Steampunk; Myths and Legends

According to the Oxford English Dictionary’s online Science Fiction Citations site the term “Steampunk” (coined 1987) refers to “a subgenre of science fiction which has a historical setting (esp. based on industrialized, nineteenth-century society) and characteristically features steam-powered, mechanized machinery rather than electronic technology.”

As a genre of science-fiction Steampunk has been very close to my heart for some time now, stemming, it seems, from my on going love of turn of the century science-fiction and fantasy writers such as Mary Shelly, Bram Stoker, H.G. Wells, Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft. In essence Steampunk fantasies imagine a hypothetical past where steam powered technology advanced far more than it ever really did resulting in the creation of automobiles, planes, automatic weapons, and even robots long before their times.

It is interesting to note that one of the main functions of myth often seems to be the reimagining of historical events as larger-than-life narratives full of heroes, villains, gods and monsters. In this sense writers of Steampunk science fiction (in fact writers of science fiction and fantasy in general) are very much modern myth makers, retelling the tales of the (not too distant) past but furnishing them with fantastic elements which capture our hearts and minds, even as our modern rationalistic sensibilities are telling us that such things can’t be.

Apparently feeling a similar sentiment CGSociety recently hosted a three month long competition for graphic artists which challenged them “to render traditional myths and legends in the steampunk style using elements of gears, springs, brass and steam power. Re-imagine legendary characters from some of the world’s most ancient stories, such as a steam-powered minotaur, or a Zeppelin-mounted Thor, hurling lightning bolts from the sky.” Very cool.

The contest was sponsored by over a dozen different graphic art companies and offered winners a chance to snatch up “$220,000 in prizes!” Below are some of my favorite pieces from the contest; not all are winners, but all are of epic proportions.

Charles Dickens meets the Bible as a Victorian era David takes on a mechanized Goliath. By Roger Nobs.

One of the contest winners, Fabricio Moraes' robotic Pinocchio, or as he calls it "Steamocchio."

The Fall of Icraus, by Nigel Quarless.

Another contest winner, Guillaume Dubois' very appropriate clockwork Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

In my humble opinion this piece by Jack Zhang should have won simply based on how cool the concept is; The Monkey King Sun-Wu-Kong vs. King Kong!

Winner Marek Madej's take on Don Quixote, the world's first LARPer.

A final peice and another contest winner, "The Fall of Hyperion" by Marcin Jakubowski. Apparently based partly on a science fiction novel by author Dan Simmons and partly on the tale of Zeus throwing the titans (here a giant robot) out of heaven.

Lent: The Story Behind the Tradition

Today (Feb 25th) is Ash Wednesday, the start of the Christian holiday of Lent. Lent occurs forty days before the major Christian holiday of Easter and is used as a time for fasting. Traditionally, a religious fast involves giving up food and water and relying solely on God’s grace to sustain you. However, today most Christians simply give up something of value or enjoyment such as TV or video games, a certain snack food or even sex.

Ash Wednesday derives its name from the ancient practice of marking ones face with ashes as a sign of humility and penitence. The tradition of Lent itself is derived from the New Testament tale of how Jesus fasted for “forty days and forty night” in the wilderness while being tempted by the devil, though this feat actually took place at the beginning of his ministry rather than forty days before the end of it.

This story, commonly referred to as Jesus’ Temptation, can be found in the Gospel of Mark (1:12-13), the Gospel of Matthew (4:1-11), and the Gospel of Luke (4:1-13). These three gospels, known to scholars as the Synoptic Gospels, are the only places in the Bible where this tale is told. The Gospel of John (circa. 90-100 C.E.) is silent in regards to this story as are Pauline and the other apostolic letters.

Lastly, please note that this essay is written from a scholarly view point. This means that I will not be treating the Bible as the “Word of God” but rather as a collection of myths (sacred cultural stories) and histories written down by mortal men. I will also be championing the current scholarly opinion that the authors of the four New Testament gospels were not the men whose names they bear but were rather anonymous early Christians who neither knew Jesus personally nor witnessed his ministry first hand. Finally, all dates are rendered in the standard scholarly format of B.C.E., Before Common Era, and C.E., Common Era, rather than the traditional Christian inspired B.C. (Before Christ) and A.D. (Anno Domini.)

