The Bible: Difference between revisions
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{{work}}
{{Infobox book
{{quote|''"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth..."''|Genesis 1:1}}▼
| original title = τὰ βιβλία
| image = Gutenberg Bible, Lenox Copy, New York Public Library, 2009. Pic 01.jpg
| caption =
| author =
| central theme = The power and presence of God on their believers' lives
| elevator pitch = A collection of texts important to the [[w:Abrahamic religions|Abrahamic religions]].
| genre =
| publication date =
| source page exists = yes
| wiki URL = https://bible.wikia.org/wiki/Bible_Wiki
| wiki name = Bible Wiki
}}
▲{{quote|''"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth..."''|Genesis 1:1, the opening line of the Bible}}
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. The Book of Tobit, The Book of Judith, the Maccabees books, and many others are included in some tradition's orthodoxy and wholly ignored by others' (as is the entire New Testament, for that matter). Debates about what's [[Canon]] and what isn't continue to this day. That's not taking into account the multitude of different translations out there, not only between languages but within each
On a related note, there are several major opinions on what the Bible ''is''. According to the [[Christianity|Christian]] viewpoint, the Bible is an anthology of books by divinely inspired followers of God and Christ over a period of ''600 to 1600'' years, including: biographies, histories, manuals of rules and laws, songs and ritual prayers, advice for living like in Paul's letters, and divine revelations. (For the traditional [[Judaism|Jewish]] perspective, strike out the words "and Christ" and "like in Paul's letters," and reduce the number of years by two to six hundred years.) There is debate among Christians over just what "divinely inspired" entails; some say this means everything in the Bible should be taken completely at face value, while others hold that some parts (like the book of Genesis, for example) are meant to be taken as allegorical or symbolic writings, not to be interpreted literally. The latter view is held by most mainline Protestant denominations and is the official position of the Catholic Church.
Another set of interpretations was from what is now called, collectively, [[Gnosticism]]. The Gnostics did not accept the idea of canon at all, nor any central religious authority. Thus, pretty much every Gnostic collection of scripture contained different sets of documents, some orthodox canon and some written locally. Indeed, the general Gnostic approach to religious literature was one of extreme openness, and a new
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 200 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. Or rather, the existence of dozens or hundreds of conflicting authorities. Historically, it resulted in the most devastating (literally) [[Flame War
It's worth noting that dating the Bible ([[Cargo Ship|no, not that]]) is one of the most contentious issues surrounding it. The consensus secular view, which mainline Protestants and Catholics more or less accept, is that the first five books (the Pentateuch or Torah), along with some of the histories were compiled around 450 BC, from four source texts, the oldest of which dates back to about 800 BC. The prophetic and wisdom literature (the rest of the Old Testament) was compiled and redacted over the next century or two, though some of the Psalms may go back to 1000 BC. The traditional view - accepted by fundamentalist and most evangelical Protestants, as well as Orthodox Jews, is that the whole Pentateuch was dictated to Moses around 1500 BC, while the prophetic books were written by the authors they're traditionally ascribed to from about 900 to 500 BC.
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Often cited by [[Moral Guardians]]. Not to be confused with [[Universe Bible]].
One of the [[Trope
----
{{tropenamer}}
* [[Adam and Eve Plot]]
* [[The Antichrist]]
* [[Belly of the Whale]]
* [[Bible Times]]
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* [[Crucified Hero Shot]]
* [[David Versus Goliath]]
* [[Forbidden Fruit]]
* [[Good Samaritan]]
* [[I Am Legion]]
** [[Voice of the Legion]]
* [[Jesus Saves]]
* [[Judgment of Solomon]]
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* [[Never Accepted in His Hometown]]
* [[Pals with Jesus]]
* [[
* [[Thou Shalt Not Kill]]
* [[Tower of Babel]]
* [[Turn the Other Cheek]]
* [[
----
{{tropelist}}
* [[Adam and Eve Plot]]: The [[Trope Namer]], along with a side order of [[Forbidden Fruit]].
* [[Adaptation Decay]]: There's plenty of things in both the Torah and the Bible that have become [[The Theme Park Version|theme park versions]] of what's ''actually'' written when adapted into other works. Look up Daniel 7 and Ezekiel 10 for descriptions of a few angels. While there's implications in the Bible that angels can take a human-like form, those passages are far and away from the [[Fluffy Cloud Heaven]] [[Winged Humanoid
* [[Adaptation Expansion]]:
** Hebrews, ostensibly the most Jewish book of the New Testament.
** [[The Talmud]].
* [[Aerith and Bob]]: David and Goliath. Judas and Peter. Michael and Lucifer. However, all or most of these were common names at the time; we've only decided which ones to pass on to our children, and these have become normal.
* [[Adaptational Personality Adjustment]]: Happens to God between the Old and New Testaments. Old Testament God is a jealous god, self-explained, and prone to giving out hostile punishments or disasters. Some editions have him directly harden the pharaoh's heart in the Book of Exodus just so he can demonstrate his power via the plagues. New Testament God is less prone to this behavior, instead focusing on people living a life with good deeds and charity.
