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The Bible (view source)

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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 language--leaving plenty of room for cases of [[Lost in Translation]].
 
On a related note, there are several major opinions on what the Bible ''is''. According to the [[Useful Notes/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 [[Useful Notes/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, [[Useful Notes/Gnosticism|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 Evangelion (no, not ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion|that one]]'') probably appeared within the various Gnostic communities every day. The Gnostics believed in personal and continuous revelation rather than authority of scripture.
 
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.
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* [[Canon Dis Continuity]]: 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). Other people see this idea 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]] [[Useful Notes/Islam|a guy named Muhammad]]. Interestingly enough, this loose thread doesn't get picked up until ''after'' [[The Bible]] ends.
* [[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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** 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 [[Useful Notes/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 Twelve--and, with Benjamin, the only one to survive.
 
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