Sequels
It doesn’t matter how good a sequel may be, there will always be people unhappy with changes the author made. Personally? I think the lack of genealogy alone is a marked improvement in the work, though it does still suffer some rather amateur problems. I mean, who thought telling the story from multiple perspectives with strange variations was a good idea? And not telling us about Jesus’ teenage years? Come on! That could have really drawn in the teen demographic, especially if God had thrown some werewolves or vampires in there…
I would have liked to see more about the Devil in the New Testament as well, I feel like he had a lot of unexplored potential. Oh well, I suppose we should all be glad he got in there a bit at least. I’m sure Satanists are really stoked to see him at all.
I’ve always loved the tone shift from the Old Testament to the New. Every time I read the Bible, it gives me a good chuckle. Of course, there’s a totally reasonable explanation for all of it, but it doesn’t make it any less jarring. The works being composed hundreds of years apart by human authors certainly makes the change understandable, but if you consider the works to be the actual literal work of God, as some folks do, it becomes pretty funny. I always end up picturing God up there, bent over his desk, pen in hand, struggling over each page. He’s sitting there thinking about how his first work did pretty well and he wants to reach a larger audience so he goes back to the drawing board. He doesn’t really want to do a sequel to his original work, but he builds off it anyway taking it in a completely new direction. What happened between writing those two works that changed this all knowing, all powerful deity that has existed since the beginning of time? Did he go through some crazy life experiences in Heaven that completely changed his point of view? Did humanity do some shit that he just didn’t see coming at all? That seems short-sighted for a god of this caliber, doesn’t it? You’d think he’d just get it right the first time.
Maybe the G-man felt like he came across as a bit of a dick in the first book, throwing out plagues left and right, letting poor Job be tortured, making Abraham almost sacrifice his son just to make a point…it just doesn’t look super great. Of course, he does go on to make himself a son and then kill the poor guy so I guess the image thing wasn’t a factor…
Whatever the reason for his shift in writing style and tone, it’s hard to argue with the results. Sure, the big guy did alright with the Old Testament, it was pretty well received by a lot of people when it was first making the rounds, but the addition of the New Testament has really given him some real traction.
It’s hard to argue with the numbers.
I’m just glad that God got around to writing more, if for nothing other than the entertainment value. It’s been a while, but I’m excited to see what he does next. I think we can all be agree it’ll be a big deal. Maybe he’ll have a daughter and have her tied to some train tracks for our sins. Maybe he’ll throw in some of those werewolves and vampires I mentioned above!
That would be excellent.
I think, in my whole movie- and book collection, more than 1/3 of all main characters dies. Les Miserables is my most favorite book, so…
When the death of a character is meaningful or he dies to rescue someone, he loves, it can be a great. And if the death of somebody gives his lives a meaning in first place, it is okay too. What i really dislike is, when the protagonist dies, just because the author must create a pseudo-emotional impact and the hero dies for nothing.
They pale in comparison to the OT examples, but we do get a few variations of Jesus’ genealogy listed in the Gospels. #quibbling
haha This is true, but yes it is nothing compared to the OT. These guys clearly expected more! Longer lists! More names!
It is a sequel, after all!
Well in defense of the OT’s fondness of genealogy and rules, it WAS a tribal history book and lawbook in one. So…. that’s kind of exactly the expected content.
The NT was a compendium of a (arbitrarily chosen?) selection of the growing multitude of works ’bout Jesus that existed at the time. Why they chose contradicting bits, I don’t know. I guess there just weren’t enough non-contradicting works to fill a single book.
I guess they were the works that contradicted each other less. If you want to laugh one day, check ut the apocryphal gospels.
What makes you think G-man didn’t throw a vampire in there? “Take and drink, this is my blood.” Dies, rises from his grave. Power base established in his name tortures anyone who refuses to swear fealty to his eternal undead rulership.
Sounds like a vampire to me.
But he’s not afraid of sunlight! Only of being touched. And he doensn’t appear to drink blood himself.
Obviously he’s one of the undead, but perhaps more likely a lich or cleverly disguised skeletal wizard (fish and wine!).
>What happened between writing those two works that changed this all knowing, all powerful deity that has existed since the beginning of time? Did he go through some crazy life experiences in Heaven that completely changed his point of view?
Well yeah.
He had a kid. XD
SPOILERS! GAH… TOTALLY RUINED IT FOR ME…THANKS A LOT!
No, no. There’s a twist at the end. Doesn’t end with character dies.
What about the Koran and Book of Mormon? Are you looking at those as spin-offs rather than sequels?
haha I suppose that is what I’d consider them. I actually was trying to think of a way to include them in this strip but both books are usually taken as separate entities that build on the ideas present in Judaism and Christianity. It’s easy to do a joke about the Old Testament + the New Testament as a direct sequel because they’re packaged together so neatly!
Also, to be honest, my knowledge of both of those particular works, is pretty lacking. I try not to do strips that include topics I don’t know very well. 😛
So, fan fic?
Sort of like this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shocking_Dark
Now I’m waiting for the porn version. Last Temptation was just to lame an attempt.
The book of Mormon must be a spin-off. It can’t be a sequel because, as you undoubtedly know, the testaments are part of a trilogy of which the third part (the return of the king) really keeps its audience waiting!
Why, some think that God gave up on the mini-series all together so we will never have the final book. Thanks a lot God!
In German and in Jiddisch-Daitsch “Testamant” means “last will”, so an untranslateable joke goes like this:
The son of an old Jew became a Christian. Such a conversion can in some orthodox quarters be seen as equivalent to the death of the son, so the Jew started rending his cloths http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bereavement_in_Judaism and was sitting in the dark for days fasting and asking God, why he had done this to him.
After three days God appeared to him, asking him to stop pestering him.
“But my son is now a Christian!”, the Jew complained.
“Well cry me a river”, God answered, “what do you think happened to me?”
“But what can I do now?”, the Jew asked.
“Do what I did”, God answered, “make a New Testament.”
(in Jiddisch-Daitsch “… moch a najs Testament.”)
Well, even die hard Christians don’t believe the New Testament was written by God. They’re mostly letters and recollections written by Jesus’ disciples.
You’d be surprised what they believe. But that is coming from someone who lives in a pretty orthodox (ex-)fishermenstown in the Netherlands
Oooh, a Bible belt survivor! Sterkte vriend 🙂
Not sure what place you live in where the most die hard Christian is such a softy, but try to search online for ‘is the bible the word of god’ and see how wrong you are.
While many Christians want to believe that the New Testament was written by Jesus’ disciples, the evidence says otherwise. If the disciples wrote anything, we don’t have it.
They do. Catholics believe that the pope is inspired by God, in telling you what the bible really says, Jack Chick believes that the pope is a tool of satan but King James was inspired and so it goes on.
DUDE!
Spoilers!
A story told by several mutually contradictory unreliable narrators? Worked pretty well for Rashomon… 🙂
There actually were stories of Jesus’s childhood http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infancy_Gospel_of_Thomas , but they were left out of the bible, probably because Jesus comes across in them as a bit like Anthony Fremont from “It’s a Good Life”…http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_a_Good_Life_(The_Twilight_Zone)
🙁 why are my comments not posted.