* [[Aint No Rule]]: May qualify as [[Loophole Abuse]]. Many perhaps odd-sounding laws in the Old Testament -- those regarding sex, for example -- were likely designed to prevent this.▼
* [[An Aesop]]
* [[All There in the Manual]]: The prefaces of many Bible versions tell why the writers used a specific translation, why there are italics, and what the Footnotes mean.
* [[Always Chaotic Evil]]: The people of Amalek. They raided the Hebrews as they were leaving Egypt, which led to God declaring a war of extermination upon them. Satan also applies here, sort of. The Jewish interpretation (which is carried into the Old Testament) is sometimes that he's a [[Necessary Evil]] in God's service, or that he is truly evil but only can do what God permits. The Christian interpretation is usually that he was once a good angel, but rebelled against God and became forever corrupted in his evil.▼
* [[A Million Is a Statistic]]▼
* [[Anachronic Order]]: The books of prophecy tend to skip around; Jeremiah's revelations while in prison precede the account of his imprisonment, for instance. The book of Daniel also tends to skip around; in some stories he's an old man, in others he's a youth of between fifteen and twenty. There is a well known Hebrew phrase that means (loosely translated): "There is no early or late in the Torah." ("ein mukdam u'meuchar ba'Torah")
▲* [[An Aesop]]
* [[Ancient Egypt]]: Mostly in the Old Testament, specifically Genesis and Exodus; the Hebrews spend time in the Nile Delta and (after some pharaoh decides to enslave all the Semitic tribes that have settled in the country) leave the country. Later, God and His Prophets repeatedly tell Israel not to rely on Egypt for aid against Assyria. In the New Testament's Gospel of Matthew, Joseph and Mary take Jesus into Egypt to avoid Herod's massacre of babies ("Out of Egypt I called my son").
* [[Ancient Greece]]: Although it's set during the Roman period (and therefore not ''really'' Ancient or even Classical), Greece ''does'' feature prominently in the New Testament. Some of the Epistles (Corinthians and Philippians come to mind) are directed to believers in Greece. In addition, the Eastern Mediterranean was thoroughly Hellenized in by the first century, so more or less ''everything'' was Greek by this point.
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* [[Apocalypse How]]: ''Several'', including Daniel, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Revelation, and other odd parts of the New Testament.
* [[Arc Number]]: Several of them repeatedly used in various contexts--
**
**
**
* [[Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence]]: More than once.
** In the Old Testament, there's Elijah and Enoch.
** In the New Testament, {{spoiler|Jesus}}.
** [[The Pope]] Pius XII [[Word of Dante|invoked
* [[As the Good Book Says...]]: Jesus and the Devil tossed references to scripture back and forth in the desert after Jesus's baptism.
* [[The Atoner]]
* [[Author Avatar]]: The naked guy mentioned in Mark 14:51-52 was probably Mark himself.
** The "beloved disciple" in John 19:26-27 was very likely John himself.
* [[Author Filibuster]]: The epistles in the New Testament.
* [[Back
* [[Badass]]:
** The unnamed man (some people think it's Jesus) leading his forces against the Hellions in Revelation. Pretty awesome.
** All of the Judges qualify, but Samson is practically an [[Ur Example]] of this. He killed a thousand soldiers with the ''jawbone of a donkey'', and then he ''collapsed an entire temple'' on top of 3000 more.
**
** Really, [[The Bible/Source/2 Samuel|2nd Samuel]] has a ''list'' of Badasses who worked for King David, and were referred to as the "Mighty Men". The entire list is filled with stories of people killing off hundreds of people singlehanded, or fighting wild animals.
** Benaiah, who "killed a lion in a pit on a day when it had snowed."
** [[David Versus Goliath|David himself, killing Goliath]], a giant, as well as a lion and a bear, with a ''sling''. Number of stones picked up by David: five. Number of "sons of Anak" in Philistia at that time: five. A fourteen-year-old boy with that level of badassery: priceless.
** Another example of David's
** Jacob wrestled ''an angel'' for an entire night (though many scholars believe Jacob was actually ''[[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?|wrestling with God]]'' via theophany). The angel had to resort to cursing Jacob's hip in order to win, and Jacob ''still'' obtained a blessing (which remains in effect to this day) before he let the angel leave. To those of your who don't know, Jacob earned a nickname for that feat, which is literally translated as "Wrestles with God" ... The nickname is ''"Israel"''.
** Let us not forget Jesus himself, who survived an attempted stoning, furthermore when he found out about the moneychanger's tables in the temple he sat down for a good hour and braided himself a whip which the then used to chase them out. He apparently kept it with him after than because he breaks it out again later to do the exact same thing. He told a storm to shut the hell up because he was sleeping ''and it listened,'' brought multiple people back from the dead simply by asking then nicely (and sometimes not so nicely), cured a blind man with spit and dirt, and his mere presence was enough to cast out demons and cure mental illnesses. Not to mention the fact that most victims of crucifixion are tied to the cross, Jesus was ''nailed.'' [[Jesus Was Way Cool]] indeed.
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* [[Badass Normal]]: Judas Maccabeus in the Apocrypha; should ''not'' be confused with Judas Iscariot. Also, many of the Judges.
