What revisions would you make to the christian bible to turn it a good fantasy book?

[Vesayen]

I don't like tolkien so for one we'd need to get rid of any complicated names.....

Throw in dwarves and elves, maybe a few dragons to spice it up a bit....


OH everyone needs to walk everywhere........ nevermind, already in there.

Oh, Jesus needs to defeat incresingly impossible to defeat enemies, each more impossible to defeat then the last!


".....And then the lord said, "I put on thy Robe and thy wizard hat!...."

[Asher]

Queue the knee-jerk response of "it's fantasy already"

[Vesayen]

I said a GOOD fantasy book.

The christian bible is not an entertaining read.... for one its all preachy.

[:) Smiley]

I'd take out everything except for the first and last chapters.

[Immortal Wombat]

Yup. Removing the first 65 books would be the easiest way.

Otherwise, the New Testament would be pretty dull fantasy however you change it. It would be like a book by a Terry Goodkind who had converted to Christianity. You might be able to get some good stuff out of the Gospels by making the saving of mankind more immediate - some urgent sacrifice to prevent the Nameless One from stealing souls perhaps. It would just need a sprinkling of magics and arcane lore or somesuch.

The Old Testament would also need a complete reworking. Lose the books of law. Either lose the books of prophesies or shuffle them into the histories as vaguely relevant interjections to the narrative. Sprinkle Proverbs and Psalms as poems at the beginning of each chapter in apt places in the narrative, then make the main story a retelling of the histories (including Genesis).

The pace of the book, however, is far too fast. It would read ever worse than the Silmarilion: each generation has a brief story, with little dialogue, and less point. You'd really have to make the God character the main focus (harr harr) as he watches his chosen people for a thousand years or so. Alas, the character of God has traditionally had little room for development, what with being perfect and all. Maybe you could tie together the story by having Abraham's bloodline endowed with some magical property, and follow all the wacky ways it influences the Hebrew people as they wander round the desert, fighting off orcs and taking Canaan from the Dwarfmalites. That would make it easier to weave in the x begat y, who begat z bits.

[Velociryx]

C. S. Lewis beat you to the punch...

-=Vel=-

[Tattila the Hun]

I have a illustrated children's bible, which I got from my very religious grandmother when I was just a wee lad. Quite fun to read, even though I don't think it's any holier than the Lord of the Rings. Horrifyingly violent, though.

[Last Conformist]

I'd mostly just remove the boring genealogical tables and repetitions.

[rah]

Remove the entire new testament and replace it with "Stranger in a strange land"

[General Ludd]

Light Sabers.

[Elok]

Huh, this isn't locked yet? Fo gigure...

[Nostromo]

Originally posted by Velociryx
C. S. Lewis beat you to the punch...

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
It would read ever worse than the Silmarilion

Heretic!

Honestly, The Silmarillion is one of my very favourite books, and one I reread every few years.

[pchang]

Didn't L. Ron Hubbard already do this?

[Eli]

Well, you can start with not repeating the same story 4 times. Then add some real content to the letters, with more descriptions of prosecutions for example, the current text is just boring and repetitive. Revelations should be made a bit more clear, it's supposed to be cool and all, but it's not readable enough for that.