Before we get to the tropes used in the Bible, it should be noted that there are several different traditions as to what the Bible contains; while most material is shared, historically members of religious groups have decided to include or exclude different writings. Debates about what's
Canon and what isn't rage on, and
Hilarity Ensues.
Relatedly, there are several major opinions on what the Bible
is. According to the Christian viewpoint, the Bible is an anthology of books by divinely inspired followers of God and Christ over a period of 1500 years, including: biographies, histories, manuals of rules like
The Pentateuch, advice for living like in Paul's letters, and
divine revelations.
A laxer view, partially accepted by Islam, holds that
some of it is to be taken at face value, while other parts, like the Book of Genesis, are to be taken as an allegory. The view of those who don't belong to the Abrahamic religions generally ranges from seeing the events of the Bible as somewhere between "exaggerated history" and "pure fiction". Likely,
Your Mileage May Vary on which one of the views you take.
Comprising the works of many writers from the 11th century BC to about 140 AD, before the advent of mass communication, the Bible is one of humanity's best-known and longest-enduring books, with 1500 ancient surviving Greek manuscripts making it the ancient world's best seller (
Homer, with 643 surviving manuscripts of
The Iliad, comes in second). The absence of a single authority with a strictly defined canon policy has proven an obstacle, however. Historically, it resulted in the most devastating (literally)
Flame Wars (also often literally) ever.
Due to the Bible's sheer size and literary value, in addition to the fact that it is in the public domain (as it predated the invention of copyright; the British Crown holds perpetual copyright over the King James Version in the UK), it is often used as a goldmine of stock plots and characters for modern writers. Sometimes, however, said modern writers cannot avoid the temptation to introduce
gratuitous references for the sake of it, and when they take caution to avoid
controversial subjects like a specific religion, it can degenerate into such phenomena as
Jesus Taboo,
Crystal Dragon Jesus and
No Celebrities Were Harmed. On the other hand, writers unfamiliar with the religious symbolism can end up with "controversial" character portrayals like
King Of All Cosmos, or, in
The Theme Park Version,
Fluffy Cloud Heaven.
Often cited by
Moral Guardians, despite the fact that a considerable portion of its content would be considered
immoral and even
Squicky by
modern standards.
They don't ever seem to remember those bits, or if they do, they're quite willing to
Handwave them away.
One of the
Trope Makers. You know
The Oldest Ones In The Book? Well, this is the book. It even
says so in the title
.
Not to be confused with
Universe Bible. For more info on the fan clubs, see
Useful Notes on Christianity.
Provides examples of:
- Adam And Eve Plot (the Trope Namer)
- Adaptation Decay (too many modern retellings to count)
- Adaptation Distillation (the Qur'an, or whatever holy text you believe in)
- A God Am I (subverted: Jesus really is God, at least, according to the more Gnostic bits.)
- Alternate Character Interpretation (so many. So, so many. Just one example is Judas; while Christians generally see him as a greedy betrayer, the Gospel of Judas re-interprets him as a misunderstood individual who only betrayed Jesus on Jesus's direct orders)
- Alternate Continuity
- Christianity vs. Judaism, as represented by the canonicity of the New Testament vs. the canonicity of the Talmud.
- Islam vs. Christianity: many passages are changed or given figurative status, particularly the sacrifice of Ishmael instead of Isaac.
- An Aesop
- Ancient Egypt
- Ancient Greece
- Ancient Rome
- Animal Stereotypes (Snakes are really, really, really bad.)
- Animated Adaptation (Many, but most notably, Superbook)
- Ascend To A Higher Plane Of Existence (More than once. In the Old Testament, there's Elijah and Enoch. In the New Testament, Jesus. Apocryphally, Fanon dictates that the woman in the sky in Revelation must be Mary, Jesus' mother, so this must have happened to her off-page.)