* [[Badass Pacifist]]: Jesus "Turn the other cheek" Christ.
* [[Basilitrice]]:
** The English Revised Version of the [[The Bible/Source/Isaiah|Book of Isaiah]] has [[The Bible/Source/Isaiah|chapter 14:29]], the prophet's exhortation to the Philistines after the fall of Israel. The text claims that a "basilisk" shall arise from its remains, and the King James translation uses "cockatrice"; in either case, said beast represents the nation's resurgence, and would itself beget a "dragon".
{{quote|Rejoice not, O Philistia, all of thee, because the rod that smote thee is broken: for out of the serpent's root shall come forth a basilisk, and his fruit shall be [[Our Dragons Are Different|a fiery flying serpent]].}}
:* In the Latin Vulgate and Septuagint translations of [[The Bible/Source/Psalms|Book of Psalms]], [[The Bible/Source/Psalms|Psalm 91:13]] is translated as "You will tread on the lion and the dragon,/the asp and the basilisk you will trample under foot".
* [[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 all evil, or ''a'' root of ''many'' evils depending on which translation you use.
** Another common misquote concerns the Garden of Eden's "Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil," often mislabeled as just the "Tree of Knowledge." Considering the original
** That, and most of the Rapture-related doctrines (literally and figuratively)
** "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." Paul said something vaguely similar, but not quite...
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* [[Bowdlerise]]:
** The original [[Trope Namer|Thomas Bowdler]]; also done countless times before and after him.
** Most adaptions for children take out some more adult parts. For example, Esther was chosen by King Xerxes because of how good she was in bed. In the judgment of Solomon, both women claiming to be the infant's mother were
** The story of Joshua, as told by [[Superbook]], portrayed Rahab as an innocent woman bullied by the soldiers of Jericho (she was actually a whore), and completely ignored the fact that every living thing in Jericho, apart from her and her family, were slain.
* [[Brats with Slingshots]]: Notably ''not'' David, though many, many people believe he used one. What he really used was a ''sling''
* [[Brother-Sister Incest]]:
** According to the Talmud, Cain and Abel each had a twin sister. Cain married Abel's, and Seth married Cain's.
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* [[Cain and Abel]]: The [[Trope Namer]].
* [[Canon Discontinuity]]: Where do we start...?
* [[Celibate Hero]]: Jesus, and possibly others we forget.
** Some people think that Jesus was married, but that his wife was not mentioned in the Bible (there are also a lot of speculations about why this is). Or that he was married to Mary Magdalene. Other people see these ideas as heresy.
* [[Chekhov's Gunman]]: Ishmael, Isaac's half-brother in Genesis, fades into the background shortly after he's introduced and [[Put on a Bus|sent off to Arabia]]. [[The Bus Came Back|Turns out one of his descendants was]] [[Islam|a guy named Muhammad]]. Interestingly enough, this loose thread doesn't get picked up until ''after'' [[The Bible]] ends.▼
** Also, Mary of Nazareth. Although the Bible only ''specifically'' says that she was a virgin before the birth of her first child, some scholars (and the official doctrine of the [[Christianity is Catholic|Catholic Church]]) have interpreted other references to come to the conclusion that she was perpetually celibate. Most notably, Jesus enacting a backwards adoption in John 19:26-27, which would have had the effect of giving the "beloved disciple" the responsibility of caring for her; this would have been necessary to provide for her, but ''only'' if she had no other children...
▲* [[Chekhov's Gunman]]: Ishmael, Isaac's half-brother in Genesis, fades into the background shortly after he's introduced and [[Put on a Bus|sent off to Arabia]]. [[The Bus Came Back|Turns out one of his descendants was]] [[Islam|a guy named Muhammad]]. Interestingly enough, this loose thread doesn't get picked up until ''after''
* [[Chekhov's Skill]]: Both used and averted with Moses and the burning bush. God teaches Moses how to turn his staff into a serpent, and how to turn the skin of his hand leprous (as well as cure it), both in order to demonstrate that he is a prophet of the Lord. He performs the former, but the latter never shows up again.
* [[Cherry Tapping]]: Samson kills 1,000 '''Philistines''' ''[[Badass|with a donkey's jaw]]'', and then follows it up with a pun.
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** Paul of Tarsus, usually in his epistles. In one instance, mediating an argument amongst the Galatians about circumcision, he helpfully recommends to the conservative Jewish converts agitating against the pagan converts that they "go the whole way and [[Groin Attack|cut the entire thing off]]!"
** The Old Testament was way ahead on the snark front. One memorable moment from the book of Jonah:
{{quote|
** The prophets are especially full of this sort of thing; such as God mocking how idol-worshipers would cut down a tree, make an idol to worship out of part of it...and cook breakfast over the rest of it.
** Here's one from the Book of Judges: In it, the Israelites constantly abandon Yahweh and turn other gods, causing God to remove his protection and allowing foreign powers to invade them. This causes the Israelites to turn back to Him, and He helps them drive out their
** Jesus himself has his moments. Some choose to read the famous line "For the poor ye have always with you; but me ye have not always" ([[The Bible/Source/John#12|John 12:8]]) as Jesus snarking at Judas, for example. Some commentaries interpret the statement in Luke 22:38 of two swords being "enough" as sarcastic, since they're for a group a dozen strong.