Mark’s Simplified Version

The Gospel of Mark (circa. 70 C.E.) is the oldest of the New Testament gospels having been written roughly fifty-years after Jesus’ death. For this reason it is widely considered to be the most reliable of the New Testament writings concerning the factual happenings of Jesus’ life. In addition to being an extremely straightforward work, Mark’s gospel contains no miraculous birth story, very few extravagant miracles (no turning water into wine, killing fig trees by cursing them, or raising the dead) and no account of the resurrection. Over all the author of Mark’ gospel is one who likes to keep things simple.

This is especially evident when it comes to the tale of Jesus’ encounter with and subsequent temptation by the devil, an account which takes up a full eleven verses in Matthew’s gospel and thirteen in Luke’s but only occupies two verses in Mark…

“And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.”

- Gospel of Mark (1:12-13)

It is important to note that Mark’s author dose not tell us how many times Satan tempted Jesus or what the temptations were. What this indicates is that either these details were not known to Mark’s author or that they had not yet been invented. If the latter is the case then we can understand that even though the basic framework for the temptation was in place in the year 70 C.E. the mythological details would not be filled in until ten years later in 80 C.E. with the penning of Matthew’s gospel.

Differences and Discrepancies in Matthew and Luke

As is so common when studying the Gospel of Matthew (circa. 80 C.E.) and the Gospel of Luke (circa. 90 C.E.) we find that both authors agree in theme but not in details. Both agree that Jesus was lead into the wilderness by the “Spirit” for “forty days” where he was tempted by the devil three times. They do not agree, however, on the order of these temptations, the exact challenge of the first temptation, or on how the affair finally ended.

In regards to the order in which the temptation were given both authors agree that Satan first challenges a hungry Jesus to miraculously provide food for himself. However, they disagree on exactly what that challenged entailed. Matthew’s gospel says that the devil told Jesus to; “…command these stones to become loaves of bread” (Mt.4:3). Luke’s gospel, on the other hand, says that the devil told Jesus to; “…command this stone to become a loaf of bread” (Lk.4:3). Jesus, however, refuses to break his fast and quotes the Hebrew Bible’s Book of Deuteronomy; “‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” (Mt.4:4 & Lk.4:4)

Following this first temptation comes a second. According to Matthew’s author the devil takes Jesus to the very top of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem where he challenges him to “throw yourself down” and see if God sends his angels to catch him. To validate his challenge the devil quotes the 91st Psalm. However, Jesus rebukes him once again with another passage from Deuteronomy; “‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

Luke’s author, however, dissents. He writes that the second temptation involved the devil showing Jesus “in an instant all the kingdoms of the world” and offering them to him if he will only “worship me.” Naturally, Jesus declines with yet another quote from Deuteronomy; “Worship the Lord your God and serve only him.’”

Luke dose not say how the devil showed Jesus “all the kingdoms of the world”, only that he “led him up” to do so. The author Matthew says that the devil took Jesus “to a very high mountain” for this temptation and it is here that we see yet another very strong indication that either Luke is using Matthew’s gospel as a source or that the two are both sharing a common source. Either way, both authors agree on the over all theme of the second and third temptation, one was to tempt Jesus’ loyalty to God, the other his hubris, even if they do not agree on the order in which these temptations took place.

Another interesting contradiction is the way in which Matthew and Luke's authors depict Jesus' adversary; the devil. Matthew's author depicts Satan as a tempter in a manner similar to that of an annoying friend who keeps trying to use peer pressure to talk you into doing something and who Jesus eventually is forced to tell off; “Away with you, Satan!” (Matt.4:10). Luke’s author, on the other hand, stresses the test aspect of Jesus’ encounter with the devil. Luke’s Satan offers Jesus challenges rather than temptations and leaves on his own occurred once Jesus has successfully; “finished every test” (Lk.4:13).

Forty-Days and Forty-Nights: A Homage to the Hebrew Bible

“He was in the wilderness forty days…” - Mark 1:13

“He fasted forty days and forty nights…” - Matthew 4:2

“…where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.” - Luke 4:2

One thing which all three of synoptic gospels do agree on, however, is that Jesus was in the wilderness fasting for; “forty days.” However, Matthew’s gospel is just a tad more specific in that it specifies that Jesus was in the wilderness for; “forty days and forty nights”, a phrase which may sound familiar to those acquainted with the Hebrew Bible or Christian Old Testament.

