By EFE,
Buenos Aires : Several acclaimed Argentine writers presented here a new work that uses the Bible as its starting point but takes creative liberties with some of the most widely read passages of that holy text.
Jose Pablo Feinmann, Luisa Valenzuela and Juan Sasturain were among the authors that worked on the book, titled “Biblia” (Bible), with each author drawing on their respective views about theology in adapting Old Testament stories.
In this new version of the Bible, for example, a man makes his way to heaven by climbing the Tower of Babel and the story of Jonah becomes a key event during the 1982 Falklands War between Argentina and Britain.
“Each one wrote what he felt like,” Sasturain said in nonchalant fashion during the book’s presentation Tuesday.
Feinmann, who rewrote the story of the Tower of Babel, theorised about the existence of God and said that “at this point in history, the best favour we can do is grant him non-existence”.
In his story, a man builds the tower and manages to come face to face with God, who “surprisingly” assumes the man’s same unrefined and unsophisticated appearance and confirms “with his impure dialogue” his idea that “if he existed, the world wouldn’t be the way it is”.
“I don’t know if he exists or not. What I do know is that our god is literature,” Feinmann added.
Valenzuela described the project as “fascinating” and also stressed the importance of literature.
“Biblia,” an initiative of Argentine writers Esther Cross and Angela Pradelli, also includes Biblical adaptations written by authors such as Maria Granata, Griselda Gambaro, Luis Chitarroni and Carlos Chernov.