* [[Decapitation Presentation]]: Judith with the head of Holofernes. Possibly also Salome with the head of John the Baptist.
* [[Defiled Forever]]: In the old testament there are several rules regarding purity and defilement. The book of Deuteronomy, chapter 22 for example demands death penalty for various forms of sex outside marriage, but notably clears the woman if rape is proven (she was heard crying for help) or assumed (there's no way to prove she
* [[Depending on the Writer]]: Jesus' character tends to vary quite a bit depending on who's describing him.
* [[Depopulation Bomb]]: Several.
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** In some terms, this applies to the Old Testament. The "ending" (remember that chronologically, Ezra and Nehemiah are among the last books of the OT) is that Judah was restored with Persian protection, and the Messiah is coming soon. However, one of the last prophets of the OT predicted the destruction of Jerusalem.
* [[Down the Drain]]: In some translations of Judges 3, this is how Ehud escaped after [[Crowning Moment of Funny|killing King Eglon]], who had defeated the Israelites, in a rather unusual manner.
* [[Dub
* [[The Dragon]]: [[Inverted Trope|Inverted:]] The Dragon in Revelation ''is'' the [[Big Bad]]. Some sects (and [[Shin Megami Tensei|some videogames that base their version of Satan on such beliefs]]) have Satan as God's agent.
* [[Driven by Envy]]: Notable examples include Cain and Joseph's brothers.
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* [[Enigmatic Empowering Entity]]: This role is fulfilled by God as he shows himself to Moses in a burning bush.
* [[Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep"]]:
** Thanks to translations and tradition, YHWH is hardly ever known by His actual Name, and is referred to as, "God" (''El'' / ''Theos'') or "the Lord" (''Adonai'' / ''Kurios'') for most of the Book. When the English text reads "LORD" in ALL CAPS, it's a circumlocution for
** The only person said to have ever spoken His true name was, [[Word of Dante|according to apocrypha]], Lilith.
** Opinions vary on the [[I Have Many Names|Name]]. Several people are credited with knowing (and using) the big secret one, including Moses (to kill an Egyptain slave driver), Solomon (to enslave the demon king Ashmodai/Asmodeus), and various rabbinic sages (to create golems and other miracles).
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* [[The Evil Prince]]: Pretty much all of David's sons except for Solomon, each of whom inherited a variety of David's traits except for his faith in God.
* [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin]]: "Bible" means "book". [[Captain Obvious|It's a book of books.]]
▲* [[
* [[Extra Eyes]]: Thrones and various other angels.
* [[Expanded Universe]]: [[The Talmud]], [[The Book of Mormon (
* [[Face Death with Dignity]]: {{spoiler|Jesus}}, the Garden of Gethsemane notwithstanding.
* [[Face Heel Turn]]: King Saul, Pharaoh (multiple times), Absalom
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* [[Faux Empowering Entity]]: Satan arguably fills this role as he's tempting Jesus with empty/meaningless promises in the desert.
* [[Filler]]: Extremely well-done with the Apocrypha.
* [[Final Solution]]:
** Noah and the
**
** Book of
* [[Finding Judas]]: ... but not the [[Trope Namer]].
* [[Find the Cure]]: Tobit is blinded, so his son Tobias and his companion ( {{spoiler|aka the archangel Raphael}} in disguise) go search for the cure.
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* [[Foot Focus]]: Solomon describes his wife's feet as being attractive.
* [[Forbidden Fruit]]: Contrary to popular imagery, it wasn't necessarily an apple. (Other versions have it as a pomegranate, a citron, or a fig.)
* [[Forgot I Could Change the Rules]]: Averted in the Book of Esther, the king is maneuvered into creating a law that would allow all the Jews to massacred by Haman. When Queen Esther reveals that she is Jewish herself and exposes Haman to the king, the law authorizing pogrom cannot be annulled by even the king. However, there is nothing that prevents him from passing a new law enabling the Jewish population to defend themselves with state support.
* [[Friend to All Children]]: Jesus.
* [[Gainax Ending]]: The Book of Revelation.
* [[Gendercide]]: Twice, in Exodus.
* [[Generational Trauma]]: This is basically King David's story. He forms a friendship with King Saul and Prince Jonathan after playing the harp for Saul, saves the kingdom from Goliath, and pledges loyalty to the kingdom. Jonathan is ''more'' than fine with the idea of David inheriting the kingdom because he sees that David is a good man, but Saul isn't. Cue Saul starting to hunt down his harpist, and Jonathan sent David into hiding because he points out that David has committed no crime other than earning the love of the people. When Jonathan and Saul died in battle along with any heirs to the throne, David becomes king. It seems all is well...but then he spies on Bathsheba, who is married, and decides he wants her. Cue her being pregnant, and Uriah doesn't return home in time to claim the baby as his. David sends her husband Uriah to die and pressures Bathsheba to marry him. Nathan the prophet warns that as a result, their first baby will die, and David's other sons start a civil war because they understandably don't want Solomon to take their birthright. David mourns that his actions ruined his family, and only moves to rule because that is his duty. When Solomon manages to get to the throne, his way to avoid his father's tendency toward infidelity and have a better chance for a worthy heir is by making an harem and marrying as many women as possible, which while giving him less grief while he is alive creates an even bigger succession crisis after his death.