The phrase “forty days and forty nights” appears nine times in the Hebrew Bible. The first time is in the Book of Genesis where we are told that God flooded the Earth for “forty days and forty nights” (Gen.7:4 & 7:12) in an attempt to purge sin from the world. The second time we hear this phrase is in the Book of Exodus where we find Moses atop Mt. Sinai for “forty days and forty nights” (Ex.24:18 & 34:28) receiving the Ten Commandments from God. The third and final time is in the Book of 1st Kings where we read that the prophet Elijah traveled for “forty days and forty nights” (1 Ki.19:8) to Mt. Horeb where he spoke with God.

As has been dually noted by other scholars in the past the author of the Gospel of Matthew has quite a penchant for drawing references between the Hebrew Bible stories and the life of Jesus. More quotes from the Hebrew Bible appear in the Gospel of Matthew than any other New Testament gospel. In addition to this, a careful study of the New Testament’s tales of Jesus shows that from the very beginning a conscious connection was made in the minds of Jesus’ followers between their Messiah and the figures of Moses and Elijah. Thus it is not surprising that in addition to other biblical parallels we should also find Jesus also spending “forty days and forty nights” in the wilderness communing with God just as Moses and Elijah did.

Cross Cultural Parallels

On the other side of the world and some five-hundred-years prior to Jesus’ trial in the wilderness another young religious reformer had a nearly identical experience. This young reformer was an Indian prince who had left his family and wealth behind to seek enlightenment near the Gaya River beneath a Bo tree. Named Siddhartha Gautama, but better known the world over as the Lord Buddha, legend has it that temptation came to him in the form of a powerful demon called Mara (lit. “life stealer”).

Like Satan in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, Mara offers Siddhartha three temptation in the form of his three daughters; Lust, Restlessness and Greed. Because Siddhartha’s goal was to reach enlightenment and thus find a cure for the world’s greed the third temptation is particularly interesting. According to the Buddhist scripture Samyutta Nikaya. 4:2:10, Mara told Siddhartha to use his spiritual powers to turn the Himalayas into gold so as to quench mankind’s greed. Siddhartha, of course, declines just as Jesus declined to turn stones into bread to quench his own physical hunger.

After failing to tempt Siddhartha, Mara attempts to frighten him with thunder clouds and then by hurling a barrage of weapons at him. However, both of these attempts also fail and Siddhartha reaches enlightenment. Two gods then appear before Siddhartha, now the Buddha, and Mara and demand that Mara depart. These gods then request that the Buddha go forth and preach the revelation that the universe has delivered unto him. This two is similar to the story of Jesus in how we are told by both Mark (1:11) and Matthew (4:11) that Jesus was waited on by angels.

Where This Leaves Us

In the end one can see that the tale of the Temptation of Jesus is obviously a much more complex and highly mythologized tale than many of us give it credit for. Its role in the Gospel’s retelling of the life of Jesus is to show us that all men, no matter how great, struggle with temptation but that it can be overcome if only we look towards God. The holiday of Lent is meant to pull us away from the world, if only a small cherished part of it, and closer to God which has been the quest of great spiritual men of all faiths for thousands of years.

Pictures:

Top Right: A girl celebrates Ash Wednesday by having her forehead marked with ashes drawn in the sign of the cross.

Left: Gustave Doré's (1832-1883) The Temptation of Jesus.

Center: The "wilderness" which Jesus was tempted in has traditionally been identified as the desert Jeshimon, a name which literally translates as "the devastation." The ancient Jews and Helens feared the wilderness not only because of its lack of food and water but because it was also believed to be the haunt of various ghosts, demons and ghouls.

Bottom: The Temptation of Buddha

Sources:

All scripture is quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Holy Bible (1989), Oxford University Press.

The World's Religions (1958) by Huston Smith, Don't Know Much About the Bible (1998) by Kenneth C. Davis, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (1994) by John Dominic Crossan, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time (1994) and Reading the Bible Again for the First Time (2001) by Marcus J. Borg, Jesus and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings (1997) by Marcus J. Borg and Ray Rieger, The Birth of Satan (2005) by T. J. Wray and Gregory Mobley.

Mythology in Music: Avenged Sevenfold’s “Beast and the Harlot”

California based rock band Avenged Sevenfold are known for their biblical reference laden lyrics. Even their band’s name is a direct reference to the tale of Cain and Able, where God pronounces that whoever slays Cain will have vengeance poured out upon them “sevenfold” (Gen. 4:15).

