Cult-TV Theme Watch: The Bible and Other Holy Texts

A Bible is a holy book, or a collection of canonical writings considered sacred.  Throughout cult-television history, both fictional bibles and the authentic Christian Bible have appeared frequently in many notable productions

Fictional Bibles have often appeared primarily on programming involving alien cultures on other worlds. 

For instance, in the original Star Trek (1966 – 1969), Kirk and Spock twice encountered planets where the culture’s Bible or “holy words” were familiar to denizens of Earth. 

In “A Piece of the Action,” Captain Kirk (William Shatner) had to correct the damage done after a previous starship had left behind on an impressionable planet the book titled “Chicago Mobs of the Twenties.”  The humanoid inhabitants of the planet took the book seriously, and modeled their entire culture on 20^th century gangsters and the material in the monograph.  In other words, they mistakenly took the book literally.  “A Piece of the Action” is a funny episode, but also a social critique of religion, and the danger of relying too heavily on any single book or set of ideas from that book. 

In “The Omega Glory,” Kirk and Spock happened upon a planet that paralleled Earth’s development, and met a group of primitives called “Yangs” who worshiped a duplicate of the United States’ Constitution. Dramatically, Kirk read the Constitution’s preamble to the Yangs, who had mangled the language and lost the meaning of the words over time.

In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993 – 1999), the Ferengi Bible was introduced, a Holy book about unfettered capitalism called “The Rules of Acquisition.”

More recent TV series have also introduced fictional Bibles. 

The remade Battlestar Galactica (2003 – 2008) featured “The book of Pythia,” for instance. 

And  on True Blood (2008 – 2014), the Vampire Bible is revealed, as well as its deity: the blood-thirsty Lilith.  The book plays like a wicked inversion of the Christian Bible, at least based on the passages audiences have been privy to thus far. 

Many science fiction series have also featured quotations from Scripture, or references to the authentic Christian Bible.  Chris Carter series such as The X-Files (1993 – 2002) and Millennium (1996 – 1999) are rife with Scriptural allusions, for instance.  In The X-Files episode, “3,” for instance, a vampire references John 52:54.  And in Millennium’s “The Curse of Frank Black,” Frank (Lance Henriksen) suddenly comes to understand the importance – and relevance in his life -- of Acts: 26:8.

The Bible also played a vital role in V: The Final Battle (1984).  There, a Catholic Priest presented the alien Diana (Jane Badler) with a copy of the Bible to help foster brotherhood between humans and Visitors.  Diana was so moved by the writings in the Bible that she murdered the priest and incinerated the Holy Book with her laser gun.  Diana didn’t like that the Bible made her feel so-called “weak” emotions such as love and fellowship.  So she destroyed that which she felt compromised her mission, even while acknowledging the power of the Bible’s message.

In Firefly’s “Jaynestown,” River Tam (Summer Glau) borrows Shepherd Book’s (Ron Glass) Bible and begins to write notes in its margins and even rip out pages.  She does so, she says, because the text is “broken” and she can fix it.  Book reminds her with irritation that “you don’t fix The Bible.”

In season three of The Walking Dead, the kindly physician and elder, Hershel Greene (Scott Wilson) is seen on several occasions to draw strength from reading his Bible.  In the final episodes of the year, he leaves behind his Bible at the prison for the Governor to find, along with a pertinent passage highlighted John: 5:29.