* [[Geo Effects]]: The Israelites and the Aramites, subverted.
* [[Get Thee to a Nunnery]]: A few noteworthy ones:
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** "Feet" is often used in the Old Testament to refer to something a bit higher.
** Chapter seven of Song of Solomon describes the wife's navel as "a rounded cup, never lacking in sweet wine." Some scholars argue that "navel" may in fact refer to the vagina.
* [[Getting Crap Past the Radar]]: Song of Solomon, or Song of Songs, depending on what translation you're reading. The average reader is often rendered speechless to find what they can only call pornography in the Bible, and scholars have debated for centuries just ''how the hell this wound up in the Bible''
* [[God]]: [[Trope Codifier]], at least for Abrahamic religions.
* [[Go Mad
* [[The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry]]: Plain and dowdy Leah vs pretty vivacious Rachel over Jacob.
* [[Go-Karting with Bowser]]: According to the book of Job, Satan has been known to hang around heaven and take friendly bets with God.
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* [[Heel Face Turn]]: Saul on the road to Damascus, who quite literally "saw the light". In fact, in the German translation this became [[De/Vom Saulus Zum Paulus]] - "from Saul to Paul", a common German figure of speech.
* [[Heel Face Revolving Door]]: Pharaoh in Exodus.
* [[Heroic Sacrifice]]: Stephen, Isaac, Samson, {{spoiler|Jesus}}.
* [[Heroic BSOD]]:
** {{spoiler|Jesus}} while on the cross asks {{spoiler|God}} why he has forsaken him. (Though this scene could also be interpreted as his simply quoting Psalm 22; the Psalms were not numbered at the time, and were commonly referred to by the first line of text.)
** The whole prayer at Gethsemane scene can be seen as an [[Heroic BSOD]] as well.
** David also has a full-blown one after Saul and Jonathan's deaths.
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* [[Hooker with a Heart of Gold]]: Rahab in the Torah, Mary Magdalene in [[Fanon]].
* [[Hope Spot]]: Pilate tries to have {{spoiler|Jesus}} released, but the mob insists on {{spoiler|his crucifixion}}. Although Pilate was a jerk, depending on who you talk to. In other branches, he's a saint. Literally.
* [[Humans Are
** Humanity's ''thoughts'' were bad enough to drive an omnibenevolent being to attempt [[Kill'Em All|omnicide]]. He drowned around 30 million people before he forgave humanity, <s> because</s> despite the fact that humanity's thoughts are bad and [[My God, What Have I Done?|repented]].
** The last chapters of Judges.
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* [[I Am Legion]]: The original and [[Trope Namer]].
* [[I Did What I Had to Do]]: King Saul in 1 Samuel 13. God was less than pleased with this attitude and fired him.
* [[Idiot Ball]]: Samson finds some bees have made their hive in the corpse of a lion, so he eats some of the honey and gives the rest to his parents. The honey that came from a ''dead lion''. Especially bad since, as a Nazarite, he's not allowed to touch, let alone eat, anything that came from corpses.▼
* [[I Have Many Names]]: God.
* [[I Know Your True Name]]: Mostly in the Old Testament, some power is associated with the names of God, the act of Adam naming the animals, etc.. In fact, Moses kills an Egyptian at one point solely by saying God's True Name, which [[Fanon]] holds to be ''72 or 216 letters long''.[
* [[IKEA Erotica]]: [[Averted Trope|averted]] in the Song of Solomon.▼
* [[I'll Kill You!]]: Exodus, and probably some other places.
* [[I'm a Humanitarian]]: Quite a few examples that falls under two categories: God's punishment (usually [[Squick|forcing people to eat their own children or other family members]]) or depicted [[Gorn|for the sake of it]].
▲* [[Idiot Ball]]: Samson finds some bees have made their hive in the corpse of a lion, so he eats some of the honey and gives the rest to his parents. The honey that came from a ''dead lion''. Especially bad since, as a Nazarite, he's not allowed to touch, let alone eat, anything that came from corpses.
▲* [[IKEA Erotica]]: [[Averted Trope|averted]] in the Song of Solomon.
* [[Implausible Deniability]]: Cain is enough of a moron to think he can lie to an omniscient, omnipotent God.
* [[Improbable Weapon User]]: Samson killed some Philistines using the jawbone of a donkey.
* [[Irrevocable Order]]: The Medes and Persians had a law that if the king's ring was used to seal a proclamation then it could not be undone, not even if the king changed his mind.