Their hit single “Beast and the Harlot” off their sophomore album City of Evil (2005) is a particularly notable example as it is a retelling of the story of the Whore of Babylon from the Book of Revelation (Chapter 17). In Revelation the Whore of Babylon is a key player in the apocalyptic events that are described as unfolding at the end of time. She is imagined as being “clothed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her fornication” while astride “a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names” and with “seven heads and ten horns.” She will seduce the kings of the earth and will drink “the blood of the saints and the blood of the witnesses to Jesus.” Some scholars have interpreted the Whore of Babylon as an anti-Virgin Mary, the mother of the Antichrist, and wife of the devil.

In the accompanying music video the Whore of Babylon is depicted as a sexual seductress, the black tar symbolizing sin is taken from Dante’s Inferno.

This shining city built of gold, a far cry from innocence,

There's more than meets the eye round here, look to the waters of the deep.

A city of evil.

There sat a seven-headed beast, ten horns raised from his head.

Symbolic woman sits on his throne, but hatred strips her and leaves her naked.

The Beast and the Harlot.

She's a dwelling place for demons.

She's a cage for every unclean spirit,

every filthy bird and makes us drink the poisoned wine to fornicating with our kings.

Fallen now is Babylon the Great.

The city dressed in jewels and gold, fine linen, myrrh and pearls.

Her plagues will come all at once as her mourners watch her burn.

Destroyed in an hour.

Merchants and captains of the world, sailors, navigators too.

Will weep and mourn this loss with her sins piled to the sky,

The Beast and the Harlot.

She's a dwelling place for demons.

She's a cage for every unclean spirit,

every filthy bird and makes us drink the poisoned wine to fornicating with our kings.

Fallen now is Babylon the Great.

The day has come for all us sinners.

If you’re not a servant, you’ll be struck to the ground.

Flee the burning, greedy city.

Lookin’ back on her to see there's nothing around.

I don’t believe in fairytales and no one wants to go to hell.

You've made the wrong decision and it's easy to see.

Now if you wanna serve above or be a king below with us,

You're welcome to the city where your future is set forever.

She’s a dwelling place for demons.

She’s a cage for every unclean spirit,

every filthy bird and makes us drink the poisoned wine to fornicating with our kings.

Fallen now is Babylon the Great.[x2]

God and Golden Cows on Wall Street

It’s not often that I get to do topical blog posts…

The picture up above was taken on Wall Street on October 29th, but it’s not exactly what you might think it is. Yes, the people in the picture are praying. Yes, they are standing in front of a seemingly giant golden bull. Yes, some of them are apparently laying hands on said bull. But are they praying to the bull? The answer, they say, is “No.”

The sculpture in question is the “Charging Bull” (a.k.a. the “Wall Street Bull” or the “Bowling Green Bull”), a 7,000 pound bronze (not gold) sculpture which sits in Bowling Green Park near Wall Street in New York City. The sculpture is symbolic of “aggressive financial optimism and prosperity” or "Bull Marketing," the economic trend currently in practice on Wall Street. The sculpture was created by artist Arturo Di Modica in 1989 as a “Christmas gift” for the city of New York following the 1987 stock market crash.

The event being witnessed in the photo at top was organized by self proclaimed Christian “prophet” and author Cindy Jacobs who claims that in January of 08’ “the Lord” spoke to her saying; “Cindy, the strongman over America doesn’t live in Washington, DC – the strongman lives in New York City! Call My people to pray for the economy.”

Moved by her most recent revelation Jacobs immediately set about writing a new book, The Reformation Manifesto (pub. 3/1/08), to sell to people. This, however, apparently wasn’t good enough for God who spoke to Jacobs again telling her to rally together a group of Christian believers and have them converge on Bowling Green Park on October 29th in order to pray for the economy and to stop “Satan” from causing another “Black Tuesday.”

The reason for Bowling Green Park, Jacobs says, was the “Charging Bull” statue. “We are going to intercede at the site of the statue of the bull on Wall Street to ask God to begin a shift from the bull and bear markets to what we feel will be the 'Lion’s Market,' or God’s control over the economic systems,” stated Jacobs, “While we do not have the full revelation of all this will entail, we do know that without [divine] intercession, economies will crumble.”

On October 29th, Jacobs got her rally with a turn out of what looks like a few dozen people – I was unable to find any concrete numbers, but this is what I’m guessing based on photos and one video. The group prayed, sang ‘God Bless America,’ waved around American flags, and prayed some more.

