Faceplant of the Day - Michael Gilmour: Top 10 Zombie Scenes in the Bible

Bart Willruth has posted a link on Debunking Christianity to the following post which he introduced thusly:

Professor Gilmour of Providence University, Manitoba, Canada, has listed his favorite zombie imagery of the Bible. See his Top 10 Zombie Scenes in the Bible.

I think "zombie culture" is all well and fine. I think books, movies, and video games are just another form of entertainment. However, I think stating that there is "zombie imagery" in the Bible is not just dishonest but wrong. Some proponents of this silliness want to insist that they are merely defining "zombie" as meaning that dead people coming back to life from death. Many of these people then go on to make fun of the Bible insisting on equating the same kind of zombies we see in popular culture with people we see raised from the dead in the Bible.

Zombies loom large in popular culture these days. Max Brooks' "World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War" (2006), the Jane Austen, Seth Grahame-Smith mashup "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" (2009), and Melissa Marr's "Graveminder" (2011), to name but a few recent novels, enjoy a wide readership. There are also graphic novels, the AMC television show "The Walking Dead," video games, and of course movies. Some of my recent favorites in the latter category include the Norwegian Nazis-as-zombies film "Dead Snow" (2009) with its delightful tagline "Ein! Zwei! Die!" and Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon's "The Cabin in the Woods" (2012). With all of this going on, there is little surprise to come across the open-source, collaborative Stinque Zombie Bible. It was just a matter of time, I suppose, and the King James Bible will never be quite the same.

I think that the only reason for such a thing as a "zombie bible" is due to ignorance as to what the Bible really says about the people who were raised from the dead. 

I am an unabashed zombie fan but also teach "classic" English literature and the New Testament so I can't quite bring myself to desecrate the literary and religious masterpiece that is the Authorized (King James) Version by contributing to the Zombie Bible. Still, wanting to get into the spirit of things, I can't resist noting a few biblical scenes and themes -- a top 10 list -- that come to mind each time I watch or read the latest version of the zombie apocalypse to come along. At least in some passages, a zombie-Bible mashup requires very little editorial interference.

If there are any scenes in the Bible that remind you of fictional zombie apocalypse, I doubt that you seriously understand what the Bible is describing. 

1. The Gospel of Luke: "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen" (Luke 24:5). Such a suggestive phrase. Note also that the angels asking the question and those they address are standing inside a tomb at the time (Luke 24:2-4).

 Suggestive? The Angel is pointing out that Jesus is not dead. He is alive. He was dead. Jesus' Resurrection is unique. Jesus was the first to be Resurrected - meaning all the other people who died and was raised from the dead before Jesus later died again. Jesus'  Resurrection was qualitatively new and different. Jesus did not just come back in the same body he had before. That body was transformed - not deformed.

2. The Book of Revelation: "the sea gave up the dead that were in it" (Revelation 20:13). John the Seer's creepy statement reminds me of a scene in George A. Romero's "Land of the Dead" (2005) that features slow-moving corpses walking out of the surf, and Max Brooks' "World War Z" with its account of the boy returning from a swim with a bite mark on his foot. He also describes the zombie hoards roaming the world's oceans: "They say there are still somewhere between twenty and thirty million of them, still washing up on beaches, or getting snagged in fisherman's nets."

A deformed hoard walking out of the sea? Is that really what you get when you read Revelations 20:13? I don't. Why? Because 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 paints a different picture and gives us a good picture of what Revelations 20:13 will look like when it happens.

¹⁶ For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. ¹⁷ After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. ¹⁸ Therefore encourage one another with these words.

3. Deuteronomy: "Your corpses shall be food for every bird of the air and animal of the earth, and there shall be no one to frighten them away" (Deuteronomy 28:25-26; cf. 2 Samuel 21:10; Psalm 79:1-2; Isaiah 34:2-3; Jeremiah 7:33). The ancients worried about the exposure of their body after death. Improper care of one's corpse was a terrifying prospect, so it is no wonder it features in prophetic warnings of divine wrath. Qoheleth insists that even though a man lives a long life and has many children, if he "has no burial ... a stillborn child is better off than he" (Ecclesiastes 6:3). The indignity of non-burial presumably accounts for the honor bestowed on the poor man Lazarus in Jesus' parable; the rich man receives proper burial but Lazarus "was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham" (Luke 16:22) because there was no one to care for his remains.

