When I began taking creative writing classes at a University, tackling a bible story or retelling it frightened me. Fear struck because I was afraid of being unprepared; not knowing enough about the biblical passage. It wasn't until I took a Bible in Literature class when I found certain outlets for this. It was because of the way these writers dodged cares about giving wings to their imagination. It was inspiring and the techniques from writer to writer varied.
One of the writers in our class readings was the author Jorge Luis Borges. In one of his works, titled “Legend,” Borges creates an amazing story out of a biblical passage in Genesis 4:1-16. The story in the bible tells us that Cain and Abel were brothers and that God in some way accepted Abel’s offerings and not Cain’s. Ultimately, the bible says that Cain killed Abel on a field. What Borges does, however, was give a twist to this passage. He creates a narrative between the brothers after Abel’s death – perhaps afterlife. The writer goes on to make the reader imagine that in afterlife, Abel has forgotten the incident until Cain begins to ask for forgiveness. I thought this was extremely clever in many ways. In one way, Borges very subtlety hints that Abel might rethink his relationship with his brother. In another, Borges explores the guilt of the “evil” brother. It makes the reader identify with both characters because of its depiction of reality; reality being that no one is one-hundred percent good or one-hundred percent bad.
Another writer I want to mention is Dan Pagis. Pagis wrote “Autobiography,” which was a poem fictionally narrated by Abel. It begins to vividly picture Abel’s burial. “If my family is famous, not a little of the credit goes to me,” the writer paints a picture of bitterness in the character. He states that he feels like he has been forgotten (perhaps in scripture and throughout generations). The bible no longer references his death after Genesis and he writes that Cain continued to be talked about when he multiplied while his body remained in the soil of the earth. Ending the poem, Pagis taunts the readers with Abel’s intentions of getting his brother back. “His legions desert him and go over to me, and even this is only half a revenge.”
In Gertrude Landa’s “Jewish Fairy Tale: Giant of the Flood,” Landa creates an imaginary tale about Noah’s hard decision in receiving the Giant Og’s help in boarding a large unicorn. He retells the story as if Noah was faced with the decision of doing an impossible task which was to get a gigantic unicorn onto the Arc. Noah was hesitant at first because biblically, giants are demons. However, after a long mournful plea to be saved, Noah ends up helping Og be saved and Og helped Noah board the Unicorn. What I can steal from Landa’s tale is the writer’s creative imaginative story telling. The way Gertrude told the story was without fear of being wrong and wasn’t ashamed of telling the story according to his imagination.
A fourth story I was inspired to model my writing after was Itsik Manger’s poem “Hagar’s Last Night in Abraham’s House.” The bible talks about God’s promise to Abraham and a prophecy of Abraham receiving a son. In Genesis 21:14, Abraham sends Hagar – a slave woman away along with Abraham’s son out of wedlock son. Now, Manger gives his poem a twist by giving the slave woman a twist and making a villain out of Abraham. After all, Abraham did abandon his duties of being a father and raising his child. The poem projects Abraham’s wife, Sarah, as an angry wife who demands Hagar to leave. What Manger does in his poem is give the story an edge by adding elements of modern day relevance. Also, Manger writes about Hagar’s true attachment to Abraham and her sentimental state of mind while she is being kicked out.
What I believe is a solution to getting over my fear of being wrong is trying to explore the possibilities of what might have happened and being clear about my creative inventions. The writers we read about in class took on many minor incidents in the bible. They gave a voice to characters in the bible who never had one. It gave a voice to women who never were seen as more than property. I can model one of my poem’s after Itsik Manger’s “Hagar’s Last Night in Abraham’s House,” and give a voice to a woman in the bible; perhaps the female fortune teller in Acts 16 where Paul and Silas become irritated with her and banish the prophetic fortunetelling demon out of the slave woman. I think this is an amazing way of incorporating the bible into my writing; I can also attempt to model a poem or short story after Jorge Luis Borges’s “Legend” and giving a voice to a character in the bible that isn’t understood – Judas Iscariot’s feelings on betraying Jesus.
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