Naturally, as soon as photos and YouTube footage got out people immediately misinterpreted what they were seeing. The vast majority of viewers took the sight of a few dozen Christians praying and worshiping in front of a statue of a bull as a sign of mass idolatry in progress. Blog and news articles with titles like “Christians are full of bull – on Wall Street,” “Where’s Charlton Heston when you need him?,” and “Jesus People Pray That False Idol Will Save God’s Economy” jumped on Jacobs’ rally and invoked imagery from Exodus 32 (as well as Cecil B. DeMille’s 1956 film The Ten Commandments) in order to brand Jacobs and her group as heretics.

For those who may have forgotten Exodus 32 tells of how Moses’ brother Aaron cast a statue of a golden calf and set it up in opposition to the Hebrew god Yahweh. When Moses discovered this he smashed the original copy of the infamous Ten Commandments on the ground causing an earthquake which swallowed the idol and its misled devotees.

Now on the one hand, its nice to see that the Book of Exodus and its legend of Moses and the golden calf has not lost its place in the public consciousness after all these years. On the other hand, it’s a bit disturbing to see so many people use this kind of religious myth to attack someone based solely on misperception. As for Jacobs and her rally it is interesting to see how times of crisis drive people to religious and mythological solutions for problems which seemingly have no direct worldly answer, reminding one of the comfort as well as the distress which can be gleamed from both myth and faith.

Photos:

At Top: The "Day of Prayer for the World’s Economies" on Wednesday, October 29, 2008.

Middle: The "Charging Bull" as seen in Bowling Green Park, NY.

Bottom: Cindy Jacobs, Christian "prophet", takes the bull by the horn.

East Meets West: A Christian Take on Journey to the West

As some of my readers may remember back in June I did a post on Monkey: Journey to the West, the contemporary Chinese opera based on the famous 16th-Century Chinese legend. When I saw Monkey back in June at the Spoleto Arts Festival in South Carolina I was blown away. Having been a big fan of the original Journey to the West myth I have almost always been thrilled by anything – from comics to film – that even made reference to Sun Wukung the Monkey King; the tales’ titular hero. That being said it should come as no surprise to anyone that I was naturally quite excited when a friend of mine showed me a graphic novel he had recently picked up which featured the Monkey King as a prominent character.

The graphic novel in question was Gene Luen Yang’s award-winning, critically acclaimed American Born Chinese (2006) which tells the tale of Jin Wang, a teenager living in San Francisco who is ethnically Chinese but was born and raised in America, just like the book’s author. American Born Chinese is primarily a story about the struggle that every teenager goes through in trying to find out who they are. In Jin’s case, coming to terms with what he sees as a conflict between his ethnicity and nationality. It is also a story about racism and a good portion of the book deals with a character called Chin-Kee; the living embodiment of every negative Asian stereotype one can possibly imagine and the novel’s most controversial character. However, in addition to the exploits of both Jin and Chin-Kee, American Born Chinese also stars the Monkey King as the book’s third protagonist and it was this aspect which originally drew my attention to the novel itself and kept it there.

American Born Chinese actually opens with a retelling of the Monkey King’s origins – ‘born from a stone atop the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit’ – before spinning off into the modern-day tales of Jin and Chin-Kee. Periodically, the book’s narrative would return to the Monkey King’s tale explaining how he was the greatest warrior in all the land and master of numerous mystical martial arts from cloud surfing to shape-shifting. Eventually, the Monkey King grows so powerful that he becomes uncontrollable and begins to run amok terrorizing the other gods, goddesses, demons and spirits of China.

What is supposed to happen at this point in the story is that the goddess Guan-Yin calls upon the help of the Buddha. The Buddha appears and challenges the Monkey King to a bet, saying that he can not jump across the entire breath of heaven. Sun Wukung arrogantly accepts the bet and takes a mighty leap, landing at what he believes to be the far end of heaven where nothing exists except for five mighty pillars. To prove that he has actually been to the edge of heaven the Monkey King takes a leak on the pillars and then leaps back to the feet of the Buddha who then shocks him by revealing that not only did he fail to leap across heaven, he never even left the Buddha’s palm. The five pillars that the Monkey King saw (and soiled) were actually the Buddha’s own fingers.

Now, I say that this is what is supposed to happen because on page 67 of American Born Chinese something rather different begins to happen instead, as can be seen below:

At first I wasn’t sure what to make of this sudden abrupt deviation from the original legend. Perhaps I was looking at an alternate version of the tale that I had not heard before but with which the author was more familiar. However, as I stared at the page and the four “emissaries of Tza-Yo-Tzuh” something weird occurred to me. I knew these four creatures from somewhere else, from a different mythological system. The lion, eagle, ox and man (here a woman) were classical symbols of the Judeo-Christian god. They appeared in both the Old Testament Book of Ezekiel (1:10) and the New Testament Book of Revelation (4:7). They were also representative of the four gospels, each one personifying a different aspect of Jesus Christ’s nature: the man his humanity, the eagle his divinity, the lion his regality and the ox his servitude. In fact, to make matters weirder, the same week I was in Charleston to watch Monkey I had toured one of the city’s historical churches and seen these same four creatures carved into the frame of the church’s front door.

