The Search for Khan

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Continuing with the series, I watched Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan last night. Since weekends are the only time I have for the media, I also threw in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. Now, I haven’t seen either of these movies since their theatrical release longer ago than I care to admit, but many of the details, particularly from II, had stayed with me. Clearly The Wrath of Khan is superior in every way, but I hadn’t realized how literate it was until I saw it again. From Tale of Two Cities to Moby Dick to the Bible, the viewer in 1982 was given a sci-fi movie with classics sprinkled through it. I hadn’t read Ahab’s famous words on the dying lips of Khan when I first saw it, but I still realized that they were powerful words nevertheless. The premise of both movies, however, is biblical—the Genesis project, which even gets Spock quoting the Bible, is creatio ex nihilo, well, not exactly ex nihilo, as we do have a Big Bang to start the thing. Throughout the language of creating in six days is juxtaposed to morality, for in order to create, you must destroy.

We all know that Spock dies, citing a utilitarianism that would’ve made John Stuart Mill proud, but in what is really a biblical trope: self-sacrifice. And this leads to speculations of resurrection, always lurking in the background of the biblically minded. But theology (and the acting) turn bad in III. We’re all glad to see Spock alive again, but it turns out that Genesis destroys itself after just a short time, and that “Genesis is a failure.” Where do we turn back from the first page of the Bible? There is no preface here. There is, nevertheless, a temporary garden of Eden on the Genesis planet, and it is a federation-level secret. You just can’t keep anything from the Klingons, however. So the Bible implodes and Kirk’s son sacrifices himself so that Spock might live. Can I get a concordance here?

I’m not a trekkie, but I had noticed from the original series through the original cast movies, the assumption was for a biblically literate audience. That assumption can no longer be presumed, although, if pressed, many people could guess that Genesis is in the Bible. Meanwhile, the flood of Noah is also upon us. Exodus comes next. Movies featuring Leviticus are rare. Even as the cast ages visibly from the young, brash Kirk of the 1960’s to the bespectacled, patrician father with regrets in The Search for Spock, society itself has also aged. Some would say, matured. But we need directors telling us now that the flood story is found in Genesis. The Bible has been on self-defense mode for some time as religion has become equated with fanaticism. And yet, even as resurrection looms, we can’t help but to wonder if better things lie ahead.

Picturing Genesis

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The book of Genesis is elusive and evasive, telling stories that have been read as both science and fiction, but never revealing its own deepest secrets. For over two decades I have been researching the book, never publishing my work since there is so much more yet to read on it. Many truly bizarre interpretations on the introductory section of the Bible have appeared with the proliferation of publication — Robert Capon’s Genesis the Movie and Harold Bloom’s Book of J come to mind — even by otherwise careful scholars. Nobody seems able to get to the essence of the book while everybody thinks he or she already understands it. As a piece of literature it is perhaps the most influential ever penned since it is the basis for so much of the world we’ve constructed around it. Maybe the reason we can’t understand it is that we don’t have it in pictures. Now that’s all changed: R. Crumb’s (serious) comic book version, The Book of Genesis Illustrated, is finally available.

R. Crumb is well regarded in the comic book world, but less recognized in the biblical academy. He is not the first to storyboard sacred writ, nor will he be the last, but he is grappling with the same material that defies definition. Creationists can’t live without the assertions of Yahweh’s creatio ex nihilo, that they read into Genesis (for those who are willing to read what’s there, chaotic water is pre-existent, not created), and many biologists wish that J and P had shown a bit more discretion and humility before setting the framework that dogs their each and every evolutionary observation. Those who take Genesis too seriously will likely be offended by a comic-book version, but the text is based on the revered King James Version and Crumb said in an interview that he had “no intention to ridicule or make visual jokes.” The problem is, the text is full of its own riddles and jokes, along with serious assertions of the superiority of Yahweh over Marduk and Baal and Teshub.

Unlike many Bible readers, Crumb does not stop his Genesis with the Flood or the Tower of Babel. Instead he takes his readers through the entire book where “iron-willed Old Testament matriarchs” are presented in his characteristic muscular style, perhaps recalling She-Hulk more than Sarah. The images may be unfamiliar and a little frightening, but I applaud Crumb for taking on the patriarchal chokehold over shy, hand-wringing wives wondering why they can’t seem to take the biological package their virile husbands send their way. The Bible was written in a man’s world, but it is now ensconced in a more enlightened age and it is ready to benefit from a new, and unfamiliar reading.