Sex, Drugs and Idol Worship—Our Ancestors Uncovered in Fiction

The Jewish Journal has a really interesting article this week about this relatively new phenomenon of fictional retellings of Biblical and Talmudic stories and personalities.

Samson is a blowhard; Sarah a rebellious, headstrong daughter who makes herself barren. Moses' wife is a freedom fighter, Nathan is a prophet beset by doubt and fear and Rashi's son-in-law battles his evil inclination to love men.

The Book That Started It All: And probaby the best of the bunch.
Sounds like the Jewish heroes and heroines of the Bible and the Talmud?
Not exactly.

That's because these are the new heroes of a burgeoning genre of modern literature: Jewish pulp fiction. These historical novels -- and they are novels, despite their various levels of accuracy to the ancient time period in which they are set -- star protagonists of old: from Genesis' Cain, Noah, Abraham and Sarah (they have their own books), to Exodus' Moses, Miriam and Tzipporah (separate and together), as well as characters from the prophets, like David, Nathan and Samson, and even from the Megillot, such as Queen Esther and Ruth (who already have books named after them).

Jewish pulp fiction, ranging in quality from a Regency Romance to commercial literary fiction, feature stories of love, adventure, sex, war, betrayal, politics, mystery, suspense, anguish, murder and death.

Where else can one find such stories but in the Bible?

When King Solomon (who is not yet the protagonist of one of these books) wrote in his own holy book, "Song of Songs," "There is nothing new under the sun," he hadn't read the latest in Jewish pulp fiction.

Actually, it's in Ecclesiastes, not Song of Songs, but whatever.

"This is the story of my life, and it's not a happy one," said the character Samson in "The Book of Samson," by David Maine. "My life has an abundance of frustration and pain, plus a fair bit of sex and lots of killing and broken bones, but it's got precious little hope and joy, comfort and inspiration.... You may think you know the story, but believe me there's more."
There's a lot more when it comes to Jewish pulp fiction. In the last five to 10 years, authors are churning out books exploring even the most minor characters of the Bible and the Talmud.
What is the point of all these books? Who reads them? Why do authors write historical fiction about real people from Jewish history? And, the most important question when it comes to mixing pop culture with religion: is it good for the Jews? Is it beneficial to take our ancestors, rabbis, prophets, kings and queens -- whom many revere and consider holy -- and fictionalize their lives?

Carolyn Starman Hessel, the director of the Jewish Book Council in New York, and one of the most influential people promoting Jewish books, sees many of this type of manuscript come across her desk. She called this genre of religious historical fiction a form of "midrash," like the body of commentary on primary Jewish text.

Full story

I have mixed feelings about these kinds of books. I’ve enjoyed some of them, and I hope to enjoy some more of them in the future, but I also find them a little gimmick-y. And now that they’re so popular, we’ve somehow managed to make Biblical characters into exactly the exotic clichés—dark haired vixens obsessed with sex and idol worship—that I’d prefer to eschew when thinking about the Bible. Ultimately, these novels fail to inspire me.

I’m also irritated by the loose understanding of the word Midrash, here. Midrashim aren’t just stories we get to come up with to go along with whatever reading of the text we’d like. Midrash came from a desire by the rabbis to integrate their ideas back into the original stories in Tanach, so they worked backwards, trying to illustrate legal, moral and ethical points using the characters and situations they had already been given. Midrash was never meant to be taken literally, but I think a lot of people are reading these books and taking them as historically accurate midrashim, which they’re not.

As I think yesterday’s post about synagogues proved, I’m all for alternative ways of accessing Jewish community and Jewish texts. That said, I’m not sure projecting contemporary obsessions with sex, feminism, or Middle Eastern politics onto the Bible is the best way of getting closer to God or any kind of Jewish tradition. Amazingly, the main characters in the Bible are generally rendered with puzzling and wonderful richness. We don’t actually need a 400 page dramatic retelling of Sarah’s life to know that it was difficult and wonderful and full of grace. We already have that. I sometimes think all these new readings and interpretations just take us another step further from whatever it is we’re reaching for.