Then there was this mysterious Tza-Yo-Tzuh character whose name the page’s footnote told me meant “He Who Is” in Chinese. It was a name that I not only didn’t recognize from the traditional Chinese pantheon of deities, but one which sounded hauntingly similar to the infamous “I Am Who I Am” declaration made by the Jewish god Yahweh in the Bible’s Book of Exodus (3:14).

The next page then introduced me to Tza-Yo-Tzuh who with his flowing red robe, long white beard and shepard’s staff looked like a Chinese version of Moses. I continued to read as Tza-Yo-Tzuh confronted the Monkey King and challenged him to same bet that the Buddha does in the original legend. Like the original the bet plays out the same way; Sun Wukung attempts to leap to the end of the universe, finds the pillars, pees on them and then returns to the feet of Tza-Yo-Tzuh only to discover that he never even left the opposing deities’ hand.

Following this on page 80, Tza-Yo-Tzuh then inform the Monkey King that he is the creator of the universe, of all life, of all things – even Sun Wukung. It was at this point that I knew for certain who this guy was; he was the god of Judeo-Christianity reimagined as a Chinese deity. What confirmed it for me wasn’t simply his declaration of being the maker and shaper of the universe but the fact that he did it by essentially quoting Psalm 139 straight out of the Bible. You can take a look for yourself below:

As I finished the chapter, which ended with Tza-Yo-Tzuh trapping the Monkey King beneath a mountain in the same way the Buddha had in the original myth I decided to flip to the back of the book and take a look at the author’s bio which was printed on the inside flap of the back cover. There I learned that author Gene Yang was not only an independent comic book writer and artist, but also a computer science teacher, a resident of San Francisco, a husband, a father and a Roman Catholic. My suspicions confirmed I immediately returned to reading wanting to see where this decidedly Christian variation on the story of the Monkey King was heading next. In the original myth, the Monkey King is freed from the mountain by the goddess Guan-Yin who enlists him as the bodyguard of the monk Tripitaka who has been sent on a ‘journey to the west’ to retrieve the Buddhist scriptures and bring them back to China. In American Born Chinese, however, it is the monk who frees the Monkey King after having been tapped by the four emissaries of Tza-Yo-Tzuh and told he has been chosen for a sacred mission of an undisclosed nature. No surprises this time, the entire thing was laced with Christian ideas and phraseology and it had become apparent that the author had decided to almost completely break away from the original Monkey King myth.

Nevertheless, surprises or not, as I kept reading I began to find myself growing more and more irritated with the author’s rewriting of the Journey to the West. Soon irritation turned into anger and I began to find myself upset that Gene Yang would dare to bastardize what was arguably the most important story in the history of China. Wasn’t this book, American Born Chinese, supposed to be about coming to terms with your ethnicity and embracing your native culture? If so, why was Yang rewriting the legend of the Monkey King turning it into something decidedly non-traditional, non-Buddhist, non-Eastern? By this point I was so angry, I was seriously considering not finishing the book at all. I told my friend who had given me the book about the problems I was having with it and he told me to calm down and finish it, that it would all make sense in the end.

Well, he was right.

I’m not going to tell you exactly how American Born Chinese ends because I think everyone should go out and read it for themselves. I will tell you that, in the end, all three characters – Jin, Chin-Kee, and the Monkey King – do end up meeting in a spectacular closing scene. I’ll also tell you that the author makes no apologies regarding his Christian take on Journey to the West. The story remains unabashedly Christian to the end, going so far as to even change the goal of the heroes’ journey altogether:

However, the book is never preachy and at no point – even when I was upset with it – did I feel like Gene Yang was trying to force his faith on me. You see, what I realized in the end was that American Born Chinese is not just about Jin trying to reconcile his Chinese ethnicity with his American nationality, it also about the author trying to reconcile his own ethnicity and nationality with his religious faith, and the way he manages to do so is devilishly clever.