I don't see how one could equate an undead existence as a zombie with the improper burial. And the  point of the parable of Lazarus and the rich man turn his argument all around. Lazarus' was carried away by Angels because  he was righteous. The rich man was not because of his wickedness.

4. The Book of Job: "Why is light given to one in misery, and life to the bitter in soul, who long for death, but it does not come, and dig for it more than for hidden treasures...?" (Job 3:20-21). Job is angry he did not die at birth (3:11), adding that he loathes his life and does not want to live forever (7:16). Others prefer death to life out of principled anger against God, like the prophet Jonah (4:3; cf. 4:8). Physical death eludes a surprising number of people in the Christian Bible, and this is not always a welcome thing. The prophet John refers to some who "seek death but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will flee from them" (Revelation 9:6). The prospect of an elusive death, as every zombie fan knows, terrorizes the living. The "stricken" Charlotte Lucas in "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" agrees to marry the tedious and obsequious minister Mr. Collins because she wants "a husband who will see to [her] proper Christian beheading and burial." This is no small task for most survivors left with such a grim assignment, as Shaun well knows: "I don't think I got it in me to shoot my flat mate, my mom, and my girlfriend all in the same evening" ("Shaun of the Dead," 2004).

It's erroneous to say that physical death eludes a lot of people in the Bible. Realize that the Bible says that, so far, only Enoch and Elijah have not died. The reference to Revelations 9:6 describes events and situations that have not happened yet and has nothing to do with the Zombies like those in "Shaun of the Dead" and "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies".

5. The Gospel of Matthew: "The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. After [Jesus'] resurrection they came out of the tombs and entered the holy city and appeared to many" (Matthew 27:52-53). Unwanted persistent life is a recurring image in biblical literature and so too is language referring to the impermanence of bodily death. The dead do not stay dead. The psalmist is confident he will not "see decay" (Psalm 16:10 New International Version; cf. Acts 2:27; 13:35). We read of the physical resurrections of specific individuals (e.g., 1 Kings 17:17-24; Luke 8:49-56; maybe Acts 20:7-12) and expected mass revivals (e.g., 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17). Some of these accounts of un-dying involve reference to un-burying. Mary and Martha's brother Lazarus walks out of his tomb when "they took away the stone" (John 11:41). On Easter morning, mourners find "the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back" (Mark 16:4). A second century writer describes further the events preceding Jesus' emergence from the tomb: "That stone which had been laid against the entrance to the sepulchre started of itself to roll and gave way to the side, and the sepulchre was opened" (Gospel of Peter 9.35).

Unwanted persistent life is a recurring image in biblical literature and so too is language referring to the impermanence of bodily death. No way. No one in the Bible is raised from the dead despite the will of God. Lazarus' walked out of his tomb. He was not deformed and he did not want to eat anyone's brains.

6. Ezekiel: Ezekiel receives a vision promising the restoration of Israel (37:11). Seeing a valley full of bones, the Lord instructs him to speak to them, saying, "O dry bones ... I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live" (37:4-6). When Ezekiel does so, "there was a noise, a rattling" as bones come together and sinew and skin appears and the breath of life returns. The dry bones "lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude" (37:7-10).

No where does the passage tells us that they were deformed or went to look to eat brains/flesh afterward.

7. Zechariah: "their flesh shall rot while they are still on their feet; their eyes shall rot in their sockets, and their tongues shall rot in their mouths" (Zechariah 14:12). They seem to resemble extras in a George A. Romero film.

It is another prophecy. It has not happened yet. I doubt that Jerusalem's enemies will be walking around after they get a taste of this plague.

