Vicar sexes up Bible stories

Goliath was a "depressed alcoholic" who was hung over on the day he met David. Adam couldn't get enough of the naked Eve. That's  according to new versions of the famous Bible stories published by Christian publisher Scripture Union, writes Joanna Sugden.

The embellished ancient stories are part of a series of 10 Must Know biblical narratives by Rev Robert Harrison. He also penned pumped up versions of Noah's Ark, The Ten Commandments, Daniel and the Lions' Den, for the adult series which is available in children's versions.

Mr Harrison said the idea came when he asked 1000 secondary school pupils in an assembly if they knew the story of David and Goliath and was met with blank faces. "Because we are so uneasy about things religious they [the stories from the Bible] are slipping out of our consciousness," he said.

But Mr Harrison told Times Online the books shouldn't be used to "promote Christianity". But he said this stance caused a few ructions with Scripture Union whose "nature and job is to promote Christianity".  "I wanted to say this is a brilliant story and let people work it out from there...If we were promoting Christianity the Humanists and the Muslims would say 'we don't want to read that'" Mr Harrison added.

But some orthodox believers may be concerned that Mr Harrison's artistic licence could cause confusion and distort both the biblical text and the public's understanding of scripture. "I've tried to retell the stories using contemporary story telling techniques. People wouldn't pick up a Bible or know where to find the story in the Bible." The author said the bible reference was written at the end of each story so people can "compare and contrast" the texts.

The tales are written from the perspective of the non-believer including a disciple at the feeding of the five thousand who doesn't believe what he is seeing. "In honesty that's where most of us are"

Read on for an extract from the Adam and Eve tale "To know or not to know".

Eve was good. She was exquisite. She was all that he needed – and more. She was perfection made more perfect, joy made more joyous. She was full life made fuller.‘Where is she?’

Adam pulled a fresh fruit from the branch of a nearby tree. Before pressing it to his bright teeth he paused to name it. Adam named everything. He did not name things to classify them, to tie them into a previous experience, or restrict them into a determined future. For Adam, as for Eve, to name something was to give it meaning, to give expression to a moment of relationship. At this particular moment, the relationship was that between eater and eaten. He named the fruit. Whether he had ever eaten the fruit from that tree before,
whether he had given it the same or a similar name if he had, he neither knew nor cared. The fruit looked good to eat. It smelled good to eat. It was good to eat. He named it, ‘Good to Eat’.

Yet, at that moment, beneath that tree, on that uneasy morning, Adam felt that this particular fruit could have been better. It would have been better if he had been able to reach up his arm to twist down a second fruit and hand it to Eve. She would have named it too. They would have laughed. They would have merged their different names, played with them, sung them, danced them. And then she would have burst the fruit in her mouth, sending shining pips cascading down her breasts, and they would have laughed some more. Adam stood and looked at the denuded stalk in his hand and felt a need for more.

He reached up and took another fruit from the same tree. He brought it immediately to his teeth. No need to name this one.
‘Where is Eve?’ he asked the twittering forest.
This second fruit was less sweet, less succulent, less satisfying. He tried another, and another, and another.
‘Where is Eve?’

He considered to himself that there had to be another fruit on this particular tree that was as good as the first, the one that he had named Good to Eat. He climbed the tree to reach more fruit. He tried the largest. He tried the brightest. He tried the longest. He searched in vain. His belly was full but his search was not ended. Would he have to eat every single fruit on the entire Good to Eat Tree?
‘Where is Eve?’
He had had enough. He slid down through the branches and leapt easily to the forest floor. He felt an urge to walk, to walk swiftly. So he walked.

The brush of soft ferns against his skin felt good. But it didn’t make him
dance. It always made Eve dance. And Eve’s dancing was an invitation Adam
could never refuse. She would crouch and stretch and jump and slide, relishing
the subtle sensations of the fern against all the different areas of her smooth
flesh.
Adam walked.
‘Where is Eve?’
The forest track brought him out into the open, into the sun’s heat. He walked on. There was a great deal of walking to be done that morning. A herd of horned creatures browsed contentedly on the sunlit grass. Adam shouted them a name. They looked up, acknowledged their namer with a shake of their sleek heads, and returned to the business of eating. Eve would have rushed among the herd, embracing necks, caressing flanks, engaging eyes. She was like that.

