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When selling books in Kroger stores four days a week (sometimes 5) around the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, I'm often asked a series of questions by curious readers. The following three questions are questions I hear frequently, followed by my answers.
Do you get any pushback from certain groups of people about the content in the Biblical Legends Anthology Series? A little. However, most people are astute enough to understand that creative writers take liberties with the subjects they write about. Doing so doesn't make the stories blasphemous. By the same token, it doesn't mean the authors are attempting to undermine the original material.
Are the BLAS stories biblically accurate? This is a funny question because it usually follows my sales pitch, which goes something like this .... These are stories set in biblical settings with fictional characters, so you get aliens and gnomes in the Garden of Eden and Pegasus at the Great Flood. A discerning listener might seize upon "aliens and gnomes" and ask themselves if they've read about those creatures in the Genesis account of the Garden of Eden. Unsurprisingly, some readers claim they have! On a different note, has anyone read about Pegasus appearing at the Great Flood in the original biblical account? The Biblical Legends Anthology Series is apocryphal. That is, they are fictional stories, therefore not true, but may shed light on true stories or the stories upon which they are based. The BLAS stories are purely for entertainment purposes.
Are you a Christian? Yes. I believe people ask this question to get a sense of the perspective of the person who compiled the BLAS material. The problem with this approach is the word "Christian" in the 21st century is used in many ways that do not comport with the original meaning of the word. A person may call themselves Christian if they're American and perceive that Christianity is the official religion of the U.S. or the cultural choice by default. It hardly means anything anymore for a person to call themselves Christian. That's why some people prefer phrases like "follower of Jesus Christ" or "Christ follower." The BLAS fiction series are multi-author anthologies meaning the stories come from various writers. I did not ask contributors how they identify religiously. I simply judged contributions based on whether they were good stories (or poems).
Between selling books and other work, I'm slowly working my way through a revision of the first draft of my current work in progress, a novel with the working title 100 Days for Abel.
The central premise of this work is this: An angel named Merkabah is commissioned by Word to come to Earth and investigate the murder of Abel.
Right away, you'll notice a few things:
The central premise takes liberties with the biblical narrative since the Bible does not mention any angel commissioned to investigate Abel's murder.
The commissioning agent is Word, the English translation of the Greek Logos of John 1:1. In John 1:14, we are told Word became flesh, an obvious reference to Jesus Christ. The principal character in the story is on assignment from the creator, the Son of God Himself.
The protagonist of the story is called Merkabah. Some readers may be familiar with this word from Jewish mysticism. Merkabah mysticism is an earlier form of Jewish mysticism than Kabbalah and relies heavily upon prophetic visions involving heavenly places. It is often associated with Ezekiel's vision of the chariot in the first chapter of Ezekiel.
The use of an investigating angel obviously counters the idea of God's omniscience. Of course, that is not the point in using this trope. It is simply a literary device to move the story along and make it more entertaining. After all, a story must have a protagonist. Without Merkabah, this story could not be told. It is his story.
Throughout the story, Merkabah acts as the voice of God to the broken world which he encounters. When he heads to the Land of Nod (called Duidain, taken from the Book of Enoch) to track down Cain, he is encounters weirdness on multiple levels. One need not be religious to enjoy the story. Its purpose is not to evangelize or proselytize. Rather, it falls into the genre of speculative fiction, which deals with the fantastical and ultra-imaginative.
My hope is that readers will find this story both entertaining and spiritually enlightening. Look for it to drop after the first of the year.
This week, I'll be selling books at Kroger in Cleburne, Texas. Here's the schedule:
Wednesday, October 30 from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Thursday, October 31 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Friday, November 1 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Saturday, November 2 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The next two weeks after Cleburne, I'll be heading north of the Metroplex to Bartonville and Flower Mound.
Happy Halloween!
