I am reading a recently discovered rare piece of sci-fi from a well-known author. Can you guess who it is from the style and subject? A group of people come across a traveler in the jungle of a strange planet:
While the people of Ae were in the jungle, they found the alien gathering firewood on their Day of Ba. Those who found him brought him to Esara and Onama, and to all the Aeoni. They put him in custody, because it had not been made plain what should be done to him. Ba told Esara, "Put the alien to death; have some of the Aeoni impale him with the trunk of the sesi tree outside the home ring. And all the Aeoni brought him outside the home ring, and impaled him to death with the sesi tree tunks, just as Ba had commanded Esara to do.
Stumped? Yeah, me too. That Ba is a swell fellow eh? Kind of makes Idi Amin, Stalin and Atilla the Hun look like pussies.
Well, OK, I lied. It isn't from a sci-fi book. It's Numbers 15:32-37 from the Bible, with the names changed to sound alien. Illuminating, isn't it? I leave it the reader to discern who plays the part of Ba in the Biblical version.
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4 comments:
You are aware of the Brick Testament, right?
http://thebricktestament.com/
He's got equally disturbing biblical stories, nicely illustrated with Lego figures
Fabulous stuff. I love high tech.
I think pushing this type of name-changing on the religious masses would just backfire: many would just get hung up on the alteration of Biblical stories as "blasphemy" and not even look further into the argument.
Some fence-sitters would probably sit up a little more though...
I like that the new names still sounded like simple syllables, not mocking, like "squeegle" or something.
You should continue to post these regularly, Science Avenger.
Thanks Glendon, I plan on making it a recurring feature. I'm curious to see how many I can post before I run out of material. Sadly, I think it will be a long long time.
I'm not trying to push a name change on anyone. That wouldn't accomplish much. I just changed the names and lied about the source to get people to read it neutrally. It's amazing how revolting it is when presented that way.
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