Adam walked on, stepping deftly round a lark who had built her nest on his path. The lark sang as Adam passed. But her song failed to thrill. The feeling of not-quite-rightness pervaded the morning. The forest was a touch too cool; the sun a fraction too hot. The grazing herd had been too far away for Adam to choose to visit it; the lark too close.
Where was Eve?
‘Eve?’
‘Eve!’
Only the distant lark replied. Adam had to get to the place he was walking towards: the particular place, the
place in the very middle, at the very top; the place where he found meaning. This particular place was a tree. This particular tree always had fruit, and its fruit was always fresh. It was a centre of reference in the constantly changing life of the forest. It was a place that made sense. At this tree, beneath its shade,
all the complex references of Adam’s existence found order. This one tree, unlike everything else that lived in the forest, had a single unchanging name – ‘Knowing’. It was the tree of knowledge. And that morning Adam needed knowledge. He needed to know where Eve was.

At last he arrived at the centre of all that he knew, at the tree he called Knowing. Adam leaned against its reassuring trunk and closed his eyes. With his flesh there, resting against the rounded bark, he let his jumbled accumulation of experience take order.
He was alone.
He was in the forest without Eve.
He was at the Knowing Tree without Eve.

They had been here together. They had been here together many times. It was here that they had first explored their differences and made sense of them.
It was here that longing had flowered into love.

It was here that he had first met Eve on a bright, fresh morning. What a morning that had been! What joy! What completeness! What a dance they had danced together, the fusion of likeness and otherness.
At the Knowing Tree, these shards of knowledge came together and formed a meaningful pattern.
It was here that the Creator had given Adam the knowledge that having another someone to share life with would be better than all the wonder of being alone in the forest. And the Creator had been right. On that barely remembered night, Adam had gone to sleep alone at the Knowing Tree and had woken up to find Eve by his side. What a find! The Creator had said to him, ‘She is very good.’ And the Creator had been right.
Here at the Knowing Tree, this new… this uneasy morning, Adam smiled. He smiled deeply. He smiled for the first time since he had woken alone.

He looked up into the branches of the tree and saw its fruit. That fruit gave meaning to every other fruit in the forest. It was the fruit of Knowing. Looking at that fruit, Adam knew that he could eat any fruit that he desired in all of the rest of the world. The fruit of that one tree was the template of goodness. Any
fruit that in any way resembled it was good. Any fruit that bore no resemblance to it was not good – not for him nor for Eve. He knew that. He knew it because the tree in the centre of everything was the tree of the knowledge of goodness – a gift from the Creator. And he also knew that he should never eat the fruit
of that tree. The Creator had told him so. It was fruit for knowledge, not for eating.
‘Where is Eve?’

Adam closed his eyes again and let his knowledge take order. He followed his thoughts as his eyes had just followed the branches of the Knowing Tree, from their fruit-laden tips to its sturdy centre. His mind led him back to the moments when there had been no Eve. They were not moments when Eve
was elsewhere enjoying the aloneness of life. They were moments when Eve had not been… moments when there had just been him, Adam, and the other creatures he loved to name.
Leaning against that unmoving tree, Adam’s feelings found their point of resonance. They echoed back to him from his long-stored past. Through all his and Eve’s uncounted days of togetherness and apartness, Adam had not known this morning’s feeling. But he had known it before, long before, before Eve,
before duets and harmonies and pas de deux.
Leaning against the Knowing Tree, Adam found the knowledge he was searching for.
He was lonely. He was lonely… again. Adam suffered a new feeling. It was a feeling you and I know very well, but which – for Adam – was entirely new. It was a feeling of heaviness, of slowness, of dullness. It was as though the colour of the forest, with all its fruits and flowers, had been subtly dimmed. It was as if the singing of the lark had diminished and the squawk of the crows had grown deafening.
Adam was sad.

Extract from "To know or not to know" by Robert Harrison taken from the Must Know Stories 

Comments

[Peter Kirk]

That's a beautiful interpretive retelling of part of the Adam and Eve story. It reminds me a bit of a long part of C.S. Lewis' Voyage to Venus or Perelandra, except that there it is "Eve" who is alone. It was a shame to cheapen this beauty with words like "sexes up" and "Adam couldn't get enough of the naked Eve."

