The Bible: R-Rated?
Advocates for “mature” Christian fiction often point to the Bible as proving their point. They point out that the Scripture is full of violence, sex, and contains some examples of course language. Indeed, the case can be made that this is true. But does the Bible really fit the mold it is being forced into? Is it really the same as an R-rated, mature material?
What is “mature content”?
I don’t know that I’ve heard a good definition of the phrase presented in terms of fiction written by Christians. Jeff Gerke’s warning for the old Hinterlands imprint would give us a starting point.
Hinterlands books may contain vulgarity, profanity, nudity and/or sexual content, but never for gratuitous purposes.
Of course, this doesn’t draw any lines. Sexual content could mean anything from a couple indicating they are going to have sex to a full graphic description of the act. But based on Jeff’s statements from his guest article on SpecFaith back in January of last year, he relates the term as the equivalent of an R-rated movie in content.
Many Christians need to avoid R-rated movies, but some Christians can watch such movies and not stumble. That doesn’t mean anything about who has more or less worth to Christ, because that’s the same for both. It just means that there are Christians who can handle, and even desire to explore, stories with this sort of content. They can be grittier and, in some senses, more realistic.
When writers and readers talk about mature content, their boundaries would usually coincide with an R-rating on a movie.
So mature content means it is not G-rated, PG-rated, or even PG-13-rated. So what crosses the line from a PG-13 to an R? From the Motion Picture Association of America’s rating descriptions.
Sex:
More than brief nudity will require at least a PG-13 rating, but such nudity in a PG-13 rated motion picture generally will not be sexually oriented. . . . An R-rated motion picture may include . . . sexually-oriented nudity . . .
Violence:
There may be depictions of violence in a PG-13 movie, but generally not both realistic and extreme or persistent violence. . . . An R-rated motion picture may include . . . intense or persistent violence . . .
Profanity/Vulgarity:
A motion picture’s single use of one of the harsher sexually-derived words, though only as an expletive, initially requires at least a PG-13 rating. More than one such expletive requires an R rating, as must even one of those words used in a sexual context. . . . An R-rated motion picture may include . . . hard language . . .
The language boundary would fit movies or book without any adjustment, but sexual and violence boundaries are different. To translate from visual media to printed media, it is obvious the difference is explicitness. That is, if you can read the same level of detail to form a picture as an R-rated movie, then you’ve crossed over into mature content.
For example, in Peter Jackson’s adaptation of The Lord of the Rings into film, he had to keep it at a PG-13 rating. So he could show heads getting chopped off, but he couldn’t show blood spewing out as would be more realistic (from his comments on the extended version commentary).
So is the Bible R-rated?
It certainly contains sexual situations, violence, and some would say cussing. But do they cross the line into R territory?
If we take the above boundary, the level of detail, especially in relation to violence and sexuality, would determine if it is an R or PG-13. The more a book would show rather than tell, the more likely it is to cross over into mature content.
Let’s examine it in relation to the Bible.
Sex:
There are plenty of incidences of sex in Scripture, but none that are described in detail. The closest one gets to that is the Song of Solomon. However, it does so in an allegory, keeping the curtain’s closed, so to speak. Indeed, it has been interpreted in other ways than speaking of sex.
What you usually have, however, is very much telling. So-and-so knew his wife, and she conceived—type statement. No where in Scripture does it give a graphic, detailed account of a sex act. On the sex category, it would not be consider sexually-oriented nudity, and so not R-rated.
Violence:
Most all references in Scripture concerning violence is told, not shown. We don’t get depictions of blood gushing out, or other such details. The most one gets is bowels:
Now this man [Judas] purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out. (Act 1:18 KJV)
There are two or three more instances in the OT of this description. It is still pretty telly, but does give more detail that paints a clearer picture in the reader’s mind. Certainly much less detail than a novel describing the event might have.
But does that make it “realistic and extreme” violence? It is still too telling and not showing to be a realistic depiction, which would describe the bursting open, the blood, descriptions of the guts, and how the person feels either experiencing it or watching it. To simply say “his bowels gushed out” isn’t much different than saying someone cut off his head. No description, no R-rating.
Profanity/Vulgarity:
While Scripture doesn’t drop the equivalent of an F-bomb, there is some “harsh language” going on, as someone details on a forum post. I’m not totally convinced that the people then would have thought of them as profanity (too easy for us to overlay our culture’s values onto theirs).
For instance, Jesus calls the Pharisees, vipers. One might consider that name calling, but I don’t think it’s an explicative or profanity. Several listed in the article are questionable.
