Modern Myths: Stories from the Bible

In the beginning … there was a meeting, and the gods decided how to parcel the earth among themselves; Yahweh kept Israel for himself. Then something goes wrong: snake shows up, Adam and Eve are kicked out of Eden, and they end up in the portions of the earth reserved to the other gods. Chaos follows: Cain sacrifices Abel to Yahweh and cannibalizes him. One of the lost tribes of Israel ends up in Hell. A medieval anchorite imprisons herself in a hermit’s cell, trying to escape Hell. A poor fundamentalist preacher is given a sacred charm, sells it, and seizes power in the name of Christ. A holy huddle of Christians tries to seal itself off from the sin of the world in a high-security bunker, schisms, and reunites against the threat of a holy impostor. Scientists at the famous CERN laboratory dethrone God while looking for the God Particle. God laughs. What do these fables have in common? They are untold stories of the Bible; stories that will provoke and perhaps insult you. Each carefully researched story in Modern Myths originates in a passage from scripture, and tells a tale of the pervasive shadow side of God and religion in the beginning, through the arc of history, and in the scientific instruments used to look back at the beginning.