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{{quote|{{verse|1|1}}Now behold, it did come to pass that in the city of Los Angeles, the writers of science fiction and fantasy did begin to wax exceedingly fat off of the labors of their hands. |
{{quote|{{verse|1|1}}Now behold, it did come to pass that in the city of Los Angeles, the writers of science fiction and fantasy did begin to wax exceedingly fat off of the labors of their hands. |
Revision as of 14:19, 20 June 2024
This page needs some cleaning up to be presentable. This trope has only a Self-Demonstrating description. It needs a plain-English description. |
1Now behold, it did come to pass that in the city of Los Angeles, the writers of science fiction and fantasy did begin to wax exceedingly fat off of the labors of their hands. —The Gospel according to Hollywood, chapter 42, verses 1-25
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Comic Books
- The Crime Bible in The DCU, which even spawned its own mini-series, Crime Bible: Five Lessons of Blood, each issue of which opened with a passage from the Crime Bible.
Film
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail has a reading from the Book of Armaments (Chapter 2, verses 9-21), which gives the history and the correct usage of the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch.
- Hilariously averted in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, where (after a reading from the "St. Victor" sketch mentioned below) a chaplain leads the school in a prayer consisting of uninspiring ass-kissing ("Gosh, we're all really impressed down here, I can tell you"), then in a hymn begging God not to cook them in various specific ways.
- Invoked by the title characters of The Boondock Saints in the sequel. When asked if they say a prayer before executing someone, they decided to have a little fun, point their guns at the guy who asked them the question, and dramatically make up "verses" about the Vengeance of the Lord using Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe.
- Pulp Fiction. About a third of Jules's speech is pretty close to the real Ezekiel 25:17, the rest is a pastiche of other Biblical phrases inspired by old Sonny Chiba movies.
- The Shepherd's Journal from Atlantis: The Lost Empire.
- The Hell Bible in Constantine, which has a different Book of Revelation.
- Seasons 4 and 5 of Supernatural delve into this as well, with the show's designated heroes consulting a "special" version of the Book of Revelation.
- The Prophecy uses the exact same idea for a Bible found on a dead angel.
- Woody Allen, in Love and Death:
"Moses was right. He that...he that abideth in truth will have frankincense and myrrh smeared on his gums in abundance, and he shall dwell in the house of the Lord for six months, with an option to buy. But the wicked man...the wicked man shall have all kinds of problems. His tongue shall cleave to the roof of his upper palate, and he shall speak like a woman, if you watch him closely. And he shall...he shall...the wicked man shall be delivered into the hands of his enemy, whether they can pay the delivery charge or not. And...wait, I have more about the wicked man. I shall walk through the valley of the shadow of death...In fact, now that I think of it, I shall run through the valley of the shadow of death, 'cause you get out of the valley quicker that way. And he that hath clean hands and a pure heart is okay in my book. But he that fools around with barnyard animals has gotta be watched." |
- The classic Giant Bug movie Them has a character mutter such a verse:
"And there shall be destruction and darkness come over creation |
Literature
- This is parodied in Good Omens, where Agnes Nutter's book and the Buggre Alle This Bible are both written this way.
25 And the Lord spake unto the Angel that guarded the eastern gate, saying Where is the flaming sword which was given unto thee? |
- The Discworld novel Small Gods pokes fun at this, where everything the Great God Om says after a sudden influx of worshippers is a scriptural passage.
"Will you help?" |
- In the same book, a scribe jotted down Cut-Me-Own-Hand-Off Dhblah's eyewitness account of Om's ascension and Brutha's reaction, and it's written like this as well. Except that Dhblah's still trying to shift his very old produce, and tries to sell it to the scribe.
- As explored by Bob Price in the non-fiction book "The Paperback Apocalypse," this is a frequent feature of apocalyptic/anti-christ related fiction.
- The Necronomicon is often portrayed this way.
