Abstract
AbstractThe rise in popularity of comic book Bibles has brought with it the opportunity to interrogate, challenge, reframe and reimagine difficult aspects of sacred scripture through text–image retellings. By their nature and format, comic books are uncontrollable vehicles of cultural expression, and in the case of biblical comic books, religious expression. As such, they can offer retellings of biblical narratives which challenge established practices of biblical interpretation normally rooted in patriarchal and conservative ideologies and may open the text up to more creative interpretations which are not restrained by those traditional approaches of reading the Bible. This article considers R. Crumb’s The Book of Genesis, Illustrated by R. Crumb (2009) as a case study which focuses on the character of Rebekah (Gen. 24:15–67 and 25:19–28), demonstrating how the combination of text and image acts as a commentary to the biblical narrative as well as reframing Rebekah as a matriarchal leader, a move which is not reflected in the words but is depicted through accompanying images. The case study demonstrates how biblical comic books can move beyond the constraints of traditional biblical scholarship to reinterpret characters and stories from perspectives previously unvisited.
Highlights
The rise in popularity of biblical comic books[1] has brought with it the opportunity to interrogate, challenge, reframe and reimagine difficult aspects of sacred scripture through text–image retellings
By their nature and format, comic books are uncontrollable vehicles of cultural expression, and in the case of biblical comic books, religious expression. They can offer retellings of biblical narratives which challenge established practices of biblical interpretation normally rooted in patriarchal and conservative ideologies and may open the text up to more creative interpretations which are not restrained by those traditional approaches of reading the Bible
Crumb (2009) as a case study which focuses on the character of Rebekah (Gen. 24:15–67 and 25:19–28), demonstrating how the combination of text and image acts as a commentary to the biblical narrative as well as reframing Rebekah as a matriarchal leader, a move which is not reflected in the words but is depicted through accompanying images
Summary
The rise in popularity of biblical comic books[1] has brought with it the opportunity to interrogate, challenge, reframe and reimagine difficult aspects of sacred scripture through text–image retellings. I discuss the influence of Teubal’s work on Crumb, and I move to the retelling of Rebekah’s story in both Gen. 24:15–67 and 25:19–28 of Crumb’s version, before contextualising these narratives in biblical scholarship including feminist approaches Such contextualisation and comparison demonstrate how biblical comic books can move beyond the constraints of traditional biblical criticism[7] to reinterpret characters and stories from perspectives previously unvisited or at least, under-visited, by emphasising cultural interaction with the Bible. Teubal’s overarching thesis is that the matriarchal narratives in Genesis have been eroded and overwritten over the last 2,000–3,000 years by editors, redactors and scribes writing in a patriarchal society She suggests that the story of Sarah and her role as a high priestess and wife of Abraham would have been well known at one time, imparted orally in a society that was no stranger to matrilineal power structures. I turn to a visual–critical reading of his Rebekah to demonstrate how Crumb retains fidelity to the text of Genesis but uses the accompanying images to challenge overriding patriarchal strategies that oppose Crumb’s “profeminist” ideology
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