[Tom Jackson]

"Mr Harrison said the idea came when he asked 1000 secondary school pupils in an assembly if they knew the story of David and Goliath and was met with blank faces."

So, Reverend, spend your time getting some decent, Christian religious instruction reintroduced into our schools instead of introducing "chick flick" techniques or reducing eternal biblical truths down to a level only suitable for our throw-away culture.

[Rowan Grigg]

Adam seems quite discontent and restless. He's not going to be with Eve very much longer at this rate.

[matt]

Will the film version Eve be Angelina Jolie, Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Heather Mills, a call girl celebrity like Alexandra Dupre aka Kristen, or a power broker female?

[George Parr]

Beautifully written and laden with sexual references, some subliminal, no doubt designed to appeal to hormonally challenged teenagers, (if not a window for peering at the Reverend's own psyche!).

So at what point does reality kick in after the hook? The reality that for any older secondary pupils grasping the Christian baton, the narrowness that relates to sexual behaviour, the rigid views on gender specificity and unswerving heterosexual values, are actually strong expectations or de rigeur in the faith?

I am horrified at TJ's suggestion that 'decent' religious instruction (whatever that means) should be imposed in schools, although children being made aware of cultural differences
together with the long history of religious intolerance and how it impacts on societies claiming peace as an objective, seem wholly necessary curricular imperatives.

Collections of colourful stories such as these do retain a certain appeal, if only to compare them with the stark reality of what continual rote-learned repetition has actually failed to achieve.

How would the Reverend address the story of the Last Judgment,(I presume he hasn't) with its intimations of a general resurrection of the dead? The archangel Michael weighing up global souls in their entirety? Perhaps God appearing as Dante's Jupiter?

How will he sex up the Son of Man dividing the sheep from the goats, as the unrighteous are carted away to eternal punishment? These unlikely events were confidently expected in the year 1000CE, after which, since the planet kept on being flat, the church laid increasing stress on the 'Four Last Things', death, judgment, heaven and hell. And according to some, writing here, this has not changed.

What possible relevance have these myths and stories other than some continuing to represent fairly gloomy stories, whilst others retain a simple fascination?

[Rick Beekman]

Two very important verses Mr. Harrison needs to read;
(1) John 4 v 24; "God is a Spirit and those that worship him MUST worship him in Spirit and in TRUTH."

(2)Revelation 22 V 18 "For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book..If any man shall add unto these things..God shall add unto him the plaques that are written in this book."

I submit Mr. Harrison is not really interested in getting people to read the Bible..rather he is more interested in $$$$$$$. amen.

[Jane Upchurch]

Why does it surprise people to think God invented sex as something to be enjoyed? That sounds more like VIctorian morality than biblical Christianity.

[Ian Gooding]

Tom, perhaps you should read the book itself, see the link for details. I personally have read Must Know Stories, and think they are a lovingly crafted retelling of ten eternal stories in a form that will make them more attractive for, say, a class of secondary school students to enjoy and learn from. If they want to check how the story sits with the Bible text itself, that's included as part of the book.

[Tom Jackson]

Ian, I am assuming that the story of Adam and Eve, reproduced here, is a reasonable example of the approach taken, and quality of Reverend Harrison’s writing. I have no reason to believe that the other stories should be any different to that on which I based my comment.

What does interest me is the assumption that such an approach will make scripture more “attractive” and accessible to groups such as secondary school students. I am not dogmatic or inflexible when it comes to searching for ways in which this objective can be fulfilled.

Where music is concerned, for example, I have explored the approach taken by Christians such as Graham Kendrick whose songs of praise are deeply rooted in scripture. As a guitarist, I have led congregations in modern interpretations of popular hymns as well. Some people may see this as trivialising Christian teaching but unlike the story in debate here, popular worship songs do, in the main, reinforce biblical teaching in the way as the hymns of, for example, Charles Wesley.

As a Christian, Jane, it doesn’t surprise me that God made sex enjoyable. In fact, my thanks and praise for this gift figures pretty high in the content of my prayers! Thank you, God.

George, George! I am disappointed, if not surprised, that my plea for the reintroduction of RI into our schools horrified you. At least this debate as once again given you the opportunity to roll out your disillusionment of religion in general.

Do you have a valid point? Yes, you do because there are certainly enough examples of Christians and Christianity in the past falling well short of what Christ expects.