8. The Gospel of Mark: "hell, where their worm never dies" (Mark 9:48; alluding here to Isaiah 66:24). Gehenna (here symbolically representing "hell," and usually translated so, as in Mark 9:44, 45, 47) refers to the Valley of Hinnom located to the south and southwest of Jerusalem. Following the reign of Israel's righteous King Josiah (see 2 Kings 23:10-14), it became Jerusalem's garbage heap, a place with maggots and rotting corpses. Jesus refers to this burning garbage in Mark 9:48, a place where residents of the city would leave the rotting corpses of humans and animals to the worms that do not die, to maggots. The image suggests the corpses of the damned rot in gehenna/hell -- maggot ridden -- in perpetuity.

That's not an image suggested. Gilmour imposes the images. A fundamental problem with his interpretation is that zombies do not go to hell. Jesus was not only just referring to Jerusalem but to all those who refuse to accept him.

9. 2 Maccabees: "[Antiochus IV Epiphanes] was seized with a pain in his bowels, for which there was no relief, and with sharp internal tortures -- and that very justly, for he had tortured the bowels of others with many and strange inflictions ... he fell out of his chariot as it was rushing along, and the fall was so hard as to torture every limb of his body. ... the ungodly man's body swarmed with worms, and while he was still living in anguish and pain, his flesh rotted away, and because of the stench the whole army felt revulsion at his decay. Because of his intolerable stench no one was able to carry the man who a little while before had thought that he could touch the stars of heaven" (2 Maccabees 9:5-6, 7, 9-10). The Syrian ruler's physical body rots away zombie-like while he still lives. The cause is divine, as the God of Israel strikes this enemy of the Jews with "an incurable and invisible blow" (2 Maccabees 9:5).

But he wasn't turned into a zombie.

10. Genesis with the Book of Revelation: "the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep"; "the first heaven and the first earth has passed away, and the sea was no more" (Genesis 1:2; Revelation 21:1). With the disappearance of chaos, Eden returns: "On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit" (Revelation 22:2; cf. Genesis 2:9). Horrors stories often wander back and forth between forms of paradise (ordered society) and chaos (some variant of an apocalyptic hellscape) thus recalling biblical stories with similar alternations. Zombie stories typically depict the disintegration of the modern world, and often hint at a return from the wilderness to the paradisiacal garden for survivors (cf. Genesis 3:23-24). Danny Boyle's "28 Days Later" (2002), for one, ends with a developing romance between Jim and Salina, happy in the cultivated lands around a cottage that echoes Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. The sequel "28 Weeks Later" (2007), however, depicts a failed attempt to restore Eden. After the spread of the disastrous infection in the first film, the sequel documents efforts to repopulate the United Kingdom. Survivors return to their homeland, to what the director's commentary refers to as "a new world" and a "Garden of Eden." Naturally, mayhem ensues and the infection spreads as the movie unfolds. It wouldn't be much of a horror movie otherwise.

Overall there is no reason to equate anything in the Bible with zombie fiction. There is much fiction that borrows from the Bible the idea of Eden lost and regained. So what? The reason I think zombie fiction and horror has so much commercial success is because it is based on two major fears: fear of not being at the top of the food chain and the fear of loosing people we love. The Bible gives us real answers as to giving us understanding of what is true and and what is not true. God does not want us to be living in blind ignorance. You know the truth by knowing him.

I know what some think: that no one really thinks that the equates the people who are raised from the dead with the brain-eating zombies of fiction. For any of those people I have one question. How is this:

Different than this?

Yup, Definitely a faceplant.

Michael Gilmour: Top 10 Zombie Scenes in the Bible

Faithful Thinkers: Zombies of Christianity - Updated

It has come to my attention that I have made a mistake in this post originally.  I want to preserve and correct the mistake so I will make my new comments in red and leave the original text in black font.  

Luke Nix has posted a great article about how silly people claim that zombies are in the Bible. Real silly. You can read it at the following link. It's obvious that when people bring up the term as a perjorative - mocking the Bible.