After reading and re-reading American Born Chinese as well as several interviews with the author – including one where he humbly and cleverly defends his right to write a Christian version of Journey to the West – I have come to really love this book and have already recommended it to several people. It is a book that will challenge you on many levels and hopefully lead you to think about some of the bigger and harder questions in life regarding not only the role of faith and myth, but also about racism, ethnicity and nationality and how all these things effect our lives and our cultures.

Also check out Gene Yang's essay on American Born Chinese and his Monkey King fan-site.

All comic pages posted above are taken from American Born Chinese (2006), by Gene Luen Yang, all rights reserved.

Animal Fables from Noah's Ark

World consuming floods are one of the major motifs found through both ancient mythology and modern religion. In the west today, the most famous of these tales is by far the Biblical classic Noah’s Ark.

However, while just about everyone knows the story of Noah, fewer know the stories of his infamous cargo. Just what were those animals doing on that boat for forty days and forty nights? During the Middle Ages, people throughout Europe and the Middle East concocted “Animal Fables” about Noah’s menagerie.

Like many tales found in religious lore the tale of the animals aboard Noah’s ark begins with a conversation between Noah and the devil…

According to scripture and legend, after Noah has finished constructing the ark he began to fill it with animals. Two of every unclean animal and seven of every clean animal. Noah was able to distinguish the clean animals from the unclean because the clean kneeled before him when they arrived.

However, when the fly tried to board the ark Noah refused, as he – like most people – found flies annoying pests. However, no sooner had Noah denied the flies’ request for entry then did the devil appear before Noah. Now, the devil desperately wanted to find someway to make sure that the whole ark enterprise failed miserably, thus causing the extinction of the entire human race. So the devil told Noah that; “Either the flies go on board, or I do”, hoping that maybe Noah would pick the devil over the flies. However, Noah was not quite so foolish as that and promptly let the flies onboard.

Now according to European and Middle Eastern lore, because the devil was not allowed passage on the ark by Noah, he created the mouse and sent it on board where it gnawed a hole in the floor of the ark causing a leak that threatened to flood the entire ship. Seeing the problem, the loyal dog immediately tried to plug up the hole created by the mouse by sticking its nose into the hole. However, this didn’t work and only manage to ensure that from that day on all dog’s noses were wet and cold. Thus it finally fell upon the wise serpent to solve the problem of the leak, which it did by sticking its tail in the hole until the journey’s end.

This still didn’t solve the problem of the mischievous mice however who, at this point, were beginning to multiply beyond control and devour all of the ark’s grain. According to Israeli lore it was at this time that God himself intervened. In order to counteract the devil’s mice God had the lion sneeze a great sneeze and from its nostrils sprung the first cats who quickly gobbled up most of the mice.

Another animal that sprung to life on the ark was the pig. Israeli lore tells us how refuse was quickly pilling up inside the close quarters of the ark. Noah, in an attempt to remedy this problem, ran his hand down the back of an elephant from which sprang forth the world’s first pigs who quickly began to gorge themselves on the ark’s garbage.

There are also lots of legends about the birds on Noah’s ark, some good and some bad. One tale tells about how the magpies refused to roost inside the ark but instead sat on the roof discussing the sorry state of the flooded world. Ever since then magpies have been seen as an ill omen.

Genesis tells us about how after five months at sea Noah released two birds to go and see if the world was dry. The first bird was a raven, which originally had white feathers. The raven did not return to Noah but sat about eating the remains of floating corpses. Because of its foul diet the raven’s feathers have been black ever since. The second bird Noah released was a dove who returned with an olive branch in its beak, a sign that the earth was dry. To reward the dove God then gave it shinning white plumage that never molts.

Also according to folklore originating in the southern United States, after the flood God hung a rainbow in the sky as a sign that He would never flood the earth again. When Noah released all the birds from the ark they all flew through the rainbow and were given their beautiful multicolored plumage.

Finally, during the Middle Ages Christian monks told several animal fables concerning Noah Ark which involved wholly mythical beasts. Undoubtedly, the most famous of all mythical creatures to be connected to Noah’s ark is the unicorn. According to one popular story the unicorns did not make it onto Noah’s ark because they were too busy laughing and playing to give heed to Noah’s warning about the encroaching flood. According to another version the unicorn did make it on but was thrown off by Noah after an unspecified argument.

Above: Noah's Ark, painting by the American artist Edward Hicks (1780–1849).

Center: Noah releases the raven and the dove. From the Southern Netherlands, c. 1450-1460, artist unknown.

