The Sanctity of Retelling Myth

R.L. Crumb’s Book of Genesis and Siku’s The Manga Bible take the classic stories of Genesis and add their own twists to the stories. Crumb stays pretty true to the source, either directly pulling text or using similar language and style as the original story. On the other hand, Siku takes more liberties than Crumb, adding in light dialogue and manga style illustration to give the story a much more casual feel. This can be seen in their respective portrayals of creation myth. Crumb sticks to the usual script with God ruling over the days of creation, while Siku takes a more creative route, animating the creation of light with "ZZZAAAPPPP!!". Does this creative liberty embodied by twisting and almost playfully presenting the creation myth and biblical stories as a whole violate their inherent sanctity? 

            Crumb’s depiction of the story is very similar to the usual versions of the story that are continuously told and envisioned. The style of illustration is relatively tame, and God is depicted in the traditional “bearded wise man” style. Due to this conformity, it’s hard to argue that Crumb is threatening the sanctity of the myth. On the other hand, Siku’s work blends many other atypical influences into Genesis. For example, the illustrations themselves clearly have Japanese influences, and at one point in the book, he refers to Jesus as “a samurai stranger”.[1] Is this an infringement on traditional sanctity, or in today’s increasingly secular society is this simply a creative way to reach out to a new audience that otherwise wouldn't be interested in reading biblical myths?

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[1]Banerjee, Neela. "The Bible as Graphic Novel, With a Samurai Stranger Called Christ". The New York Times. Feb. 10, 2008.

Depictions of religious stories: real or authentic?

“The Manga Bible” and “The Book of Genesis Illustrated b R. Crumb” are two comic book versions of Genesis. These recreations of the story of the bible demonstrate several of the issues of mythology, namely losing information in translation. The story of Genesis has been retold for thousands and thousands of years, and ideas, plot, characters, and many other aspects of the story can change when so many people are telling it. Culture, time period, and place may all have an impact on the way the story is told. This can be seen in R. Crumb’s cartoon version because his story of creation is depicted much differently from the original version and from “The Magna Bible” version. For example, two humans are created, but later, God forms Adam’s identity and after that God extracts a rib from his body. This differs from the original creation story because in the original, Adam is the first and only human created, and then a woman, Eve, is made from one of Adam’s ribs. An interesting aspect of “The Magna Bible” depiction is that in some ways it demonstrates the secularism of religious stories. This doesn’t really include the meaning of the creation story. Instead it uses anime to tell the story and excludes the religious meaning behind the plotline. One other issue really stands out to me, which is that by including images with a story, it can significantly change the perception and interpretation. For example, both of these comics depict God with lots of facial hair and a cane. Also images can change the emphasis that is put on certain aspects of the story. Adam is depicted as very chiseled and masculine, while Eve is shown to be beautiful with extremely feminine features. These aspects of the story seem unimportant, however they highlight the gender constructs that are not as prevalent in the original version.

All of these issues make me wonder, what is real and what is authentic? If stories are being retold in different ways, who is the one to decide which version is accurate? If religious stories are becoming more secular, then who is to say that it is even a religious story at this point? I think that the point of the bible is to teach certain beliefs and values. However, if the stories are becoming so secular, like in movies such as Noah, then how can that be considered an authentic religious story? I don’t think that it can be, which is where many issues lie with mythology. Also, who is to say that these physical depictions are accurate? Maybe these physical aspects of the story are unimportant, but they definitely may change the way that future generations view the creation story, and all the other stories of the bible.