I made a huge blunder. The post is about how Christians in churches are like Zombies

Zombies remind me of people who simply like to just offer opinions, but without backing them up or defending their positions.

While what  I said is true, but the original post's subject is different and I was confused. No one's fault but my own.. I apologize to Luke Nix and anyone else who I have confused. Everyone should really read this post. by Luke at the following link.


Faithful Thinkers: Zombies of Christianity

A Guide to Zombie Survival [infographic]

I'm always amazed when Atheists use "zombies" to a mock Christianity  because they must be confused. Nothing like these things exist in the Bible.

A Guide to Zombie Survival [infographic]

Rob Liefeld Fills Biblical Plot Hole with 'Zombie Jesus' - ComicsAlliance | Comics culture, news, humor, commentary, and reviews

I have been a fan of Rob Liefield's work as an artist and a writer ever since I first saw his work in the early 1990's. I mean he helped create Deadpool no less! The things is this article disturbed me about the an upcoming project Rob Liefield is working on centering on the 48 hours between Jesus' crucifixion and Resurrection. He imagines that the people who rise from the dead after Jesus dies are zombies who attack Jerusalem, under satanic influence, to destroy Jesus' body before He can rise Easter morning. There are several problems with this story from a Biblical stand point. But before I go into that I want to quote Liefield in his own words and the article:

However, Zombie Jesus may seem somewhat blasphemous given Liefeld's background. He is a Christian and works with his pastor, Phil Hotsenpiller, on the Armageddon Now series of graphic novels, based on biblical prophecy. But as Liefeld told ComicsAlliance, it can't be heresy if it's right there in black and white.

"I don't consider this in any way blasphemous or contradicting my faith," said Liefeld, who describes Zombie Jesus as "300 meets Dawn of the Dead with the clock from 24 running." He continued, "The fact of the matter is that the passage in 'Matthew' 27 EXISTS! It's a freaky, crazy, creepy passage. Zombies came out of the ground right after Christ's death and it's kind of glossed over like it's no big deal. I wanted to move on it a year ago when I read it, but I needed time to flesh it out. There are so many mysterious passages in the Bible, and this one may be the biggest mystery of all."

"What I've done is construct a story of how the ultimate battle between good and evil continues following the crucifixion of Christ. There are many players in the saga and everyone is racing against time to protect or devour Christ's remains. Joseph of Arimethia paid to have Jesus buried in a proper tomb and there is quite an exciting series of events as Judas and the zombie horde attempt to keep Christ and his escorts from reaching the tomb. The zombies that attack the city are at first defended by the Roman Centurions who eventually retreat and Governor Pilate decides to sacrifice the population of Judaea to the zombies.

"And then there's Lazarus, the hero of the story, who himself was risen from death by Christ's own hand. His destiny in protecting the sacred body of Christ as well as preserving the garments that touched Christ's blood is played out with the Disciples fighting alongside him. The story builds towards a confrontation at the tomb of Christ before it takes a MAJOR twist. It's Judas, possessed of the devil battling with his army of the Undead versus Lazarus and the Disciples for all the marbles. It's exciting."

My main problem with the story is that it doesn't really accurately tell the story given in the Bible. Matthew 27:51-52 does not say that people crawled out of the ground and started eating people.

At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split. The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life.

Many atheists uses this passage to try to discount the whole resurrection because Zombies do not exist. I agree. The Bible does not say anything about zombies. Here are a couple of facts to keep in mind that in the first century, people were not buried in tombs indefinitely. After several years, tombs were recycled and the bones of relative were put into ossuaries. Therefore if the people who were in the tombs when they rose again, they had not been dead for very long. If you look at the art of Liefield, the people seem to look like what we think of Zombies today and they are attacking people. No where in the Bible does it describe anything like. When Lazerus was raised from the dead he wasn't raised immortal, he died again at some future point later. Also when Satan entered Judas Iscariot it was before he betrayed Jesus, not after he hung himself. Also during the days Jesus was buried his disciples were not fighting zombies...they were hiding from the authorities. It is important to remember that Jesus won the battle of good versus evil when He died. It was finished...perfectly and completely. Even the devil thought that, however he thought he won. Had he truly understood the plan of salvation he would not have worked so hard to see Jesus crucified and dead. God played him like a harp. These are important points of the events surrounding the parts that Liefield calls himself "filling in". It really irks me that people think Matthew had zombies in mind like those from our movies. He didn't. These people who were raised would have been known to the inhabitants of Jerusalem at that time.

