Jewish and Muslim children of gods & biblical figures
hello! this blog has been an amazing help as a white, pagan writer and i just wanted to say thank you for that!Â
i have a book iâve been working on for about a year now, and the short summary is that it takes place in a world where if enough people believe in something existing, it does. from urban legends, cryptics, and religion.
the main story plot follows a group of teenagers who are the children of biblical figures (and later hellensism, since those are the religions i used to worship and now do), but several characters are different religions than that. i canât believe itâs taken me so long to realize this, but isnât it kinda⌠off? to have jewish and muslim characters be children of greek gods and biblical figures? i donât want to completely erase that part of them, and its also stated in the story that the religions they believe in are true, also, but iâm neither muslim nor jewish, so i donât want to just assume itâd be okay.
(also, for context, the plot causes such a diverse cast of characters. they are brought together because of they are their children, like percy jackson, i guess)
Here is a recent post that listed our concerns with inclusion of Jewish characters in settings where polytheism is literally true:Â Can Jewish authors write polytheistic settings?
One way I might fix the awkwardness of having the child of a âGreek godâ convert to Judaism (lol backwards Chanukah?) is if, as in the linked post, the âgodsâ arenât actually on the same level of divinity as the entity in our prayers, but are just like, mortal superbeings that just happen to have way more power than regular humans. As for biblical figures, well, there are tons of Jewish biblical figures so if you want to write fanfiction about them thatâs legit, just do your research to make sure youâre using Jewish interpretations about them that arenât filtered through Christian analysis. (And there are also Jewish characters in the New Testament.)
Honestly as a Jewish person I would not feel left out if I was not included in one of those polytheism-is-true stories. I may off-hand wonder where we fit into the worldbuilding, but that would be less distressing than some kind of depiction of being stubborn, wrongheaded, backward, and ignoring the reality in front of our faces, which is hard to avoid unless itâs clear the gods are just, as I said, mortal superbeings and not literally divine and on the same level as HaShem. Which would be the other way of making me cool with it.
Shiraâs answer covers most of it for me, but I did want to come back to this part:
>>it takes place in a world where if enough people believe in something existing, it does.
There are a couple of things about this that donât seem quite compatible with our theology, at least as Iâve been taught it.
First of all, this seems to be suggesting that Hashem was created by humans, through their belief? I donât love that. I pray multiple times a day to the âMaster of the universe, Who reigned before any form was created.â Proposing a deity that exists simply because people believe in it doesnât answer many of the questions that religions set out to deal with, such as âHow did we get here?â and âWhat does it all mean?â And itâs fundamentally not the God I pray to.
Secondly, although this is pretty much what Shira already said, I want to point out again that monotheism and polytheism are obviously not compatible, unless you add certain caveats. Our prayers and other sacred texts repeatedly emphasise the ultimate Oneness of Hashem. Judaism just canât be right in a world where Hellenism is also right, unless you go with the Greek gods being nothing more than humans with superpowers. In the post that Shira linked to, we already talked about including Jewish characters in polytheism-as-fact settings, and we highlighted the diversity of Jewish opinions on this (Shira and Dierdra: Yes, IFâŚ; me: Pass, BUTâŚ). I thought this was important to bring up again, because this sounds like an âall religions are trueâ story and I wanted to highlight that these are not as inclusive as they may at first sound. Theyâre actually very difficult to pull off respectfully. Usually (not always), people who write that kind of story are the folks who have never had to fight for their beliefs or have them seen as anything other than the norm.
Finally, Iâm curious about what this premise means for racism and other bigotries. Many people believe in a type of monster called a Jew who controls government and finance and kills babies for fun. Does that exist in your story, too? Iâm not saying you canât go ahead with this premise, but just something to think about: maybe there should be some checks and balances on the itâs believed = itâs true thing.
On another note, as Shira touched on, I was confused by this part:
>> to have jewish and muslim characters be children of greek gods and biblical figures?
According to our own traditions, we are the descendants of Biblical figures? Iâm not sure what you thought would be off about that, but it would be kind of cool to see a character being singled out Percy Jackson style because they were a descendant of Yitzchak and Rivka â as long as it was well-researched and executed in line with how we view these figures.
The Muslim portion of this character is open to followers. Muslim mods are not active at the time of this answer. Weâll recruiting for more mods; Muslim writers, feel free to apply anytime! https://forms.gle/qywJmrwcZj3E28nh8Â