Centuries after famed author “God” released his international best seller “The Bible,” the Clunkline Book Review has finally gotten a peak at its long awaited follow up, “The Bible 2: Reloaded.” But despite the author’s claims that it would be “even biblier” than the original, does it really live up to the hype? Well, not completely, but still worth a read.
The new Holy Text definitely starts off strong– I particularly enjoyed the book of Randall, in which the Lord unveils fifteen all new commandments. Granted, it feels like a few of them were added just to bring the total up to a nice even 25. I wonder if, for example, commandment 17 (“Thou shalt listen to more Skynyrd, because the Lord really digs them”) really necessary. Still, the majority of the verses are pretty solid, and I can see it becoming popular in liturgical readings for years to come. The same can be said of the book of Larry, which helps clarify God’s positions on a few political issues. For one thing, we find out why Leviticus wrote those nasty things about gay people (spoiler alert: he was just jealous that they were all better at dancing than he was).
Unfortunately, I kind of felt like the Lord really saved his best ideas for the beginning and ending, with most of the chapters in the middle being rather slow and uneventful. We do get to see the return of quite a few favorite characters from the original, but most of the appearances seem a bit forced and unnecessary. Samson, for example, only shows up for a brief cameo in a few chapters of the book of Explosions to help out in Jesus’ fight against Sub Zero. Meanwhile, John the Baptist spends a good chunk of the time wandering around the desert searching for a bunch of magical macguffins, which don’t even end up being all that important to the story. The worst offender by far, though, is the second book of Numbers, in which Jesus decides to see if he can count to ten thousand. I don’t think I’m really giving anything away by saying that he does.
Still, there are a few gems tucked away in there. The book of Jerry has a fantastic twist ending that God claims even He didn’t see coming. And the book of Awesome, which comes in at the very end, is a great finale to the whole series. I know a lot of fans, including myself, were excited about the prospect of a Jesus/Moses team up, and thankfully the new Bible delivers. Most of the finale is devoted to an epic battle sequence in which they– along with Solomon, Elijah, St. Paul, and a few others– team up to save the earth from a horde of invading dinosaur ninjas. It’s a great way to end the series, and I hope the movie version is able to capture the drama as perfectly as the book does.
All in all, despite a few missteps, I really liked “The Bible 2.” It clears up a lot of the questions raised by the original, and even makes room for a few genuinely funny moments– something that the first Bible was sorely lacking in. Don’t expect a masterpiece, but if you’re looking for a solid addition to your summer reading list, you can certainly do a lot worse.