Adam's Three Wives

Based off the Biblical account of Adam and Eve, the tale of “Adam’s Three Wives” is an old aggadahic story designed to expand upon and explain the myths and stories of scripture. In this case, the legend of “Adam's Three Wives” arose as an attempt to explain why we read in Genesis 1:27 about Yahweh (יהוה) creating “Adam in His image…male and female He created them” and then later in Genesis 2 find a second account concerning the creation of a (apparently) second woman called Eve.

The explanation eventually reached was that Adam had had more than one wife. The woman from Genesis 1 would come to be identified as Adam’s first wife Lilith; formally a Canaanite demoness who managed to make a cameo in the book of Isaiah 34:14. Later the Midrash would add a third wife to the mix in an attempt to explain why Adam needed to be put to sleep before Yahweh could create Eve.

The best known version of the tale of Adam and Lilith comes from the 7th to 10th-Century text called the Alphabet of Ben Sira, though there are several variants. The tale of Adam’s third wife comes from the Midrash. The best known version of the story of Adam and Eve comes from, of course, the Bible’s book of Genesis, though those interested in variants should consult the 2nd-Century B.C. apocryphal Life of Adam and Eve. The following version is my own retelling…

“Adam’s Three Wives”

In the beginning, Yahweh created Adam. The first Adam was a hermaphrodite, an androgynous giant, simultaneously male and female. Equipped with four arms, four legs, two heads, two sets of sexual organs, and two bodies joined back to back. But this arrangement made conversation awkward and locomotion next to impossible. So Yahweh decided to separate Adam into two beings. One male, one female. Adam and Lilith.

Lilith was Adam's first wife. She was not only beautiful, with long black hair, but also powerful and intelligent. She was, after all, Adam’s equal. A mirror image of what he was. All was fine between Adam and Lilith until the issue of sex came about. Lilith insisted on being on top, a position of equality, or perhaps even superiority. When Adam refused this arrangement, not wishing to be ‘below’ to his wife, Lilith left.

She headed west towards the Red Sea, and when she got there…the devil was waiting for her. He made her an offer to become his queen and she accepted, becoming the mother of the lilim, the incubi and succubi who have haunted the nights of the sons of Adam and the daughters of Eve ever since.

Meanwhile, Adam found himself alone. He complained to Yahweh who sent three angels – Senoy, Sansenoy and Semangelof – to retrieve Lilith. But when the three angels found her, and all her demon spawned children, and demanded that she return to Adam, Lilith simply laughed at them. Humiliated and thus powerless the three angels failed to convince Lilith to return to her former husband but as consolation promised Adam that should anyone pray to them or hang their amulet above the bed of a mother in labor that they would shield that person from the lilim.

It was then that Yahweh decided to create a second wife for Adam. This wife was made from Adam’s own body. Yahweh pulled a rib from Adam’s chest and formed it into a woman from the ground up; bones, muscle, sinew, blood, mucus, organs, skin, eyes, cartilage, hair, etc… all right in front of Adam. Now, having witnessing this process Adam was so terrified that he refused to go near his new wife, much less name her. Yahweh then saw the error made in creating the wife in front of Adam and did what He could for the woman and destroyed her, though there are those who claimed that she, like Lilith, was permitted to leave the garden though what became of her is a matter of speculation.

Finally Yahweh put Adam to sleep, took a rib from his side, and from it created Eve. Only when she was complete did Yahweh wake Adam and present his new bride to him. Adam saw her finished and perfect and submissive, and took her as his third and final wife. Adam and Eve then lived in the garden until the day that a serpent persuaded them to eat the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, an act which endowed them with the wisdom of the gods. Yahweh was then forced to banish Adam and Eve from Eden out of fear that they would next eat of the Tree of Life, and obtain immortality thus becoming truly divine.

So Adam and Eve left Eden and took refuge in a cave beneath the garden where they carved out a new life for themselves and the rest of humanity.

If you would like to know more about this story and others like it I recommend three excellent books by Jewish folklorist Howard Schwartz: Lilith's Cave: Jewish Tales of the Supernatural (1991), Reimagining the Bible: The Storytelling of the Rabbis (1998) and Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism (2004). Also for those interested in a graphic adaptation of this myth see Neil Gaiman's terrific The Sandman issue #40, also collected in The Sandman volume 6.

At Top: Adam, Lilith (in the tree), and Eve from the Notre Dame in Paris, c. 1210 C.E.
Center: The infamous Babylonian “Burney Relief”, ca. 1950 B.C., often identified as Lilith.