- The Atoner
- Author Filibuster (the epistles in the New Testament)
- Back From The Dead (Famously, Lazarus -- and Jesus)
- Badass - the unnamed man (some people think it's Jesus) leading his forces against the Hellions in Revelations. Pretty awesome.
- Badass Normal (Judas Maccabeus; should not be confused with Judas Iscariot)
- Beam Me Up Scotty (the often-quoted "money is the root of all evil", while technically a valid quote, leaves out a crucial section that changes the meaning. It actually says that the love of money is the root of evil)
- Perhaps an even more common misquote would be "the Tree of Knowledge" instead of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
- Broken Base (Oh, man. This fandom puts Joel vs. Mike to shame.)
- Bowdlerise (the original Thomas Bowdler; also done countless times before and after him)
- Bury Me Not On The Lone Prairie (Joseph)
- Butt Monkey (Job)
- To be fair, God was testing him and gives him a consolation prize when his faith doesn't break.
- Cain And Abel (Original)
- Celibate Hero (Jesus, and possibly others we forget.)
- The Chosen One (Saul and David start a war over the fact that they are both the chosen one)
- Clap Your Hands If You Believe (in Psalms)
- Critical Research Failure (the writers of the Synoptic Gospels make quite a few cultural, historical, and geographical errors. Writers of the New Testament frequently misquote the Old Testament.)
- Crowning Moment Of Awesome (A lot of these, including David standing up to Goliath and the blinded Samson bringing down the Philistine temple)
- Crucified Hero Shot (Jesus)
- David Versus Goliath (again, Trope Namer)
- Death By Sex (Sarah's husbands in the book of Tobit)
- Deus Angst Machina (Job)
- Deus Ex Machina (literal God)
- Did Not Do The Research: Some people consider there to be scientific errors throughout the Bible. Examples include <section deleted due to potential Serious Business>.
- Dis Continuity
- Protestants rejected the additional (not in the Masoretic text of the Tanakh) Old Testament books that came from the Greek Septuagint and call them "apocrypha" (not canon), whereas they're considered "deuterocanonical" (secondary canon) by Catholics.
- Distant Finale (the Book of Revelation; just how distant depends on who you ask)
- Downer Ending (end of the Old Testament)
- Draco In Leather Pants (Satan -- started with Milton, and went downhill from there)
- The Dutiful Son (Brother to the Prodigal Son)
- Earth Is The Center Of The Universe (whether it's literally the center of the universe or not depends on how literally one takes certain passages)
- The Eeyore (Qoheleth, the traditional author/narrator of Ecclesiastes)
- Empathic Environment (many times, including when Jesus was killed)
- The Empire (Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, Macedon, Rome... The Persians come across pretty well, though.)
- The End Of The World As We Know It (At least twice. First Noah's flood, then in the Distant Finale of Revelation)
- Epileptic Trees (Talmud and Midrachim)
- Face Heel Turn (King Saul, Pharaoh [multiple times] )
- Fan Dumb (Many purported fans of this book have done some profoundly stupid things.)
- Fan Haters (Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and other "evangelical atheists")
- Fan Sequel (The Book of Mormon)
- Fanon (many apocryphal texts)
- Finding Judas
- Find The Cure (Tobit)
- Flanderization (Satan - he starts out as the prosecutor of mankind, but still a member of God's court. There is nothing to really indicate that he was disobedient to God's will. The New Testament portrays him as the very embodiment of evil.)
- Forbidden Fruit (the original)
- Geo Effects (the Israelites and the Aramites, subverted)
- Get Thee To A Nunnery (especially in the King James version)
- God
- Good People Have Good Sex (Solomon and one of his wives)
- Half Human Hybrids (Nephilim, and Jesus (depending on who you listen to))
- Heroic Sacrifice (Jesus), Stephen, Isaac
- Heel Face Turn (Saul on the road to Damascus, who quite literally "saw the light")
- Higher Self
- Hope Spot (Pilate tries to have Jesus released, but the mob insists on his crucifixion). Although Pilate was a jerk, depending on who you talk to.