No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. ⁹However, as it is written:
"No eye has seen,
no ear has heard,
no mind has conceived
what God has prepared for those who love him" - 1st Corinthians 2:7-9

Jesus rose from the dead Easter morning with all power in his hand. This is what the Gospel is. I'm all for fiction, but fiction that detracts from truth is indeed bordering on blasphemy. I hope Liefield talks to his pastor about this storyline and really prays about it. You see, I find it incomprehensible to be a Christian for more than a year and have never read Matthew 27. And no maybe we don't have as much detail as to who was raised in Matthew 27:52-52 such as what happened to them afterward? Did they go to heaven? Did they stay on earth and live a normal human lifespan? I don't know but I don't think its a good idea to make up stuff that contradict what the rest the Bible says.

Rob Liefeld Fills Biblical Plot Hole with 'Zombie Jesus' - ComicsAlliance | Comics culture, news, humor, commentary, and reviews

Philosophical Zombies?

Okay, this strip made me laugh. I hope it's a complete joke because if anyone is really teaching this as an answer to the problem of suffering they need help. I don't think mental health professionals can help...might take a full-blown exorcism. It's amazing every time atheists resort to telling Christians that we believe in zombies because it shows that they know nothing of the Bible or about zombies.

The Bible most definitely gives answers for why we have evil and suffering. It doesn't matter if you don't like the answer because it's not subjective. Bad things do happen to "good" people. You can do everything you can to be good and do good and yet at times life falls apart...to say nothing of the consequences of our own personal sins. This is just the way it is. You want better?

7What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, "Do not covet."[b] 8But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead. 9Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. 10I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death.

11For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. 12So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good. 13Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.

14We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[c] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

21So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22For in my inner being I delight in God's law; 23but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. - Romans 7:7-25

2008-12-21.png (PNG Image, 500x700 pixels) - Scaled (94%)

What Jesus & Frankenstein Have In Common - Venn Diagram on Twitpic

This is picture that was tweeted today on Twitter. It's a Venn Diagram the suggests that Jesus has somethings in common with Zombies, Frankenstein, and vampires. To make the alleged parallels clear
let me summarize them.

Assertion: Jesus and Zombies share resurrection .and convert many mindless followers as possible.

Zombies are not resurrected from the dead. They rise from the grave in the same decaying bodies that were buried. Jesus was raised in a glorified body and will never ever die again. Zombies convert people by infection and people become mindless after infection. When you follow Jesus Christ you find your mind - not loose it.

Assertion: Jesus is like Frankenstein  because both were resurrected from the dead and townspeople feared and revered him.

The problem with Frakenstein's rising from the dead was that he was no raised but multiple bodies dug up and stitched together. Just which person's soul did the monster get from the people stitched together? No like Jesus at all. Yes the villagers feared Frankenstein  but they wanted to kill him not worship him. Common folks  loved and worshiped Jesus throughout his ministry. It was the religious leaders who feared and hated Jesus.

Assertion: Jesus is like Dracula because they both convert mindless followers and towns people feared and revered them, and they resurrected from the dead.

There are several problems with this logic. First vampires are undead - soul-less - and not alive. Jesus was dead and then he is alive. Again vampires gain followers by taking their minds. Jesus gives us a mind better that the one we had. Third, townfolks in the vampire myths don't love or worship Dracula - he is hated. The common people revered Jesus it was the religious leaders that hated Jesus.

What Jesus & Frankenstein Have In Common - Venn Diagram on Twitpic