Crumb's GENESIS: Jacob and Esau

[jlroberson]

From Robert Crumb's absolutely excellent GENESIS(which is, btw, over 300 pages), a short excerpt from the story of Jacob and Esau, one portion from the start of the tale and one jumping to much later, when they are both old. Some who might not be familiar with this story might find it striking that (a) Jacob is such a dick, (b) God rewards the undeserving, and (c) Isaac sure gets it coming & going, doesn't he? (he's the same Isaac with that crazy dad with the voices telling him to sacrifice his son). It's not really so strange if, instead of looking at it as a religious text, you look at it as a typical Bronze Age mythology. And in those? People are very, very tricky and deceitful, and the concept of "justice" really has no bearing on any of the gods. This is nothing; try the House of Atreus sometime.












(c)2009 R. Crumb.

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Comments

[box_in_the_box]

Heh. No, Paul is more to Christianity what Quesada is to Marvel. ;)

[halialkers]

Well, he's more a Marty Stu than Jesus is. Jesus is more the Unbuilt Trope in a way, Saul of Tarsus who goes from EBIL REPRESSIVE BASTARD to Saint Paul, HERO OF THE CHRISTIAN IMPERIUM!!! is the first Christian Marty Stu there ever was.

[box_in_the_box]

Yes, but Paul was both an author and a character in those stories, so perhaps a closer equivalent would be Bill Jemas?

I'm basically thinking of someone who completely misunderstood the point of the original characters, but nonetheless permanently redefined them for all future readings.

Cue the Pym fans saying, "No, that's Shooter ..."

[halialkers]

True, he was both an author and a character, but then the Bible is written by Unreliable Narrators from the start.

Paul of the Acts of the Apostles seems a bit of a Jerk-Ass in some ways anyway. As does Paul elsewhere, but you *see* the Jerk-Ass nature in the Acts of the Apostles a mite more clearly.

[jlroberson]

Interesting thing about Paul, who represents what, I think, is a 40-year gap between Jesus' presumed death date and the first written synoptic gospels, is that he rarely makes any reference to any stories we associate with Jesus, making one wonder if he was aware of them even in developing form(like the supposed "Q" document, the proto-gospel from which the others developed). He comes off as barely aware of anything BUT Jesus' death and assumed resurrection.

[halialkers]

Well, St. Paul would have lived in a time when oral tradition made up the backbone of the Church. Much of the NT is actually his personal writings, akin to me converting to Scientology and my E-mails becoming canon or summat.

[jlroberson]

No no, that would be SHOOTER.

[box_in_the_box]

CALLED IT