Question about mixing mythology and the Bible

[Scarecrow]

Umm I have a plot and a basic idea for a webcomic/animation combo (kind of an animated comic book) I've been working on for a while but I had a question about one thing I wasn't sure if I should do. Would mixing the bibles creation story with my own vampire mythology be appropriate? Its not going to be any part of the plot really but more of an origin backdrop thingy and explain parts of my vampire history.

The comic seems to be headed in an overtly Christian direction (which was not what I intended, I wanted something more subtle) so the whole thing is Christian in nature but still, I don't want to offend God or anyone else, with certain creative liberties I've taken.

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

Hey Scarecrow, good to see you mate!

Hmm... that's a tough one. Things like the Bible are sacred so you shouldn't manipulate them. Creative liscence can be used as long as you state it as fiction and the underlying message doesn't go against your beliefs (and God's Word). I'm not exactly sure. I've had some great original ideas that weren't theologically sound so I didn't end up writing them. A pain to be sure but I value my relationship with Jesus to much to help myself stumble.
I guess my best advice is... you guessed it... to pray. Also talking to someone like a pastor, strong Christian friend could help. If you give me more details of what your hoping to write about I could see if I could help you there.
God Bless!

[Scarecrow]

Oh yea I guess it would have helped to post that

Umm basically, its the same old creation story except when Adam and Eve ate the fruit, its gave them a disease which began eating away at their insides. They have lots of babies, Cain first, then Able... and all the rest and all are born with this disease eating the inside. As long as they remain in fellowship with God, he takes care of them and heals it. Cains disease becomes advanced and begins to burn through his chest as he breaks away from God. He was becoming proud with his nack for growing the most beautiful vegitables. Since God does not find his special vegitables to be anything special really, Cain becomes jealous of Able cause of his close relationship with God and he also does not seem to be suffering from any disease. So he kills him. Cain becomes fearful of God and runs and hides in darkness fearing the "light". Since he has turned from God he becomes restless desperately looking for other ways to stop the fast deterioration of his body. Blood temporarily heals (or sooths it, slows it or whatever) the disease and yea... long story short Cain becomes the first vampire He and his wife have babies who are actually born vampires with the same bloody holes in their chest, thirst for blood and also can't stand the light...

Thats not what I'm writting about it was just mearly my vampire creation myth... but anyway yea...

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

While copius amounts of blood and gore aren't my thing it sounds like there's nothing wrong with what your doing. The storyline itself sounds exciting! Go for it!

[uc pseudonym]

I'm inclined to say that the appropriateness of this story would depend mostly on the direction you take it. That, as a simple set up, doesn't have anything terribly wrong with it but might be uncomfortable for many. I don't think God has a problem with people creating fiction that involves an alternate conception of the world. But how many people feel it is a wise or unwise choice probably depends on how you take the story from there.

[Scarecrow]

Ok... well aside from that, I don't think anyone would have a problem with the direction really... I was thinking of changing it to kind of parallel the Genesis story to avoid this rather than explicintly tell the Genisis story with little alterations but I kind of liked this idea and it fit very well with what I had planned. I am trying to be very careful but I think if it all goes well, it should be pretty decent with some strong Christian overtones.

And this isn't going to be a gorefest or anything. Even my most violent drawings are pretty bloodless compared to most stuff out there.

Anyway thanks for the replies. I will try to be very careful and if I have anymore concerns I'll just check here first

[Mave]

I have to admit that I will feel pretty uncomfortable with this. But do understand that I'm fairly bothered by the general concept of vampires as a whole. This leads me to form an opinion that vampire myth + Bible references as irreconcilable and non-edifying. If you had used another form of disease, I would have probably been less critical.

The idea of substituting actual Biblical references or using parallels can help ease this potential source of discomfort.

However, I don't intend to press my opinion on you. Pls consider this as honest feedback and make your choice as God leads you. *nods*

[Scarecrow]

I have to admit that I will feel pretty uncomfortable with this. But do understand that I'm fairly bothered by the general concept of vampires as a whole. This leads me to form an opinion that vampire myth + Bible references as irreconcilable and non-edifying. If you had used another form of disease, I would have probably been less critical.

The idea of substituting actual Biblical references or using parallels can help ease this potential source of discomfort.

However, I don't intend to press my opinion on you. Pls consider this as honest feedback and make your choice as God leads you. *nods*

Thanks for the feed back. I haven't had much of a chance to work on this since but maybe if I explain my intentions behind it a little better you may see it in a differnt light? I don't want to spoil anything, not that there's much to spoil at this point its all just notes on paper but anyway...

I've always been fascinated with vampires, not necessarily their thirst for blood, I dunno, I thought they were interesting characters and in a way, a very extreme characture of us... Anyway, in my little story the disease represents sin in general and which is has infected everyone and so everyone is dying. And then what we become if we give into sinful ways. We naturally thirst for something and this natural drive to want to keep on living and in the story, the vampires and their thirst for blood kind of parallels this. The only one who can fully quench this thirst and cure them fully though is Jesus. Plus Jesus is "the Light"... and in his presence sin is crushed... so yea, the vampires can't stand in the daylight or they are destroyed. Repent of your sin and trust Jesus, the Light will destroy the vampire but his soul is saved thus becoming a new creation in Christ.

So yea (I actually thought, when I was describing my vampire myth idea, the direction I was headed with this was quite obvious and cliche but I guess not, so in a way I'm pleased with myself ) As far as anything other than that though, I'll just have to see as I go along but thats basically what I've had in my mind for the whole vampire thing which is why I thought the idea of the whole adam and eve part as a back story would work so perfectly

I know thats a bit sketchy and alot of things need smoothing out but thats basically the gist of it

Anyway, if you still have objections to this approach please let me know. Or if you have ideas how to smooth this idea out better. Again this isn't the storyline but just my idea behind the vampires I've kind of had for a while and thought I'd build a story around it.

[Katrina]

It's an interesting concept. I think I agree with Mave in that while I don't have direct objections to it, I think I might feel uncomfortable reading or writing it myself. I think the biggest thing to be cautious of is that you don't delve so much into the vampire prospect that you lose the picture of God. Or that you or the audience actually becomes comfortable with the idea of one person killing another to drink their blood.

When I work on a story, I get pretty heavily involved with it. Sometimes I'm thinking about it almost constantly and there's just certain things you don't want to be always thinking about. And what's supposed to be a story of redemption for my character can end up causing me to stumble. That in mind, there are stories I've finished that I'm glad did (in one case, God was gracious enough to show me some fruit from it) and other stories I didn't touch because I didn't think I could handle them spiritually.

Just pray that God helps you to create something that ultimately uplifts both you and your audience. I'll say a prayer for you too.

[Mithrandir]

It's an intesting concept, but I don't think you actually need to make direct references to vapirism. The fact that your characters can't stand the light might make some people *think* vampire, but if you descibe what happens in terms of the characters being hurt by the light and having to flee from it, I think it would be OK.

On the other hand, if you cross over to direct comparison and have them feed upon other people, etc, I think you'll lose one major market segment (Christians) and the other market segment (non-Christians) will think it's cheesy.

That's just my $0.02, though.

[Scarecrow]

Actually, I kind of got bored with this so I'm probably not gonna do it anyway. And if I do, I've decided to scrap mixing real life with fixtion. I think it would be better to just create an entirely fictional world, with its own creation story, etc... But have it more of a supposition like Narnia or something...

Anyway, you can breathe... It wasn't interesting enough so I wanna shift gears try somethign else. Anyway thanks for the replies.