But it is a difficult task to sort out. Some of those could have been considered cuss words of the day. Like the use of the word, “dung.” He claims it is the equivalent of a couple of our words for it used as an explicative. However, it is not clear that it is being used as an explicative in the verse he cites:
Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ… (Philippians 3:8, KJV)
Paul may have simply meant it literally, not as an explicative. That said, Paul does give the judaizers, in his letter to Galatians, some harsh words:
I would that they that unsettle you would even go beyond circumcision. (Gal 5:12 ASV)
Oh that those who disturb you would even castrate themselves! (Gal 5:12 EMTV)
Based on the above, it is possible that some words and phrases, at the time, might be considered profanity or vulgarity.
That said, none of those words today would give a movie an R-rating. Even the castration comment. If any of them were considered profanity back in the day, they certainly don’t today. Even if we could point to some profanity, we have no way of knowing how strong it was considered then. It takes some strong language to get an R-rating. Minor cussing won’t do it.
There are no F-bomb equivalents in Scripture.
The Scripture would be rated PG-13.
Based on my assessment, one could not make the case that the Scriptures would garner an R-rating, as it is simply too much telling, and very little showing on both sex and violence. Any cuss words, if they could be labeled such, are likely mild in the Bible’s culture, and certainly mild to non-existent in today’s.
If the criteria for declaring something mature content is to earn an R-rating, the Scriptures don’t make the cut. This is not the mature content you are looking for. Consequently, those who wish to hold up the Bible as an example and support for mature content in fiction will find little to grab hold of here. Merely saying it happened does not make it R-rated.
What a PG-13 rating does tell us is the Bible can be used as support to mention people having sex, violence, and even minor, infrequent cussing. As some have said accurately, the Bible would not be approved to be sold in CBA stores if it were just a book like any other. Too many instances of sex and the occult to make it past the censors.
While I may be saying that one cannot point to the Bible as a justification and example of mature content, I’m not saying this excludes the possibility that mature content can’t be warranted and permissible to write and read, within limits. It isn’t inherently anti-Biblical, though on an individual basis, that depends on what all is shown. There are other arguments for and against mature content, and I’ve not dealt with those here. So don’t assume from this I’m anti-mature content.
Would you define mature content differently? Do you have examples from Scripture that you believe would be classified as worthy of an R-rating that I’ve missed?
My main problem is when people use “adult” or “mature” to indicate an excess of sex and violence (but mostly sex). In one online discussion, someone actually pointed out that an excess of sexual content reflects a teenage mindset, not necessarily an adult one; a comment which I found all the more intriguing as it was on a secular discussion board.
Even if the term is used as a marker of R-rated content, that doesn’t always indicate the maturity level of the content. For example, The Velveteen Rabbit has several profound passages
That passage contains some very deep lessons about integrity, personal relationships, and seeing past appearances, but not one hint of R or even PG-13 content. Yes, we need some way to indicate the sorts of intensity and possible temptations in media, but maybe “mature content” isn’t the best term.
Yeah, “mature” and “adult” refer to age, not necessarily maturity level mentally of the content. If following an R rating, means it is something you wouldn’t want your 17 year-old or less watching/reading.
In that sense, “adult” may be a more accurate description than “mature.” But I think the reason a Christian publisher would prefer that term over “adult” is it sounds less raunchy than saying you’re going to have an adult content imprint. Or for a Christian to say, “I want adult content in my fiction.” “Mature” sounds more respectable and less like erotica.
I do agree that an R rating doesn’t indicate the depth of the content intellectually, especially since that isn’t what it is measuring. You can find examples of G-rated intellectually deep like you quoted, as well as banal G-rated content. Likewise, the same for R-rated. Two different meanings of “mature.” Either in age or intellectually. Obviously the term as it has been used in these discussions refers to the former, not the later.
Rick, this whole article is so good.
The problem is, you can’t compare book ratings to movie ratings. In a book, you can say the phrase “blood gushed out” and it won’t be a big deal. But if you *see* blood gush out in a movie, it will be a much different matter. Books can contain much more content than a movie and get away with it because, whether you “tell” or “show” in a book, it *is* still words on a page, and its level of graphic-ness is subject to the imagination of the reader.
You can’t tell if a book is R-rated or something less. In movies, you can tell what level of graphic-ness it is by looking at it; it’s objective. In a book, it will look different in each person’s mind; it is subjective. Therefore, you can’t really say if a book is PG-13 or R.
I definitely agree with this. A lot depends in a book and a movie how you show or tell something. I’ve read books with scenes that have made me sick to my stomach because of the detailed description, though the actual action may not have been that terrible to watch. I’ve also read books that I would never watch if it was turned into a movie, because I know I would not be able to handle it.
Also, I think the author missed a couple of passages that might qualify for an R-rating, including parts of the book of Judges–especially chapter 19. I definitely had moments reading that book that left me extremely disturbed.
Now, does this justify using similar content in books and movies? Maybe sometimes, but we can’t justify it by saying “The Bible does it too.” Neither can we forbid violent content if the Bible doesn’t include it. It’s a matter of convictions and of accounting for the sensitivities of others.
