By Rebecca Tran
Finding fantasy in the Bible may sound like heresy to some, and I am not suggesting by any means that the Bible is a work of fiction. I am in fact a christian with great faith. What I am referring to is reading between the lines. You can find inspiration in how and why the Bible was written; what was included and what was left out of this holy text. For me, all it took was a little research and basic understanding of how the Bible came to be.
I've found material for three novels in the Bible. One novel only used a small piece while the other two wouldn't exist without it unfortunately only one is completed so far. During this two part blog, I will show you some of the discoveries I made. Hopefully, you will find it as interesting as I did and inspire you to draw inspiration from one of the oldest books in history.
When researching anything in the Bible, you first have to understand how it was constructed. I say this because their are "unofficial" books of the Bible in existence. Those are writings made by christians or followers of Christ that didn't make the cut to be official canon of scripture. That criteria were as follows:
- Written by a recognized prophet or apostle
- Written by those associated with a recognized prophet or apostle
- Truthfulness in the writing
- Faithfulness to previously accepted canonical writings
- Confirmed by Christ, prophet, or disciple
- (original)Church usage and recognition (For more info)
Nephilim are nothing new they were mentioned in books before and had a movie made out of them. They are humans born of angels, and yes according to the Bible they existed. However, they weren't
handsome teenagers with mystical powers or even 300 year old vampires. They weren't even the good guys.
Nephilim according to the Bible were a race of giants. They were evil and led to the downfall of man. Some scholars argue that they were prolific breeders and so corrupt that they led to the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah. It was the Nephilim that God wanted to destroy in the flood. Of course, there is debate everywhere that God did not succeed in killing all the Nephilim. The Promised Land was inhabited by them before the Israelites arrived, and Goliath was supposedly one. For more information here are three sites with interesting arguments. 1. 2. 3.
When I needed a way to re-invent vampire lore in "For Their Sins" Nephilim gave me the perfect opportunity. Who better to track down the world's worst sinners than descendant's of angels. Only this time everything was done with God's approval and under his control.
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