A few weeks ago saw the publication of a new version of the Bible.
You may be asking yourself, what does the world need a new version of the Bible for? There are countless versions already of the sacred scripture of Christianity, with each version quibbling over the proper translation, or marketing itself as the new, hip, relevant version of a text that was designed to address social issues in the early years of the Roman Empire.
This new version of the Bible is, however, radically different. Its name reveals the game: It’s called The Demonic Bible. Also unusual is that version of the Bible was written by written by an atheist, F.G. Fitzer.
I spoke with Fitzer recently about his new project. A transcript of our conversation is below:
Atheist Activist: What on earth are you getting up to with The Demonic Bible?
F.G. Fitzer: It’s the product of my personality. I find myself drawn to the sacrosanct. I want to touch the untouchable. The Christian Bible is the ultimate untouchable in our society.
Atheist Activist: What do you mean by that, untouchable?
F.G. Fitzer: To me, the most telling part of the Christian Bible is its final lines, at the end of the Book of Revelation, where the writers essentially say that this is it, the Bible is done here, and the god of the Bible, which wants people to know its thoughts and desires, nonetheless is not going to have any more prophecy.
Atheist Activist: What do those lines tell you?
F.G. Fitzer: They tell me that the final generation of writers of the Christian Bible wanted control above all else.
Atheist Activist: Why is that?
F.G. Fitzer: Up until that time, the Bible was a kind of yes-and improvisation. Generation after generation, people kept on adding to the text, and changing it. There was always the pretense that it was holy scripture, but the writers knew what they were up to. Then, at a certain point, Christianity became an institutional structure of power, one in which improvisation was no longer tolerable. You see this all through the Book of Revelation, in which the writers are focused on punishing heresy, and Jesus returns from the dead just to say how much he hates people who don’t interpret biblical stories in the precise way that the writers of Revelation did. Jesus is actually written at the end of the Book of Revelation as hating people because of doctrinal squabbles.
Atheist Activist: But now you’re in the process of reproducing that text. Aren’t you just repeating that kind of theological hate?
F.G. Fitzer: Actually, I see The Demonic Bible as an attempt to re-open the Bible again, after all these centuries, to improvisation.
Atheist Activist: How do you do that?
F.G. Fitzer: The Demonic Bible makes the Christian Bible an improvised conversation again. To the classic body of the Christian Bible, I am adding a conversation, which is a kind of critical commentary on the biblical text. A devil asks a question about what he reads in the Bible, and an angel appears to answer the question, and before you know it, they are having a highly unorthodox discussion, which is its own kind of metatext.
Atheist Activist: But it’s not just text. The demon and the angel appear in the book in the form of cartoon characters. Why did you choose to do that?
F.G. Fitzer: I wanted to add a visual element to the Bible because the classic Bible is so heavily focused on words. Adding a visual element, especially given the ban on graven images, felt like a way to announce the irreverent attitude of The Demonic Bible. The cartoon quality of the conversation also makes the text flow much more quickly. That’s a contrast to the text of the Christian Bible, which is heavy and ponderous, and yet fails to reveal itself. The repartee between the angel and the demon, in word as well as in image, shows how out of touch and clunky the Bible actually is, far from the “Greatest Story Ever Told” malarkey.
Atheist Activist: You’re an atheist though, right? So why focus on the Bible of Christianity? Why not just leave that behind?
F.G. Fitzer: The sad truth is that none of us are able to simply leave Christianity behind these days. That’s because Christian Nationalists have seized control of all three branches of the federal government of the United States of America, and they are using that power to warp American society, and American culture, into the most cruel, sadistic version of Christianity that could ever be imagined. As an atheist, I am subject to Christian power, even though I have never been a Christian.
Atheist Activist: What can The Demonic Bible do to help us through times like this?
F.G. Fitzer: My goal is to help people see Christianity for what it is, aside from all the self-congratulatory Christian propaganda about itself. The Demonic Bible is solidly based in the Christian Bible. it looks at what the core ideological foundation of Christianity actually says, rather than just the verses preachers like to highlight. If Christian Nationalists are going to wreck American democracy, then we need to strike back – a nonviolent strike, but a strike nonetheless – to show the brutality of Christianity in its own words.
Atheist Activist: What are you hoping the reaction will be?
F.G. Fitzer: I expect that sincere Christians will be shocked, and I want them to be shocked. I also hope that they will be seduced by the demonic voice of this version of the Bible, and that once they are seduced, the language we use to talk about the Bible, and Christianity can change.
Atheist Activist: What is so seductive about the demonic voice?
F.G. Fitzer: A demon is a creature who lives in questions. Questions open people up, because they offer new opportunities, and new spaces to explore. Questions are so much more exciting than proclamations. The classic Christian Bible is dreadfully dull, because it’s filled with proclamations and commandments. It just tells you things, and your job as the reader is to passively accept what the Bible tells you, with no questions. The Demonic Bible introduces questions. It recenters the entire Christian Bible around questions, rather than answers, and in doing that, it decenters Christianity from its place of privileged power. Through that, The Demonic Bible challenges the power of Christian Nationalist tyrants like Donald Trump.
Atheist Activist: It sounds like you view The Demonic Bible as a form of activism.
F.G. Fitzer: I certainly do, and I suspect it’s going to be a lot more effective than just standing out on a street corner with a sign, chanting, “Hey hey, ho ho,” would be. I mean, street protests are important, but they’re not enough. We need to challenge Christian Nationalism on its own turf, which is the Bible itself.
Atheist Activist: What do you say to people who warn that by publishing The Demonic Bible, you are opening up the gates of Hell itself to unleash evil spirits upon the world?
F.G. Fitzer: I say that I’d rather be demonic than moronic.
The Demonic Bible is for sale on Lulu, Amazon, and as an ebook at DemonicBible.com
