Blog #7

Bog #7

In retrospect of the past biblical allusions presentations, I have been noticing many biblical allusions in everyday TV shows and books. They have truly enlightened me into the fact that biblical illusions are integrated into our everyday lives. What does this say about the current state of our society? Not only does it elude to the fact that our society is influenced by that of the biblical stories that are popular in Christianity, but also that many of us are not aware of the influence they have on popular entertainment. Even if a person is not Christian, they are still familiar with the most popular Christian Bible school stories such as Noah and the Ark, David and Goliath, Jonah and the Whale. These Biblical stories are not only a part of the religion of Christianity, but they also teach valuable life lessons that the majority of people live by. If it weren’t for basic stories and rules presented to us by these stories, there would not be a solid basis for our morals. Secondly, the importance of these stories have seeped into the writing and filming of today’s most popular books, TV shows, and movies. For this reason the majority of these works have some underlying biblical allusion in them. Since we have now been exposed to biblical allusions both in our childhood when learning Bible stories or some version of them, we are now also being exposed to them in our developing lives through exposure to these movies and books. Perhaps this is some way for us to have these basic principles of living constantly engrained into our subconscious. For example such shows such as 666 Park Avenue have Biblical Allusions throughout the entire show. The title itself is one of biblical reference. The numbers 666 are present throughout the Old Testament, most prominently in the last book of the Bible Revelations. The number 666 is a symbol of “the beast” in the book of Revelations. It is a symbol for someone who persecutes God and his people. In this book of the Bible, the beast is described as been ridden by a prostitute. In the popular ABC television show, a popular New York hotel is supposedly haunted by a number of spirits and the new general managers of the hotel are forced to figure out the mystery of the hotel. The owner of the hotel is an older fellow who has seemingly demonic properties. This owner controls everything that goes on in the hotel and uses his powers to both kill people and bring some back to life. His wife is a gorgeous woman who has underlying control over her husband. Upon watching this show I made the connection of the title to the Biblical story of the beast in the book of Revelations. This is yet another example of how biblical allusions are integrated into modern society.