LISBON (AFP) – A row broke out in Portugal on Monday after a Nobel Prize-winning author denounced the Bible as a “handbook of bad morals”.
Speaking at the launch of his new book “Cain”, Jose Saramago, who won the 1998 Nobel Prize for Literature, said society would probably be better off without the Bible.
Roman Catholic Church leaders accused the 86-year-old of a publicity stunt.
The book is an ironic retelling of the Biblical story of Cain, Adam and Eve’s son who killed his younger brother Abel.
At the launch event in the northern Portuguese town of Penafiel on Sunday, Saramago said he did not think the book would offend Catholics “because they do not read the Bible”.
“The Bible is a manual of bad morals (which) has a powerful influence on our culture and even our way of life. Without the Bible, we would be different, and probably better people,” he was quoted as saying by the news agency Lusa.
Saramago attacked “a cruel, jealous and unbearable God (who) exists only in our heads” and said he did not think his book would cause problems for the Catholic Church “because Catholics do not read the Bible.
“It might offend Jews, but that doesn’t really matter to me,” he added.
Father Manuel Marujao, the spokesman for the Portuguese conference of bishops, said he thought the remarks were a publicity stunt.
“A writer of Jose Saramago’s standing can criticise, (but) insults do no-one any good, particularly a Nobel Prize winner,” the priest said.
Rabbi Elieze Martino, spokesman for the Jewish community in Lisbon, said the Jewish world would not be shocked by the writings of Saramago or anyone else.
“Saramago does not know the Bible,” the rabbi said, “he has only superficial understanding of it.”
The author caused a scandal in Portugal in 1992 with “The Gospel According to Jesus Christ.”
The book depicted Jesus losing his virginity to Mary Magdalene and being used by God to control the world.
Saramago quit Portugal at the time and moved to Lanzarote, in the Spanish Canary Islands.
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Some things I learned from this story. (1) The easiest way to earn a Nobel Prize is to write a book. (2) It’s okay to offend catholics. (3) A person can actually quit a country. Who knew? If I can quit a country, does that mean I can start a country?
Seems to be a lot of irony involved in this story. The guy has a hate for the bible, but yet he chooses to write books that have biblical themes. So does that make his books, which are inspired by a “manual of bad morals”, into books of even worse morals?
He’s just jealous because people are not reading his book, whereas at least people buy the Bible and not read it.
Remind me never to get into Saramago’s head. I would not want to meet the cruel, jealous, and unbearable god that lives there.
I loved the rabbi’s quote “the Jewish world would not be shocked by the writings of Saramago or anyone else.
“…I couldn’t agree more.
Shrugs shoulders…who the hell is Saramago…lol
I think the rabbi is right on the money with the quote ‘a superficial understanding of the bible’. I think this is Saramagao’s only outlet for recourse – writing books on the subject that play up that same superficial understanding.
The reason I would agree with the rabbi is rabbinic studies of the bible (just the OT alone) takes years in school and then years of study afterwards in the texts – including the original Hebrew and how this effects translation…then we have the Talmud and it’s interpretations…it’s quite an in depth study concerning Torah, Writings, and the Prophets. So yeah, I would say the rabbi’s opinion has some basis.
I notice in this era that a lot of people have an agenda against the bible for some reason – like it’s part of the social ill of what politics has created. Granted some of that view is accurate – it just seems to go too far sometimes.
Here is the real contentious point: If the author is writing fictional works (which everyone knows he is) then why would Jewish people and Catholics alike get offended? If it is only fiction then who cares, right?
Aha, therein lies the rub, the fiction that this highly educated and respected individual has written is perhaps a reflection on a previous fictional story, maybe even a retelling (like an oral tradition). But this is blasphemy, yes but it is also creative. In fact, who knows how many times the stories in the full texts of the Bible (specifically the Torah) have been retold orally throughout the thousand of years before they were actually written down? There is no Rabbi that can answer that question. So then what makes the Bible perfect in its literary stance? Absolutely nothing, except the words of some old dead Jewish males and we have to take their word for it as a law of nature and a law of Jehovah, yeah I said it………… JEHOVAH, JEHOVAH, JEHOVAH.
Well, not really since Gentiles are still to this very day an unclean form of humanity and all that nice lawful stuff form the Torah. Well it makes no difference to the Rabbi because the man who wrote the book is not actually Jewish, he is Gentile (and he can’t understand Judaism) but if he were Jewish, like Noam Chomsky, then he would public enemy number 1 and he would be an outcast and a blasphemer.