![]() ![]() The simple fact of reading the Bible does not in itself give any information about someone’s faith. The ending gives no clues as to which option it is. ![]() (2) Isaac believes the exact opposite: he disagrees with his mother, which in fact would be in accordance with the biblical story in Genesis 22:1-19. Isaac agrees with his mother that he is sinful and must be sacrificed, thus mixing his mother’s first two “motivations” in the prologue with the third one (proof of loyalty to God). The devilish version of himself in the mirror perhaps points to this interpretation. (1) Isaac comes to think in the same way his mother does, implying consent to being sacrificed. The insight in question could be two things. The child appears to gain some kind of knowledge or insight from reading the Bible. 1 Cor 13:12 uses the image of a mirror to explain that we cannot yet see the final salvation because we currently see in the dark, but that, when salvation will be fully realised, we will no longer see any vague reflection, but salvation itself. Mirrors are rarely mentioned in the Bible. ![]() Isaac reads the Bible and looks into a mirror. In a way, the child is the victim of the primordial sin, i.e., a sin committed by a parent-or by his first forefathers in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3.Įnding #13 (Bible) sticks to the Biblical setting. This loss is not caused by the child’s own sins. Child abuse can be regarded as a loss of innocence. In the videogame, Isaac is naked on all narratological levels. In the Romantic area, the loss of innocence was seen as the loss of childlike innocence. This could be the reason that Eden is a female unlockable character. The reception of these stories has more often than not held the woman responsible for eating from the forbidden tree ( Tischler 2009, pp. ![]() They nevertheless do just that and suddenly becomes aware of their nakedness. They are free to do anything they want, except to eat from the tree of good and evil. God entrusts the newly created humans with the care of the garden. The unlockable character Eden is named after the Garden of Eden, the décor of the biblical stories of Genesis 2–3. In the Jewish Testament of Abraham (1st/2nd century), Abel is portrayed as a sun-like angel ( Van der Toorn et al. By denying him all communication, Cain has already killed Abel, as it were, before the actual murder. The narratological plot of the biblical account points in a different direction: the problem is that there is no communication with Abel. However, this idea is not mentioned in the text at all. Because Cain did not offer the best he had God does not love him, and Abel falls victim to the ensuing quarrel between God and Cain. The dominant interpretation in the reception of this biblical narrative is that Cain did not sacrifice the best of his flock, whereas Abel offered God the best fruits of the land. God accepts Abel’s sacrifice, but rejects that of Cain. Sacrifice plays an important role in this story. Cain is the villain who kills his brother. Together with his brother Abel, Cain is the main character in the story of Gen 4:1-16. Most of the unlockable characters are derived from the Bible. We then analyse the three-fold narrative structure of the game which enhances and nuances the criticism the game directs at religion. In this article, we analyse the narrative of The Binding of Isaac by performing an intertextual comparison with the Biblical narrative of Genesis 22:1-19. The game describes both the dark creativity and the mental and physical abuse associated with religion. McMillen’s inspiration came from his own experiences with his family, which was made up of both Catholics and born-again Christians. Multiple critical references to Christianity can be found in addition to the narrative: hostile embodiments of the seven deadly sins, rosaries, Bibles, and crucifixes, and unlockable characters, such as Mary Magdalene, Judas Iscariot, Samson, and Cain, who are all depicted negatively in both Jewish and Christian traditions. Both from the perspective of narrative and of game design, McMillen built The Binding of Isaac around the Biblical story of Genesis 22:1-19, which has the same name in Jewish and Christian tradition, but he placed it in a modern-day setting in which a young boy is endangered by a mentally disturbed mother who hears “voices from above” that instruct her to sacrifice her only child. Isaac is a roguelike dungeon crawler with randomly generated dungeons. The game The Binding of Isaac is an excellent example of a game that incorporates criticism of religion. ![]()
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