I get what you are saying Izzy, but believe one can evaluate a book in that regard, based on graphic detail presented. Yes, one’s imagination plays a big role, as to a large degree they can in movies. One can still evaluate the actual words on a page.
And I would suggest there is a distinct difference in this regard between showing vs. telling. Telling is more distant and objective, showing more experiential and sensory-rich. Just saying blood gushed out isn’t the same as describing what someone is seeing, feeling, hearing, smelling, and thinking when blood gushes out. Books have an advantage in that it is active participation, and so can feel more real than a movie.
But whether one is talking movie or books, any subject matter can be treated discreetly or overtly. Either one can make you feel it more depending on how it is treated.
That said, there is some subjectivity on how any one person experiences a movie or a book. But ratings in a movie is not based on how someone’s imagination might run away with them, but on actual content. That’s how it would be with books as well.
Of course, I didn’t come up with comparing these boundaries to the movie rating system. If someone has a more official and accurate definition of mature content, I’m all ears.
“If someone has a more official and accurate definition of mature content, I’m all ears.”
I’ve found all rating systems to be pretty inaccurate, as well as rather pointless. Most rating systems are built on an idea that the more suggestive content a movie has, the worse the movie must be for it. I don’t believe that’s the case. What matters much more is how and why the content is used. (And what is even more dangerous in films/books is not the content it has in it, but the sort of ideas it espouses.)
Whether or not the Bible is R-rated is still rather unprovable, in my opinion. From a lot of comments here and elsewhere, I’ve seen that many people would give it an R-rated based on some of the descriptions in the text. Even when something is rated according to an outside standard — such as whether it has “mild gore”, “medium gore” or “heavy gore” — it’s still very subjective, because each person has their own idea of what mild, medium, and heavy is. So the rating is still largely dependent on the rater. It gets even more complicated when you take into account translation differences, and the fact our English versions don’t always use quite the dramatic wording that the original texts used.
In any case, does it ultimately matter if the Bible is PG-13 instead of R-rated? The reason people use the “The Bible is R-rated” excuse is because they want to prove that suggestive content is not, in itself, inappropriate for a Christian to use. They want to show that using suggestive content in fiction is okay because even the Bible does it. And whether the Bible is R-rated or PG-13, this still holds as a valid excuse, because even a PG-13 rating means it still contains suggestive content.
If readers are offended by R-rated content in their Christian fiction, they will be just as offended by PG-13 content in their Christian fiction. Perhaps even PG content. In my experience, when people complain about suggestive content in Christian fiction, their aim is not to merely bring it down a rating, but to get rid of it entirely. They want “clean” fiction. They want to prove that certain types of content are not suitable for Christian authors to use under any circumstances. The Bible, whether R-rated or not, still refutes them; and that’s what ultimately matters.
Of course, I’m talking about the movie ratings. I don’t know if that is the purpose of other rating systems, but the MPAA’s purpose isn’t to rate the quality of a movie. It is an aid for parents in determining age appropriateness of a movie, based on its content. You don’t want to take your 7-year-old to go see The Gruesome Twosome, or you’ll end up like me.
No, it isn’t always an accurate guide, but better than nothing if you, as a parent, want to narrow down the selection of movies so you can review them further for other inappropriate content.
What I’ve seen with publishers like Jeff Gerke was, is they use the rating system to give, in the case for Hinterlands, the same goal. If you don’t like R-rated content in your movies, you’ll probably want to avoid these books. If you don’t mind it, these are worth looking at. If you prefer it, you’ll want to check these out. Not perfect, but at least it is something that gives a reader information on what to expect, and chose. Otherwise, they’d have no idea what “mature content” might entail.
I do agree on one point. Many Christians have a much lower tolerance for sex and cussing in their fiction. “Mature content” would probably be closer to a PG-13 rating, or even PG for some. That was my point in mentioning in the article that at a PG-13 rating, if the Bible were like any other book, it wouldn’t get published and sold in Christian bookstores. Because most of them don’t even like it told. Even hinted at, much less shown.
Be that as it may, I’ve heard people make the claim that the Bible is R-rated. It is obvious that much of what people claim would be R-rated would actually fall lower.
I don’t think so. One, I don’t think suggestive content is the same as mature content as we’ve defined it. Someone flirting could be suggestive. That’s way too broad a term to use.
Two, those writers who write “mature Christian fiction” use the argument that the Bible is R-rated to support their use of R-rated level descriptions, and inclusion of otherwise prohibited material, in their novels. They point to the Bible and say, “Why can’t I have a sex scene in my book? God has them in the Bible.”
