The Bible is the most influencual book of all time. This page lists the many allusions to the book made in various media. Please note that historical domain characters (such as Jesus, Virgin Mary and Patron Saints) appearing or being mentioned do not go in here, see their individual useful note pages for that.
See As the Good Book Says..., when the holy text is being quoted in a work. LiteraryAllusionTitle.The Bible, when a work's title is a (sometimes rephrased) quote from it. Also see Biblical Motifs, Bible Times, Biblical Bad Guy, Garden of Eden and Tower of Babel.
Books with their own pages:
Individual pages for some of the characters from the bible:
- Adam and/or Eve
- Antichrist
- Cain and Abel
- Celestial Paragons and Archangels
- Demon Lords And Arch Devils
- God
- Horsemen of the Apocalypse
- Jacob and Esau
- Three Wise Men
Related: Religious and Mythological Theme Naming.
Films — Animation
- The basic premise of Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf - The Mythical Ark: Adventures in Love & Happiness, the Noah's Story Arc about the goats attempting to stay away from a flood by boarding a spaceship called the Ark, is a reference to the Bible.
Films — Live-Action
- Nerves 1919: Lehrer Johannes reads Matthew 5:28 where it says looking at a woman lustfully is already committing adultery, making him feel guilty about his feelings towards Marja.
- The Proud Valley: One of the protagonists is named David Goliath, Dilys Parry briefly mentions his name reminds her of a story her teacher told once.
- Anakin Skywalker from Star Wars was concieved by a Sentient Cosmic Force (ie, God) to fulfil a prophecy and usher in a New Era, but only after a Near-Villain Victory. Bonus for being born to a nobody in the middle of a desert.
- Jay-Z and Alicia Keys's "Empire State of Mind" has the line "Don't bite the apple, Eve!", obviously refencing the Abrahamic creation story, and, in the song, prostitution.
- Discworld's The Wee Free Men repeatedly uses the phrase "Wold without end", a pune, or a play on words, on "world without end", a translation of the Greek "εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων" (into the ages of the ages) in Christian liturgy
. - The Expanse: One of the ships of the "Free Navy" is called "Witch of Endor", the name of a character from The Bible.
Tabletop Games
- Warhammer 40,000:
- The (marginal) Big Good is a half-god/half-man who the average person is expected to live up to, despite being an unattainable pinnacle (but doing your best is enough because he's well aware you can't).
- The Horus Heresy is a direct reference to the Fall of Lucifer. The Big Guy's favorite subordinate becomes arrogant, tries to sieze power, and gets riggety riggity rekt. After which, his friends flee to the shittiest place in the universe to avoid reprisal, and have been running around making trouble for everyone else ever since. Said friends embody and propogate all manner of ills; selfish ambitions, pointless suffering, mindless self-indulgence, and sheer, bloody-minded fury. And for no other reason than they hate their dad and are taking it out on other people to make him sad.
- The Imperial Creed holds that the Emperor only cares for Mankind. The Bible states that God only accepts humans into heaven ("Only Adam's race can be saved").
Video Games
- Fire Emblem: Cain and Abel are named after Cain and Abel of The Bible. Ironically, none hold malice towards each other and in fact, Abel is the one who betrayed the group.
- The Legend of Zelda: In the Japanese version, Link's Book of Magic is explicitly a Bible, as part of the Early-Installment Weirdness that Hyrule had Christianity as its religion of choice.
- Soul Sacrifice: The city of Babylon, Noah's Desert, the fallen kingdom and Archfiend both known as Leviathan, the Caverns of Goliath.
- Battle for Dream Island Again: In Catch These Hands, Bible appears as a recommended character by Ronanlvan.
- Hark! A Vagrant: Kate Beaton has a bit of fun with Moses addressing his people on a couple of occasions.
- Questionable Content: The comic in which Momo reads about the first human and sentient AI interactions is titled "Goodwill Toward All Men and Machines", a modified version of Luke 2:14.
- Aqua Teen Hunger Force: In Greatest Story Ever Told Master Shake pulls out a book titled "Bibble", which he refers to as Bible.
- Avatar: The Last Airbender: Katara parting the waters in "The Serpent's Pass" doubles as a shout out to both The Bible and The Prince of Egypt. The latter only because of the serpent's silhouette showing through the water in the same manner that a shark's did in the movie.
- One of the antagonists of the Ewoks cartoon was Morag the Witch of Endor, who is titled after the sorceress who conjured the Prophet Issaiah for Saul.
- MGM's 1939 short "Peace on Earth" and its 1954 remake "Good Will to Men" both utilize a Bible in the aftermath of global war that has made mankind extinct. In the former, the animals take the passage "Ye shall rebuild the old wastes" to heart and create their own community with the war discards. In the latter, "Love thy neighbor" is put to use.
- The Schoolhouse Rock! segment "Elementary, My Dear" uses the story of Noah's Ark to teach multiplying by twos.
