Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Scary Bible Stories 2007

Happy Halloween, everyone! In early celebration of the macabre tradition, CFI Los Angeles held an event on the 24th entitled, "Scary Bible Stories!" A performance of the same name had been held in 2003 (long before I got involved at CFI), and I was asked for this incarnation to submit some good examples of gruesome, horrifying and spooky passages from the Bible. This being a specialty of mine, I compiled a long list of entries from the Old and New Testaments (that's right, even the NT has scary material). I threw in an episode from the apocrypha and two entries from non-canonical gospels for good measure. An anonymous friend provided a passage from the book of Mormon. I ended up as emcee of the event (that's me on the right with the periwinkle bathrobe and shepherd-like head covering). We took turns reading passages aloud, commenting on the absurdities of the texts, and a few people even provided dramatic readings. In the picture, Wendy and Spencer share a dialogue incorporating text from Genesis 2 and 3 with some commentary on Biblical chauvinism. Later, Jim and Karen dramatized the plight of Noah’s neighbors in Genesis 7.

At the risk of spoiling some of my future editions of Awkward Bible Passages, I will make the list available here in pdf. Be forewarned that there's lots of scary stuff in the Bible: incest, cannibalism, child sacrifice, genital mutilation, chopped up body parts, genocide, impaling, burst intestines and more! Certifiable Halloween material, to be sure.