Problem is you are comparing apples to oranges. The Bible is not written like a novel, but like someone reporting. Sometimes, yes, a gruesome crash or other bad thing, but nothing like:
There simply is nothing like that in the Bible. Graphic, yes. Descriptive on occasion, yes. Titillating and explicit like R-rated? Nope. But something like the above would be in a novel of King David’s life, if mature content was allowed. PG13 would let you know sex is going to happen. R follows them into the bedroom with detail. There are plenty of Christians who appreciate the former, but don’t want the latter. And there are plenty that don’t care.
Point being, one can point to the Bible to include sex, violence, and sin. It doesn’t flinch from saying it happened. You can’t point to it to justify writing content like where the above example was going because there is nothing even remotely like that in Scripture.
Out of the 31,102 verses (788,280 words) in the KJV Bible, we’ve come up so far with about 4-5 verses that get close, if not there, to an R-rating. That’s 0.016% of the Bible. And it is all told, not shown as I did in my example.
If one wants to write and/or read mature content in a novel format, great. But you’ll have to find other reasons to support why it is okay to do so than comparing it to the Bible. The only message you can get from the Bible is it is okay to talk about it, mention it happens, but then cut away, avoid graphic detail, etc.
“Of course, I’m talking about the movie ratings. I don’t know if that is the purpose of other rating systems, but the MPAA’s purpose isn’t to rate the quality of a movie. It is an aid for parents in determining age appropriateness of a movie, based on its content. You don’t want to take your 7-year-old to go see The Gruesome Twosome, or you’ll end up like me.”
If it’s merely being used to judge age-appropriateness, that’s fine. But in the context of this conversation, it’s being used to judge what kind of content is suitable for adults to use in adult fiction (which children wouldn’t/shouldn’t be reading in the first place). In which case, I think it’s a very bad, inaccurate standard.
“One, I don’t think suggestive content is the same as mature content as we’ve defined it. Someone flirting could be suggestive. That’s way too broad a term to use.”
Let me clarify, then. In all of my previous comments, when I said the phrase “suggestive content”, what I meant was “mature content”. I was not referring to the more mild things, like flirting, that some people find suggestive.
“Out of the 31,102 verses (788,280 words) in the KJV Bible, we’ve come up so far with about 4-5 verses that get close, if not there, to an R-rating. That’s 0.016% of the Bible. And it is all told, not shown as I did in my example.”
There isn’t much I can say here other than that I disagree. There are several examples people have given that I believe were “shown” and not “told”, and which were very R-rated *by the standard set forth by the MPAA*, but which you claimed were actually “told” and not bad enough to deserve an R. So while I think you are wrong on this, there isn’t much I can do to change your opinion.
“Two, those writers who write “mature Christian fiction” use the argument that the Bible is R-rated to support their use of R-rated level descriptions, and inclusion of otherwise prohibited material, in their novels. They point to the Bible and say, “Why can’t I have a sex scene in my book? God has them in the Bible.” Problem is you are comparing apples to oranges….There simply is nothing like that in the Bible. Graphic, yes. Descriptive on occasion, yes. Titillating and explicit like R-rated? Nope…. PG13 would let you know sex is going to happen. R follows them into the bedroom with detail.”
If that’s the definition of an R-rating, then the Bible is, indeed, R-rated. It might not use the same style of modern prose we use in fiction today, but it can still be very explicit and titillating. Song of Songs does follow the “characters” into the bedroom in detail. Especially in the original language. The only reason why our versions of Song of Songs is so “clean” is because much of the graphic detail has been lost in translation. In the original wording, it was quite pornographic.
Even if you have some reason to believe that Song of Songs is somehow PG-13 instead of R, the fact remains that, if a Christian wrote a scene in their fiction that is on the same exact level as Song of Songs, what they’ll have on their hands is a very intimate, steamy sex scene. And since the Bible uses it, then yes, this is still an example illustrating that the use of such content is not, in itself, sinful or prohibited. The fact that some people also use it as a symbolic story about Christ and the church just further drives home the point. God would not use a sinful description as an example of something holy. And symbolic or not, it also stands on its own as a story about love and sex.
Actually, not. It is about whether the often used rating to designate what is mature content in Christian fiction applies to the Bible or not. Whether the Bible’s content can be used as support for R-rated content. I think there are other valid reasons for that, but the oft mentioned, “It’s in the Bible” isn’t a good one if we’re talking about R-rated content.
Pretty much all the examples given only report what happened, little in the way of sensory detail that would qualify as showing in a novel sense.
On the Song of Solomon, it uses allegory. It’s the equivalent I’ve seen used in PG-13 movies where sex happens, you don’t see anything, but they use an analogy to make it clear what is happening. However, it is something still most Christians would be uncomfortable with.
That said, it isn’t explicit other than in a person’s mind, being couched in indirect language.
“On the Song of Solomon, it uses allegory. It’s the equivalent I’ve seen used in PG-13 movies where sex happens, you don’t see anything, but they use an analogy to make it clear what is happening. However, it is something still most Christians would be uncomfortable with.