- Ho Yay (David and Jonathan, Ruth and Naomi)
- Internet Backdraft (and not just on the Internet either. It's often said that there are two things you just don't discuss in mixed company: politics and religion)
- It Was His Sled (Jesus dies. But he gets better. This has been subjected to one of the most massive spoiler-campaigns ever. Please, don't feed the trolls. To show how much people tried to spoil it, people were spoiling it in public before the Gospels were even written.)
- Jesus Taboo (averted, those bold, bold bastards)
- Journey To Find Oneself (Jesus's 40 days and nights in the desert)
- Judgment Of Solomon (the original)
- Kill Em All (the Distant Finale, Revelation; possibly the most literal application of "Kill Em All and let God sort'em out" ever.)
- La Resistance (1 and 2 Maccabees, which are part of the Catholic but not Protestant Bible)
- Macekre (Long before Carl Macek, there was King James; of course, some consider this Adaptation Distillation that's more canonical than in the original language.)
- The Messiah (Jesus)
- Messianic Archetype (Jesus)
- Mind Screw (Revelation)
- Mission From God
- Moses In The Bullrushes (the original)
- Most Writers Are Male
- Murder The Hypotenuse (David and Bathsheba)
- My Death Is Just The Beginning (Jesus)
- Never Accepted In His Hometown (Jesus and most prophets. It's the Trope Namer, after all)
- The Obi Wan (David to Solomon)
- The Wisdom of Solomon (from the Greek Septuagint) is all about this trope applying to Solomon.
- Out Damned Spot (Pontius Pilate)
- Parental Favoritism
- Rape Of The Lock (Sampson)
- The Rashomon (the Gospels, kind of)
- Reptiles Are Abhorrent (The story from Genesis with the snake...)
- Ret Con (several, one of the most noticeable being that the serpent from Genesis was retconned in Revelation to have in fact been Satan)
- The Revolution Will Not Be Vilified (Moses is effectively literature's first bio-terrorist, and takes out his aggression against the government on the civilian population. And then there's Jesus, who "came not to bring peace, but a sword...")
- Satan (Including texts from before his strange Flanderization.)
- Science Is Bad (a frequent fan interpretation, especially of the Babel story)
- Science Marches On (yes, they really did think the Earth was flat and that the stars were attached to a hard dome above.)
- Taken For Granite (the wife of Lot, who turned into a pillar of salt)
- The Scourge Of God
- Secret Test Of Character (the original Judgment Of Solomon; and the commandment of YHVH to Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, to Him)
- Serious Business (many fanclubs with literally religious zeal)
- Shaming The Mob ("Let he who is without sin...")
- Not to mention the pissed-off mob at Jesus' trial.
- Shared Universe (many ancient books collected together)
- Shipping (there's this whole thing with Jesus and Mary Magdalene...)
- Sixth Ranger (Paul)
- Spinoff (New Testament from the Tanakh)
- Time Skip (the Old Testament and New Testament are separated by several thousand years of time)
- To Hell And Back (the "Harrowing")
- Tower Of Babel (the original)
- Twenty Minutes Into The Future (Revelation)
- Untrusting Community
- Values Dissonance
- The Vamp (Delilah, who was Samson's wife)
- Although depending on who you listen to, she may not have exactly been his wife... most translations never explicitly identify her as such, simply saying he fell in love with her (after a chapter detailing his marriage to a different woman.
- Villain With Good Publicity
- Warrior Poet (David)
- What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic (Somehow both an aversion and a Trope Maker)
- Word Of God (Complicated example: the divine force supposed to inspire the actual authors is quoted by said authors in the text.)
- Words Can Break My Bones
- Worlds Strongest Man (Samson)
- Xanatos Gambit (Judith; and possibly Jesus's entire arc, especially considering Judas's vital role.)