** [[wikipedia:Daniel and the
** [[wikipedia:Book of Esther|Esther]] is another example. The Persian king gave Haman his ring, which Haman used to seal an order authorizing on a certain date the murder of all the Jews and the seizure of their property by the killers. When the king discovered Haman's plot, he had Haman executed, but could not undo the order. So he wrote out a new order allowing the Jews to kill anyone who attacked on that date. The Jews then slaughtered their enemies who attacked them.
* [[It Got Worse]]: The Bible in general relies on this a lot to ensure that the protagonist(s) of the stories [[Earn Your Happy Ending|earn their happy endings]].
* [[It's Been Done]]: Ecclesiastes says quite a few times that there is nothing new under the sun.
* [[Jacob and Esau]]: [[Trope Namer]].
* [[Jacob Marley Warning]]: Subverted. In the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (a different [[Back
* [[Jaywalking Will Ruin Your Life]]: The first two people decide to have a bit of fruit, resulting in {{spoiler|the fall of man and eternal punishment}}.▼
* [[Jesus Saves]]: [[Trope Namer]].
* [[Jesus Taboo]]: [[Captain Obvious|Averted]].
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* [[Journey to Find Oneself]]: Jesus' 40 days and nights in the desert, sort of.
* [[Judgment of Solomon]]: [[Trope Namer]].
* [[Just-So Story]]: The narrative until Abraham is
* [[Kill'Em All]]:
** Many cases in the Old Testament.
** The [[Distant Finale]], Revelation; possibly the most literal application of "[[Kill'Em All]] and let God sort 'em out" ever.
* [[Kill It with Water]]:
** The whole of Noah's story.
** The Red Sea closing on the Egyptian soldiers chasing the Israelites.
* [[Klingon Promotion]]: Many kings of Israel during the split with Judah.
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* [[Load-Bearing Hero]]: Samson, though it's an inversion since he ''brings down the temple!'' He's still the hero, though. He also pulls up a set of city gates and walks away with them.
* [[Loads and Loads of Characters]]: There are dozens of books written over a period of many centuries, and some of them include genealogies or history.
▲*
* [[Lost in Translation]]: The Bible both averts and suffers from this. Most scholars agree that the Bible is "remarkably well-preserved" from translation to translation (we ''are'' talking about something that's incredibly [[Serious Business]] for its copyists, after all). However, there's still cases where a word in the original Hebrew text isn't given a proper contextual translation; for example, the lost contexts involving [[Thou Shalt Not Kill]] and God [[More Than Mind Control|mind-controlling the Pharaoh]]. This leads to some serious misconceptions. Then there are groups like the King James Version Movement, who believe that a Modern English reading of the ''Early'' Modern English King James Version is ''the'' [[Word of God]].
* [[Lyrical Dissonance]]: The Song of Moses from Deuteronomy 32:1-43 which was sung as the Israelites finally entered the Promised Land. In the passages beforehand, God had flat out told Moses that his people were going to mess up badly in the end, and gave the song to Moses as a reminder of what they needed to do once that day came to repent. Nevertheless, it's about as uplifting as a kick in the balls.
▲* [[
* [[Meaningful Name]]: Literally hundreds, [[wikipedia:List of Biblical names|here's a full list]].
* [[Memetic Number]]: 40. Forget 11 or [[Thirteen Is Unlucky|13]] or even [[Number of the Beast|666]], this number is one of the more memorable ones in the book. Examples include the forty days and nights Noah spent in his Ark during the Deluge (another round before he even looked out the window), the number of days the Israelites took to explore their Promised Land, and the number of days Jesus fasted. There's even [http://www.40day.com/40_in_the_bible.html this website] that is focused around the number 40. That number is one [[Badass]] dude.
* [[The Messiah]] (Many, including the [[Messianic Archetype]], Jesus.) Three big ones. Jesus, Mohammed (technically a prophet, rather than a messiah, but fulfilling a similar narrative role), and the nameless "moshiach", or messiah of the Jews, who don't accept the cannonicity of the New Testement. The last one one has only appeared in previews and foreshadowing, so we're still waiting on the next sequel to provide his name.
* [[Messianic Archetype]]:
▲* [[A Million Is a Statistic]]{{context}}
* [[Mind Screw]]: Revelation. According to some historians, the man who wrote it [[What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs?|actually
* [[Mission
* [[Mix-and-Match Critters]]:
** When not described as [[Eldritch Abomination
** Revelation 13 has two examples: a beast coming out of the sea who "resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion", and another beast coming out of the Earth who "had two horns like a lamb, but he spoke like a dragon".
* [[Modesty Leaves]]: Mainly Adam and Eve.
* [[The Mole]]: Judas Iscariot, after a [[Face Heel Turn]].
* [[Moral Dissonance]]: This what is percieved when a particular [[Disproportionate Retribution]] or an example of [[Values Dissonance]] strikes particularly hard and much discussion has ensued between critics and apologists because of it. The priestly codes and laws documented in books like Leviticus are prone to cause this as well. Lot's handling of the mob in Sodom--[[Sacred Hospitality|offering his daughters to prevent them from raping angels sent to visit him]]
* [[Moses in the Bulrushes]]: [[Trope Namer]]
* [[Most Writers Are Male]]: Chauvinist bias is massively averted in many books. One of the Old Testament Judges (rulers of Israel) was a female, Lady Deborah. The church is described as a woman to be the bride of Christ.