That said, it isn’t explicit other than in a person’s mind, being couched in indirect language.”
As I said in my previous post, it is only in the English translations that things are said more indirectly. In the original language it was written, it is very direct, explicit, and pornographic.
Um, the suggestion that Song of Solomon is pornographic in the original Hebrew, corrected in translation, is not true (I read Hebrew). The Hebrew is indirect, too.
However, the prophetic passage I quoted in Ezekiel 23:22 (obviously it’s larger than that one verse) IS crude in Hebrew and could easily be pornographic if you used legitimate English translations for the terms in the passage like “cock” (for “member”) and “cum” (for “issue”) and “f**king her” (for “lay with her” vs 8). Having said that, porn has the purpose of eliciting sexual excitement and the passage in Ezekiel clearly has a purpose that is almost the exact opposite of that. God is bringing up the image of disgusting, debasing sex, not porn. This is intended to be a turn OFF rather than the other way around. Still, crude language is used. This part of the Bible, if discussed in modern terms in the style the Bible intended (according to how I read it) would tag a movie containing said discussion with an R rating…
I’m bringing this up simply for truth’s sake. It happens to be true that the Bible is not graphically violent or sexual as a rule, but if it is necessary to be crude for a bit to make a point, the Bible will do so, not for the sake of the arousal of the flesh, but in order to say what must be said.
@Travis Perry, I did not mean the word “pornographic” in the sense you have taken it. I’ve heard it used to mean “having the purpose of eliciting sexual excitement” before, but I have heard it used in other senses too. I’m perfectly aware the Bible doesn’t purposely try to arouse sexual excitement in readers. In this case, I simply was referring to the blunt description of sexual activity.
R.L., it looks like someone else is saying much the same to you up here as I am below, and you even seem to get the distinction I said is your fallacy when you say things like, “Problem is you are comparing apples to oranges. The Bible is not written like a novel, but like someone reporting.”
Then you just go back to your fallacious way of comparing the Bible to the way modern novels are written.
And you mention a lot that the Bible is more like a reporter. Yet, even the novels written that way when turned into movies that honestly show the scenes have been rated “R” too.
Just look at some of the Dracula movies which have come out over the years.
Also, the reporting about the crucifixion of Christ once shown more accurately than it ever had been before garnered an “R” rating for director Mel Gibson.
Because of the language, not the sexual descriptions.
That’s because they don’t do the movie the way it is written. One can make a PG movie from the book or an R movie. It is all in how much showing the director does. But how a director translates a book onto film, and what that film would be rated, has little bearing on what rating they’d give to the novel itself, if they gave ratings on novels. It would be based on the content of the novel, not the film.
Just today I read Jeremiah 25:33: “And those pierced by the LORD on that day shall extend from one end of the earth to the other. They shall not be lamented, or gathered, or burried; they shall be dung on the surface of the ground.” (ESV, emphasis added of course)
We don’t know for sure that the word translated “dung” had comparable vulgar connotations to the other English word. In fact, I think it’s unlikely that the word had exactly the same connotation, because historically our reluctance to analogies about human excrement probably came from the rise of living standards following the Industrial Revolution.
But one thing is certain: the analogy to feces in Jeremiah 25:33 was clearly intended to be harsh and disturbing. Whatever else it may be, the language is strong and unpleasant.
In the past several weeks, the image of a dead body being the same as feces has been coming to my mind. Maybe I got it from Jeremiah originally; I’ve read through it before. I was thinking through my reluctance to commit suicide despite my desire to die, and I realized that I didn’t want to leave filth for my family to clean up. I realized that I would become feces lying on the floor for my parents to clean up.
I’ve also adopted the vulgar synonym recently, because sometimes I need the harsher connotations.
Dung, and its varied regenerations, does not qualify as R-rating material. Per the rating system, it has to be an explicative using a “harsher sexually-derived word,” used at least twice, or only once in a sexual situation. Dung doesn’t qualify. This is why TV shows often use minor cuss words, but not the F-bomb.
To my knowledge, Scripture doesn’t have any such explicatives.
Then by that standard, Christian writers should feel free to use the word “shit,” which I tried hard to avoid doing before now.
Also, let’s not start calling the Bible a “PG-13 rated book.” Let’s not start saying that the the Biblical level of offensive content is PG-13. It might be useful for the time being to use the analogy, but the Bible long predates our ideas about acceptable content, and the limited application of the MPAA ratings is not directly relevant. This could lead to more stiltedness, more cliche.
To be clear, this is a good and worthwhile analogy. Let’s just be careful not to take it too far.
By that standard, yes. If one goes strictly by PG-13 rating. True that most Christians would still not be okay with that, even other minor cuss words. As I think I’ve mentioned before, general market PG is many Christian’s R.
