Religious motifs : Overview. Search. About religious motifs

The Holy Bible contains among others: The Book of Esther

See also The Koran or Qur'an

Keywords:

Book, scripture, sacred writings, prophecies, gospels, Christianity, Judaism, New Testament, Old Testament

Description of this motif: Greek "Biblia" means books. The Bible is the Christian church's sacred writings, containing The Old Testament and The New Testament. The Old Testament of the Christian Bible is the Jewish Bible, but also some newer scriptures added by the Christian church.

Example 1:

Of the two oldest stories which have been handed down among the storks, we all know the one about Moses, who was put by his mother on the banks of the Nile, where a King's daughter found him. How well she brought him up, how he became a great man, and how no one knows where he lies buried, are things that we all have heard.

Comment on this quote: Reference to Exodus 2,1-10: The birth of Moses.

Example 2:

He uttered holy names and made the sign of the cross. As the creature remained unchanged, he said, in the words of the Bible:

" 'Blessed is he that considereth the poor. The Lord will deliver him in time of trouble.' Who are you, that in guise of an animal are so gentle and merciful?"

The frog beckoned for him to follow her. She led him behind sheltering curtains and down a long passage to the stable, where she pointed to a horse. When he mounted it, she jumped up in front ot him, clinging fast to the horse's mane. The prisoner understood her, and speedily they rode out on the open heath by a path he could never have found.

He ignored her ugly shape, for he knew that the grace and kindness of God could take strange forms. When he prayed and sang hymns, she trembled. Was it the power of song and prayer that affected her, or was she shivering at the chill approach of dawn? What had come over her? She rose up, trying to stop the horse so that she could dismount, but the Christian priest held her with all his might, and chanted a psalm in the hope that it might have power to break the spell which held her in the shape of a hideous frog.

The horse dashed on, more wildly than ever. The skies turned red, and the first ray of the sun broke through the clouds. In that first flash of sunlight she changed. She became the lovely maiden with the cruel, fiendish temper. The priest was alarmed to find himself holding a fair maid in his arms. He checked the horse, and sprang off it, thinking he faced some new trick of the devil.