- Dave Barry's column "He Knows Not What He Writes" had this mysterious religious anecdote of the sort best explained by broadcast preachers:
"And Bezel saideth unto Sham: 'Sham,' he saideth, 'Thou shalt goest unto the town of Begorrah, and there shalt thou fetcheth unto thine bosom 35 talents and also shalt thou fetcheth a like number of cubits, provideth that they are nice and fresh." |
- The "Smokey the Bear Sutra" by Gary Snyder is a Buddhist variation on this theme.
- Borderline example is the "Book of (insert Israeli leader name here)" in Private Eye, which presents contemporary events in the Middle East in a parody of the King James Bible style.
- David Langford's account of why War In 2080 didn't have a publicity budget.
- Similarly to the Rowan Atkinson version above, there was The Bible...According to Spike Milligan.
Live-Action TV
- The Book of Origin for the Ori in Stargate SG-1.
- Joss Whedon is one of the most blatant abusers of this trope.
- Supernatural does this occasionally, trying to pass off prophecies about the 66 Seals as extracts from obscures versions of the Book of Revelation
Music
- "The Martyrdom of St. Victor" from Monty Python's Contractual Obligation Album.
- "Suffer Not The Mutant To Live", from John Wyndham's The Chrysalids.
- "Toad Away", from The Firesign Theatre's Dear Friends album.
New Media
- The Netscape and Firefox browsers have the Easter Egg "about:mozilla", which brings up a quotation from the Book of Mozilla.
Professional Wrestling
- "You talk about your psalms, you talk about your John 3:16. Well, Austin 3: 16 says I just kicked your ass!"
Recorded and Stand Up Comedy
- Rowan Atkinson's "Amazing Jesus" sketch" combines this with Sophisticated As Hell.
And they brought to him on a stretcher a man who was sick of the palsy, and they cried unto him, "Maestro, this man is sick of the palsy." And the Lord said, "If I had to spend my whole life on a stretcher, I'd be pretty sick of the palsy too!" And they were filled with joy, and cried out, "Lord, thy one-liners are as good as thy tricks; thou art indeed an all-round family entertainer." |
Web Comics
- Homestuck. This page combines KJV-esque English with Sophisticated As Hell.
And with righteous pap and blessed shoosh he did quell his brother's fury. For the Knight looked upon his Bard all acting up and completely losing his shit and he did resolve to calmeth his juggalo ass right the fuck down. |
Western Animation
- Beast Wars: Let's not forget the Covenant of Primus, the Transformers equivalent of The Bible...or at least those bits at the end (that is to say, the parts we hear are equivalent to the bits at the end).
Megatron: "...and there came a hero who said: 'Hurt not the Earth, nor the sea, nor the trees, nor the very fabric of time,' but the hero would not prevail!" |
Real Life
- The U.S. Court of Appeals ruling in Zim v. Western Publishing Co., 573 F.2d 1318 (5th Cir. 1978) (transcript here) starts out with a parody of the first chapter of Genesis ("In the beginning, Zim created the concept of the Golden Guides") and continues in biblical fashion for a short while:
Then there rose up in Western a new Vice-President who knew not Zim. And there was strife and discord, anger and frustration, between them for the Golden Guides were not being published or revised in their appointed seasons. And it came to pass that Zim and Western covenanted a new covenant, calling it a Settlement Agreement. But there was no peace in the land. Verily, they came with their counselors of law into the district court for judgment and sued there upon their covenants. |
- The Book of Mormon is near-universally agreed to have errors and phrasing consistent with this trope indicative of a man of Joseph Smith's education emulating the King James Bible's style. Whether this is an indicative and an artifact of him writing it whole-cloth or of him translating something given from on high to the best of his ability is largely a matter of faith.
- Pretty much any religious text of any religion translated into English will have numerous translations going out of their way to pretentiously imitate the King James Version's antiquated English for no reason whatsoever — even if the translation is from, say, the 1970s. The Qur'an in particular gets it bad.
- ↑ ten miles