Agreed on the rest.
So non-f-bombs are okay in this comment section? He, he, he…
Ahem.
But what I think your shit really misses is that swearing as a concept is entirely based on goddamn context. Different cultures find different shit offensive, and to different degrees. What I find abso-goddamn-lutely hilarious is that the kinky shit is the really off-limits thing to Christians. It doesn’t help that reputation that all Christians are so goddamn repressed about pantsfeelings. That shit’s downright Victorian. And not in a good way.
I’ve actually been mulling writing a post on my blog about why Christians are right to be “repressed,” using a certain NYT best-selling manga as an example. It might answer why it’s such a big thing, but I always feel worried about addressing the “mature content” aspect of anime and other niche fandoms. The point is that it’s very, very easy for sexual sin to have sort of a feedback effect similar to a drug because “it’s a sin against the body,” and that it’s frighteningly easy to normalize as well as hard to combat when entrenched.
Do you know much about Purity Culture stuff? That stuff is dangerous in that it teaches girls to be disgusted with their bodies. It’s like the all the worst of the body/spirit duality stuff, except with a metric ton of Madonna-whore. I’m lucky I wasn’t exposed to more of it.
Look up “vaginismus” (or don’t, it’s about ladyparts).
I don’t think SpecFaith goes by the MPAA ratings guidelines in determining what is okay in comments. Whether that is allowed here is up to the powers that be, not me.
It’s the internet. Bad words may be expected. But personally I do expect more maturity from someone, rather than an apparent motivation to do all things for the goal of torquing some (real or imaginary) cultural fundamentalist out there. What a pathetic reason for doing anything.
Wait just a moment. You were considering suicide? What’s going on?
I’ve been threatening to dope him up on Prozac for awhile now. You can come and hold him down.
Nothing, I’m just overly dramatic.
And I’m confused, and my pessimism combines with my confusion in complicated ways. I’m not sure whether or not I’m losing my faith — I don’t want to lose my faith, but I can’t maintain the same kind of faith I used to profess. I never really believed in being “saved,” and I gave up pretending to believe in “saved,” but I still believe — have almost always believed — in Christ.
(Seriously, give me any test about how much I believe Jesus is really God, but I’ll probably fail if you insist on absolute confidence in the Bible — which makes me suspicious, because Christ is supposed to be the one who saves, not the Bible.)
And now the people at church are starting to quote Already Gone at me (I think that book should have been entitled Already Judged), and I’m terrified because church is the only significant community I have. I don’t know how to relate to people very well outside of the context of shared Evangelical faith, but at the same time, the Evangelical language and practices make me deeply uncomfortable.
I’ve found myself explicitly identifying as one of those angsty young adult spiritual wanders/ex-Evangelical heretics, and that sickens me in my saner moments. The only reason I’ve fallen into identifying myself that way from time to time is because I’m desperate to identify with something, but a community based around cynicism is shallow. Cynicism must circle back around itself and swallow its own tale to be complete.
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There are several places in the OT that are about as graphic as it gets. The death of Jezebel immediately comes to mind — she’s thrown bodily out of a window, she smashes on the ground below, her blood spews as it would under an impact such as this, including on the horses, which then trample her corpse with their hooves. After that Jehu goes in to eat and drink (one wonders how he managed that) and when he comes out there’s very little of the most evil woman in scripture left because the mongrel dogs have eaten her, just as the Word of the Lord predicted. I could also mention the death of Eglon in the book of Judges at the hands of Ehud. Let’s not get specific, you can read it. Yes, gentle readers, the scriptures can be indeed quite graphic and gory when it suits God’s purpose. Because the Word of God is real, and depictions like these make His judgment against unrighteousness all the more so.
Jezabel’s death is one of the more graphic, and does mention her blood getting onto other things, though it is still more telling than showing, and at least in the KJV, doesn’t mention spewing:
I didn’t find Eglon’s death to be R-rating material. It describes he was so fat, the blade used to stab him with got stuck in his flab and couldn’t be extracted. More detail than your regular killing, but nothing one couldn’t see in a PG13 movie.
But the Jezebel death is the closest to being R-rated, based on content, despite its reporter-like objectivity and lack of putting the reader in her experiences. To compare, if you’ve seen the extended version of the Return of the King, you see Saruman’s death by being stabbed, falling down his tower, and being impaled upon landing on a spike of the water-wheel. Nothing like the book, of course. If I recall the commentary, it was cut from the theatrical versions to reduce time. While one didn’t see much in the way of blood, it was pretty much an “Ewww” moment. Whether it would have kept its PG-13 rating with it in, I don’t know. Probably. But interesting the similarity between Jezebel and Saruman’s deaths in that regard.
