Once upon a time, I recapped an insane Christian book that claimed the devil created football as a tool to destroy humanity. The article’s popularity made me turn my recaps into a weekly series named “So You Don’t Have To“, where I find batshit crazy pieces of media (books, movies, etc) and recap them for your pleasure.
The book that taught an entire generation of children that every biblical character was white.
“My Book Of Bible Stories” was super popular when I was a kid. In primary school, my friends and I would go through the book solemnly learning important biblical life lessons. Then we would get to the end, close the book, and go forth to sin some more. Because we were like 8 years old and didn’t really give a shit about which section of the afterlife our souls would end up when we die.
8-year-old me ceremoniously beheading a rat that did nothing to me and enjoying it.
So I recently found my old copy, and after going through it and screaming to any family member who would listen about how every single character depicted in it is white as hell, I figured I would get some “So You Don’t Have To” out of it.
Because what’s the point of experiencing anything if you can’t mine it for content?
Before we get on this incredibly nostalgic and caucasian ride, I would like to let you guys know something I just found out. “My Book Of Bible Stories” is a product of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. It’s described on their website as a “book that gives you an idea of what the Bible is all about. It tells about people of the Bible and the things they did. It also shows the grand hope of everlasting life in a paradise earth that God has given to people.“
Ok. I’ll stop now.
The book has 116 chapters and I am not going to talk about every one of them because God forbid. So I’ll just drop commentary about the drawings instead.
Chapter 1: God Begins To Make Things
The bible (and this book) says that all of earth was submerged in water but this picture has rivers of lava and erupting volcanos. It’s like the prompt for the drawing was, “A movie adaptation of the Christian creation story directed by Micheal Bay.”
Chapter 3: The First Man and Woman
I will forever be tickled by the fact that this book depicted Adam and Eve coming into existence with such amazing hair. Look at Eve’s luscious mane. Do you know how long one would have to sit with curlers in their hair to achieve this??
Chapter 3: A Good Son, And A Bad One
My favourite thing about this is how, based on the location of Abel’s wound, Cain was so jealous of God rejecting his sacrifice and accepting Abel’s that he hit Abel in the face with a makeshift pickaxe.
Chapter 9: Noah Builds An Ark
Look at how hard those three bastards are laughing. You can tell they were laughing that hard just to piss Noah off because there is nothing in this world that’s that funny.
Chapter 11: The First Rainbow
Rumour has it that when Noah and his family saw the rainbow and were thanking God for sparing their lives, the LGBT community were in the background plotting to steal the rainbow for themselves.
Chapter 12: Men Build A Big Tower
The tower of babel or as I like to call it, the ultimate proof that God has a wicked sense of humour. Also, look at Reed Richards with his streak of grey hair.
Chapter 14: God Tests Abraham’s Faith
We’ve all acknowledged how fucked up this story is so I’m not going to get into that. What I want to discuss today is how stressed that ram must’ve been. Almost witnessing prolicide is one thing, figuring out that YOU’RE the replacement sacrifice must’ve sucked ass.
Chapter 15: Lot’s Wife Looked Back
I will never forgive my brother for making me believe that the world’s supply of table salt comes from Lot’s wife’s corpse.
Chapter 17: Twins Who Were Different
Oh look. It’s Esau practicing for the very first Hunger Games. it will forever bother me that they named this chapter like twins not being identical is a strange thing.
Chapter 20: Jacob’s Dinah Daughter
That time when Dinah went clubbing with the Canaanite bad girls and then got sexually assaulted by some bastard named Shechem.
Chapter 28: How Baby Moses Was Saved
LOOK AT HOW SICKENING PHAROAH’S DAUGHTER’S EYE MAKEUP IS!!!!!
Chapter 36: The Golden Calf
The first thing I’d do if I figure out time travel is to go back in time to this era and join this party because it looks bitching!
Chapter 89: Jesus Cleans Out The Temple
This drawing of Jesus looks like angry Bradley Cooper.
And so ends this session of “Walks Down Memory Lane With Astor.” Join me again next week to see me rip apart yet another piece of pop culture.