* [[Mrs. Robinson]]: Potiphar's Wife.
* [[Murder the Hypotenuse]]: David and Bathsheba.
* [[My Death Is Just the Beginning]]: {{spoiler|Jesus}}. Enoch and Elijah are considered the two prophets in the Revelation of John, so they count too.
* [[My Species Doth Protest Too Much]]: Although several groups receive an [[
* [[Mystical Plague]]: A couple of the [[wikipedia:Plagues of Egypt|Plagues of Egypt]] in The Bible fit: the plague of pestilence (which only affected livestock) and the plague of boils (skin disease).
* [[Never Accepted in His Hometown]]: Jesus and most prophets. It's the [[Trope Namer]], after all.
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** In the gospels, angels speak to both Mary and Joseph, inform them that they will have God's son, and that he will be named Jesus. Since a Hebrew name was also a blessing given at birth, it was standard procedure for the father (in this case God Himself) to come up with the name.
** An angel visited Zechariah and Elizabeth to tell them to call their son John. This was also contrary to custom, since the firstborn son would normally be named after the father.
* [[Obfuscating Insanity]]:
* [[The Obi-Wan]]: David to Solomon, John the Baptist to Jesus, Elijah to Elisha, and Paul to Timothy. Also, Elijah and Moses to Jesus.
* [[Omniglot]]: One of the powers of [[Clap Your Hands If You Believe|true believers]], according to [[Fanon]], along with the ability to [[Acquired Poison Immunity|drink anything poisonous]], [[The Exorcist|exorcise demons]], [[Healing Hands|heal the sick]], and for ''truest'' of true believers [[Nigh Invulnerability]] against demons and evil spirits! A few American groups interpret the source for this one (speaking in tongues) to mean a language absolutely nobody on Earth understands. No one seems to know why.
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** Inverted with all those names (Emmannuel, Joshua, Jesus) that are all meant to be for the same dude.
** Just among the 12 Disciples we have 2 James, 2 Judas, and 2 Simons (though one also went by Peter)
** Not to mention the 4 or so different Marys we have in the Gospels. (At ''least'' four. By some interpretations, there may be as many as eight!)
* [[Only Mostly Dead]]: Tabitha, maybe Lazarus, averted with {{spoiler|Jesus}} where the guards did some <s> prodding</s> stabbing to check.
* [[Only Sane Man]]: Jesus.
* [[Opposite
* [[Our Angels Are Different]]: ''Very'' different. There are a number of "classes of angels; taking the example of the Cherubim, they seem to have faces varying from that of a lion, ox, man, and eagle, eyes all over their bodies, and more than one pair of wings.
* [[Our Dragons Are Different]]:
** Satan of course.
** Whatever it was that Daniel killed.
* [[Out, Damned Spot!]]: Pontius Pilate.
* [[Out of Order]]: The traditional arrangement of books is not very chronological. The OT is arranged by topic and length (mostly), and the epistles of the NT are arranged by author and length (again, mostly). The [[Book of Revelation]] is normally put last because of its content, but it is thought [[YMMV|by many]] to have been written before any of the Johns.
* [[Pals with Jesus]]: [[Trope Namer]]?ish... not literally, but considering that a large chunk of the book is ''the'' source about Jesus...
* [[The Paragon]]: Jesus.
* [[Parental Favoritism]]: Joseph.
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* [[Rock of Limitless Water]]: In one of the earliest examples of this trope, Moses strikes a rock with his staff, and by God's power, a waterfall begins spewing out.
* [[Scenery Gorn]]: Lamentations (destruction of Jerusalem) and Joel (destruction of a field by locusts).
* [[Schmuck Bait]]: God puts a Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden, then tells humanity not to eat its fruit. If they don't know good from evil? The result is inevitable.
* [[Science Is Bad]]: The Bible is often interpreted to support this message, especially concerning the Tower of Babel.
* [[Science Marches On]]: The concept of the world being a few thousand years
* [[The Scourge of God]]
* [[Scry vs. Scry]]: Moses against Pharaoh's priests. They turned their staffs into serpents; Moses's staff became a serpent which devoured the others.
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* [[Shoot the Dog]]
* [[Shout-Out]]: Sumerian mythology, according to secular historians. Not relevant among believers. The Law of Moses was both a civil and religious code. Many of the civil laws can also be found in other period law codes.
* [[Sibling Rivalry]]: Cain vs Abel, Jacob vs Esau, Joseph vs his 11 brothers.
* [[Sixth Ranger]]:
** Paul, who starts out an enemy of the early church but later joins up with them, and ends up being one of the best-known and most frequently quoted Christians of the first century.
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* [[The Stars Are Going Out]]: In the Apocalypse, when the stars (or rather, ''shooting'' stars) fall from sky and the [[Weird Moon|moon turns blood red]].
* [[Start My Own]]:
** In popular legend, when Simon Magus couldn't bribe his way into the new
** Gnosticism, as a very early example. And later the Christianity of Constantine, who simply threw Jesus on the pile of gods he already worshipped.