The difference between showing and telling in a movie is telling would be a character talking to another character, and might say, “Yeah, old Jake splattered the guy’s blood on the walls.” That would be allowed in a PG-13 movie. Actually showing it happening, however, would earn it an R rating.
The Jezebel death still sounds to much like someone telling me what happened rather than seeing it myself. That you’re imagination can take that ball and run with it to fill in the details isn’t what a rating is about. It would have to fall into the realm of “realistic and extreme” content to get an R. Of course that could be subjective too, which is why they have a rating’s board to decide these things.
“spattered” vs “spew” — there was enough blood to madden the horses, not a speck or two. And you’re really hedging on Ehud/Eglon, ignoring the statement about what “came out” — whether that was — gasp — “guts” — or something even more repulsive but realistic. Which is the point, the Bible is realistic. I could further point to Jehu’s bloodthirsty extirpation of Baal from Israel. “Come, see my zeal for YHWH” and we’re treated to baskets of severed heads. That’s not PG-13, but it is….true.
Expressing your love in the form of Philistine foreskins, anyone? “Oh yeah, baby, I love you so much I touched a thousand dudes’ porksticks and cut little bits off them for your sake. So great for the wedding scrapbook.”
Well, the KJV says the blood was sprinkled. But it matters not, as it is still telling.
On the Eglon think, I was confused by the KJV which said dirt came out, and I initially took it literally. lol. So I wasn’t intentionally leaving that out. That said, if a narrator of a movie said those words while generic scenes flashed across the screen of landscapes, do you think the MPAA board would give it an R rating based on that?
Ezekiel 23:20 talks in terms of fornication the desire Israel had for other Gods. The terminology in context is fairly graphic. Definitely a PG13 if not an R…though I think it would be a matter of what words you used to translate some of the original terms that would put the passage in one rating or the other. Especially when you realize translations as a rule tone down the terms there.
Travis, yes that is more graphic description. Does it equate to “sexually-oriented nudity”? That’s what it would take to move from PG-13 to an R. Based on the context, since it is an analogy for the infidelity of Israel, it could be interpreted that way. Being it is told, it might fall more to PG-13. But I could see a case made it could be R.
I was going through the comments to see if any one mentioned this passage. Frankly, this isn’t the only passage of the Bible that mentions emissions. Just get that visual in your head and you might go from PG-13 straight to an X rating for the Bible in this case. Oh, and in this case we are talking about donkey flesh and horse emissions in regards to a human female. Now get that image in your head. I don’t even think those kind of videos/books have a rating or can be reasonably sold in stores that normally would have “R” or even an “X” rating. Here’s the quote from the Concordant Version including the verse before and the verse after:
19 Yet she increased her prostitutions, remembering the days of her youth when she committed prostitution in the land of Egypt. 20 She doted on concubinage with them, whose flesh was like the flesh of donkeys, and the effusion of horses was like their effusion. 21 So you revisited the lewdness of your youth when those of Egypt handled your nipples, squashing the breasts of your youth.
Nipples being handled and breast squashing? Sounds rather “R” rated to me.
Nipples being handled and breast squashing? Sounds rather “R” rated to me.
David, there is some level of R-ness to it, but you can’t use what you might imagine to determine the rating. This is still told. Your imagination fills in the showing. Just mentioning it happened is one thing. Describing how it feels, the sensations experienced, along with the detail would lend it to an R-rated novel.
That said, as I mentioned to Travis, this section gets close to being R-rated, if it isn’t. But if this were in a novel, there would be much more description and showing the experience rather than telling us about it. And I think there is a big difference between the two.
A PG-13 movie typically does not show nipples, nor naked breasts being squashed. This is not about imagination, it is about what is being “shown”. We are given the facts of a naked woman prostituting herself and on the verge of bestiality with her comparisons of the man’s package, then we are told that her naked breasts are squashed and nipples are handled.
In most people’s book, that’s “R” rated material if not more with the animal references.
I can say “A naked man walked outside”. Now did I mention his genitals? Did I mention that the only view you can have is of his rear end? In either case, the fact is that we are talking about male nudity, and although some PG-13 flicks may show a certain degree of nudity of a man – Dances With Wolves, hello? Did anyone else think of that too? – if I were to mention that a lady was fondling his genitals, then we have now gone well past a PG-13 rating, I don’t care how little more imagination a person puts into it beyond that.
Your main fallacy is that you keep wanting to compare the way the Bible was written to the way a modern novel is. The Bible was not written in that way, so it cannot be compared that way. The same is true for many works from ancient history. Indeed, just about anything before the printing press and then later computers. Things have “evolved” in how descriptive we can get. I imagine that if the writers of the Bible had computers available to them back then they could have gotten a lot more descriptive than they did.
A PG-13 movie typically does not show nipples, nor naked breasts being squashed. This is not about imagination, it is about what is being “shown”.