But faith and belief are about looking beyond every instance of the manner in which Man interprets and reacts to Christ’s teaching. I may not agree with the Reverend’s approach to these stories but I can see where he is going, what he is trying to do. We are on the same path, walking towards God in the company of other people trying the best they can – but usually falling well short of what we would like to achieve.

You look for perfection; you can identify what is wrong but not what is right. You really should ask yourself, are we blind or are you?

[Ian]

If someone wrote a book on arithmetic that said 'two plus two is nine', four divided by six is eight, what would you call those people who bought it?

[George Parr]

'We are on the same path walking towards God...' a 'rolling out' if ever there was one, albeit poetic!

For man not to fall short, he needs realistic aspirations I agree, and these are demonstrably seen to stop far short of notions of perfection. 'Falling short' ranges from Christian self-flagellation through guilt, based on failing to attain impossible or imaginary standards - to genocide stemming from a raft of greed or power driven inhumanity couched in 'religious' ideals.

'Falling well short' is then actually a euphemism for, say, mass murder, social control or violent doctrinal imposition. Unhappily 'we' actually exist and a continuation of history shows some of [us] are trying to achieve these things, thoroughly imposing [ourselves] on others.

In a question of blindness, an insight may be gained by the appropriate addition of 'wilful', which, for me, impacts directly upon the Christian position regarding definitions of reality in problem-solving.

It seems to me that inroads might be made through secondary school pupils urgently understanding the diversity and ambiguity involved in 'walking towards' the varying accounts of deities, together with how very little it actually achieves in real terms. As a value-laden concept, this might far outweigh the arguable relevance of biblical myths and stories, none of which extend forwards one inch to create a stable society, or to challenge realistically what Christians and others perceive to be right or wrong with it.

[Tom Jackson]

“'Falling short' ranges from Christian self-flagellation through guilt … “

I rest my case!

Not for George the subtle awareness of the faults and failures of Christianity as we know it today. Let’s get out the cattail whips and the cilice. Let’s pour through the history books and catalogue every misuse of Christian belief and faith. Let’s ignore human nature and fall back on religious movements for all the ills of the world!

I suppose there is no alternative if you are determined to ignore those aspects of Christianity which have attracted, encouraged and motivated so many good men and women to find the basis for their life, for the manner in which they contribute to their community now and throughout history in Jesus Christ.

[George Parr]

Tom, steady on! I thought the cilice was for members of government like Ruth Kelly who, naturally, would belong to an extremist Catholic sect...

No need to pour through books Tom, the evidence is, as they say 'in your face'. Surely the whole concept of human nature tends to dissolve with the invocation of spiritual deities who represent ultimate power? I do not believe for one moment that religious movements are to blame for all wordly ills!

I do think however, that you describe a certain Betjemanesque type of Christianity, redolent of candlelit chancels and tweedy-smelling naves - a stereotype featuring Eddie Izzard's boneless worthies! On another level, might those inert souls who await a second coming, placing their trust in the invisible be regarded as deluded?

I certainly do not believe however that their rights to faith should be supplanted, or that they should be routinely valued as less worthy citizens. But please can we achieve a balance in schools, in some case trumpeting the benefits of non-belief or approaching spirituality for what it actually is - something indefineable?

[andrew holden]

George asked: "How will he sex up the Son of Man dividing the sheep from the goats, as the unrighteous are carted away to eternal punishment?

What possible relevance have these myths and stories...?"

Well George in this case the story is about how God's judgment will fall not, as Jesus' devout listeners might have thought, on the non-religious and the unbelievers but upon those who have no compassion for their fellow human beings. I should have thought that you might have found some relevance in that at least!

[Ian]

Mr Jackson,
Can't you see what is wrong? The story and theme are both distorted and redirected.
2 plus 2 is 4, if you teach that 2 plus 2 is 7, all the sums thereafter will be wrong.
That to me is immoral, because it is the deliberate corruption of anothers mind purely for monetary gain.

[Ian]

Mr Jackson,
Can't you see what is wrong? The story and theme are both distorted and redirected.
2 plus 2 is 4, if you teach that 2 plus 2 is 7, all the sums thereafter will be wrong.
That to me is immoral, because it is the deliberate corruption of anothers mind purely for monetary gain.