of the wrath that God bestows on people. “If they obey and serve him, they shall spend their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasures. But if they obey not, they shall perish by the sword, and they shall die without knowledge” (Job 36:11).  When I had the chance to talk to someone about the Bible I chose to go a little above and beyond and use my journalism skills on a priest from my old confirmation class. I mentioned that passage from the Book of Job and asked if that as true then how come all of the devout religious followers living in riches with “all of pleasures of life”. His response was expected and almost identical to that of what the priest in the movie Rudy said. He said “prayer is what is expected of us and God will only answer if he wants to, he doesn’t have to answer because we are supposed to pray regardless.” I wasn’t surprised with his response it just keeps adding to the fact that more and more people seriously follow what was meant to be moral instilling literature. The priest didn’t have much to say about the vengeful wrath of God other than “God strikes down on those who sin. Those who go against God’s will will suffer for their actions.” He would avoid that question by regularly referring to the New Testament in which God is the more forgiving individual. That was the most important thing that was learned this semester. It was the great difference between the Old and New Testaments and how god went form a vengeful cold blooded killer to a sweet forgiving character.

            I was able to learn, over the course of this semester, that most importantly there are many different ways of reading and interpreting the Bible and a firm reading of most of its material could give an individual more knowledge of it than devout followers. The discovery of the vengeful side of God gave understanding that this character was not the forgiving individual known today. But more than anything, I was able to see the literal influence that the Bible has on everything today. I was able to see that humor could be made from it teachings such as the movie Year One portrays. I also found that it even seems that even an interview with a priest can tell you that even the most devout will deny God’s dark side.