The Chronicles of Bible-ia!

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As a kid I loved reading Greek mythology, Hercules' legends especially. Lately, after "The Lord of the Rings" movies, my interest in fables and legends was resurrected. After reading the books of "The Lord of the Rings", I turned my attention to other stories. Just yesterday, I finished reading "The Chronicles of Narnia" books. There are 7 of them, short books less than 250 pages each. They are a quick read, quite entertaining, although of a lower quality than the "Lord of the Rings" books, as far as story telling and imagination are concerned.

As I was reading the Narnia books, I had come across a few comments in the skeptics community about their supposed "religious" undertones. I was done with about 6 and a half of the books, and I was starting to wonder if this wasn't being blown out of proportion. There didn't seem to be anything overly wrong with these books, just another fable.

That was before I hit the last few chapters of book 7 (The Last Battle), and man oh man was I in for a surprise! All of a sudden this so far innocent enough book morphed into the Bible itself. It was all there. You have Aslan, the son of the Emperor-beyond-the-sea (Jesus), the dark god Tash (The Devil), Aslan comes, Narnia is completely destroyed and all creatures are divided in two groups(Rapture and Apocalypse). The good creatures go through a gate (gates of Heaven) that Aslan created. They all have to look into Aslan's eyes before they go in. The bad creatures forever vanish in his dark shadow (they went to Hell). Then everybody is dead, they go to the "real" Narnia which is of course much better than it's copy where all the story has unfolded so far. Obviously, the real Narnia is nothing else but Heaven, and they meet with all the dead creatures from all worlds, from all the previous books.

Hewwww! I tell you that took the rug from under my feet. I just did not see it going there as I was reading the books. I was completely taken back by this sudden turn of events. And it was so obvious, C.S. Lewis didn't even try to hide it. Aslan is taking to the humans and referring to them as "children" and all of a sudden there is an increase in the usage of words such as "Thou" and "Shall" and the like. I guess that teaches me for wanting to read fairy tales, doesn't it?

Well, I was not traumatized or anything like it, just a bit surprised. I still would recommend the books, they are an interesting read. But I did want to give people the heads up so they know what's coming.

Next on my reading list, "The Golden Compass". I hear this one is not quite so biblically correct as this last one.