** Early Catholics believed that Muhammad was one of these divisive figures, which is why [[Word of Dante|Dante Alighieri]] [[Divine Comedy|put him in Hell with similar offenders]].
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* [[Taking You with Me]]: Samson. Could be a case of either [[Heroic Sacrifice]] or [[Redemption Equals Death]], maybe both considering [[What the Hell, Hero?|what happened earlier]] ...
* [[Tempting Fate]]: The civilization at [[Tower of Babel|Babel]].
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* [[Tenchi Solution]]: Jacob works for Laban seven years to marry his beloved Rachel. When the ceremony rolls around, he finds he's married to Leah, her older sister, instead. Laban's solution: you have to work another seven years to get the other girl, too. Not only that, but both women bring their handmaids into it, too: Rachel because she's barren (for a while), and Leah because, well, she's [[The Unfavorite|the less favored wife]] and has to keep up. So Jacob winds up having four "wives" and a total of 13 children.
* [[The Antichrist]]: [[Trope Namer]]. In this case, though, it means a substitute or artificial
* [[Thou Shalt Not Kill]]: [[Trope Namer]], though technically, it [[Lost in Translation|really translates]] to "You will not ''murder.''" The nation given this command killed often with God's
* [[Time Skip]]: the Old Testament and New Testament are separated by about five hundred years of time. There's another 400-year gap between the account of the Israelites going into Egypt and coming out. The Apocrypha assayed to [[Filler|fill in]] the missing time.
* [[Title Drop]]: Averted. The word "bible" can't be found anywhere in the Bible. It's "scripture." This is mostly due to the fact that the list of canonical scripture as we know it (pretty much no matter which canon you adhere to) wasn't made until long after the books themselves were written. For the standard Christian canon, there was a gap of about 200 years or so between the writing of the last book and the time when the list of canonical books became more-or-less universally accepted within the Church.
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* [[Tower of Babel]]: [[Trope Namer]]
* [[Tragic Bromance]]: David and Jonathan.
* [[Trauma Conga Line]]: Job.
* [[Traumatic Haircut]]: Samson.
* [[Trope Overdosed]] (and the [[Trope Maker]], [[Trope Namer]], or [[Trope Codifier]] in many cases) Of course, we should bear in mind that it's technically a collection of several dozen books (the exact number depending on the canon you adhere to).
* [[Turn the Other Cheek]]: [[Trope Namer]]
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* [[Who Wants to Live Forever?]]: Adam and Eve are banished from Eden, in part, so that they won't be able to eat from the Tree of Life, causing them to live forever with the curses they received for eating from the Tree of Knowledge.
* [[Word of Dante]]: Obviously, the Divine Comedy. But also ...
** The whole [https://web.archive.org/web/20130202201351/http://newprotestants.com/LUCIFER.htm "Lucifer = Satan" thing.]
** The bit about Mary Magdalene being a harlot.
** The Antichrist/'false messiah' concept. Revelation describes a despot ruler and his false prophet, but there's nothing about him actually claiming to be any kind of Jewish messiah.
** Judas' motives (e.g. claiming he was a [[Miser Advisor]]) for telling Jesus that they could have sold the oil and used the funds for the benefit of the poor.
* [[Word of God]]: The Bible, to Christians of all denominations. Most consider the Bible the ''sole'' source (a theory referred to as 'scripture alone', or in Latin as ''Sola Scriptura''), but others, most notably the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, believe in additional sacred revelations and teachings that are not included in, but also not contradictory with, the Bible. (The Catholic doctrine of Papal infallibility refers to the codification of such additional teachings.)
* [[World's Strongest Man]]: Samson.
* [[Would Be Rude to Say Genocide]]: All the cases of [[Final Solution]] in The Bible use Type A ( = the genocide is considered justified): God is the definition of goodness, so whatever population of human beings he chose to exterminate (or have exterminated by his followers) automatically qualifies as [[
* [[Xanatos Gambit]]: Judith from the Talmud; and possibly Jesus' entire arc, especially considering Judas's vital role.
* [[Yamato Nadeshiko]]: Arguably, the Virgin Mary was a ''very'' early version.
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** Abel's sacrifice is accepted, Cain's is not. Isaac is favored by his mother over Ishmael, his older half-brother. Jacob is favored by his mother over Esau, the firstborn twin. Joseph is favored by his father over all his older brothers, as is Benjamin. Moses's degree of prophecy outranks Aaron's. David, the youngest of 7, was anointedking and Solomon, David's youngest son, becomes the next king. Each of these were meant to be subversions of the cultural standard. The story of Jacob and Esau even acknowledges that under normal circumstances Esau's the one who had the birthright coming to him.
** This theme is one of the overarching motifs of the book of Genesis. It also shows up later, but especially in Genesis. As noted above, it was a (presumably intentional) subversion of how things actually tended to work in real life.
** The older brothers get along fine afterwards. Cain founded a city, Ishmael served the Lord and founded a great nation (the Arabs) who eventually [[Islam|served the Lord in their own way]], Esau made up with Jacob and founded his own nation, and the Tribe of Judah became leader of the
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