That’s just it. In a PG-13 movie, this is the equivalent of one character saying that to another character. Showing would be to use sensory details to describe feelings. But true, in one’s mind, it can go to an R-rating in one’s mind in either event. Also true, in Christian fiction, it would be just as taboo, and yet it is in the Bible.
But to have the equivalent in a novel, you’d have to shift out of showing (describing feelings and experience) and only report actions, like the Bible does, to match.
I think we’re going to just wind up going in circles. Once again, I think your main fallacy is that you keep wanting to compare the way the Bible was written to the way a modern novel is. The Bible was not written in that way, so it cannot be compared that way. Plain and simple.
Our minds think in pictures, not in words. We can use words to get those pictures in our minds, but ultimately when I tell you of a red round ball being held in a hand what comes to your mind is an image of that.
Now stop thinking of that.
Stop thinking of that red round ball being held in a hand. Don’t you dare think of it.
But now you can’t stop, can you? The image of a red round ball being held in a hand is clear in your mind. I didn’t tell you the color of the hand, not the race of the person, nor the gender. All of that you came up with yourself. I didn’t even tell you the exact size of the round red ball, but you got a clear image of that red round ball being held in a hand.
The same is true if I am telling you about a naked woman whose breasts are being squashed by a man’s hand that then handles the nipples. You are now having an image in your mind of that.
It matters not any other detail. The image you have is of a naked woman prostituting herself to a man squashing her breasts and handling her nipples. Any other details are unneeded as your mind fills in the blanks. The job is done.
When a movie is filmed, they take time to capture the image they want you to see, the image they want you to have in your mind. Do you remember watching Star Wars for years on end?
I mean the “original” trilogy with Luke, Han, and Leia.
You watched it over and over again. The images were well ingrained in your brain. You KNEW these images. Then Lucas came out with the Special Editions and you were saying, “No! Han shot first, not Greedo!”
Why?
Because the image you were seeing “right now” on the screen was completely different than the image you had seen before numerous times that you remembered so well in your mind’s eye.
That is the same mind’s eye that sees the image of the red ball being held in the hand and the naked woman getting her breasts squashed and nipples handled.
It matters not just how lengthy the description is, nor how graphic. If the job has been done, then you have the image in your mind that the writer wanted you to have when you read the passage, or the film maker wants you to have when you watch the movie.
You asked the question, “Does it equate to ‘sexually-oriented nudity’? That’s what it would take to move from PG-13 to an R.”
I say, yes, it does. If the image you have in your mind’s eye is something that could be filmed and shown on the screen, then ask yourself if that image would be considered “sexually-oriented nudity” by the MPAA’s rating system.
I think if you’re honest about this and not just out to give more dodging and making excuses then you will have to admit that, yes, indeed it probably warrants at least an “R” rating for just the image of the naked woman with her breasts being squashed as she prostitutes her body with a man hung like a donkey having emissions like that of a horse while he handles her nipples.
What does your mind’s eye see with that?
At least an “R” rating according to the MPAA.
At least.
Not to get personal, but “squashing” is not a sensuous word. That’s more the word to describe mammograms.
David, you said:
I’m only comparing the differences. Point being, if the MPAA rating board rated novels, and the Bible was given a rating by them, based on their guidelines, would it be an R as some people claim? Today. Some people apparently think they would.
The ratings are based on content, not what someone might imagine from words that are said. There are plenty of R-rated thoughts one can get from even a PG movie based on what they tell. But they can’t give a rating based on what people might imagine.
And movies do telling as well, either through a narrator, characters dialog, or even the screen of scrolling text like Star Wars. You could have a movie start out showing the countryside of a make-believe kingdom, while the narrator says something like, “The King fondled her nipples and massaged her breast, then took her to bed for sex. Thus she gave birth to Rufus.” But no nudity shown, no explicatives of a sexual nature said, do you seriously think the board would give the movie an R rating based on that? Sure, that is likely to generate some R-rated thoughts in the minds of the listeners, but they don’t rate for that. They rate by what is actually shown on screen when it comes to sex and violence.
The corresponding equivalent of showing on screen is what you see in novels when they give you sensory descriptions of what is going on. The Bible doesn’t do that. The comparison isn’t the Bible to a novel, but the fact that it lacks the showing of a novel. Without that showing, the MPAA board’s guidelines, as it stands today, would treat it like narration in a film, I believe.
The difference in both film and novels between telling and showing is sensory content. If that sensory content describes an act of violence or sex in enough detail so as to experience it, not just imagine it, but leave little to the imagination, that is what an R-rating would be based on. It would be based on showing, not telling.
The Bible, not being a novel, has little showing and practically all telling. So while I doubt the Bible would garner an R-rating, it would be correct to say that many Christians, if their novels even had the telling you find in Scripture, wouldn’t be happy, and complain about that fact.
IOW, you can use the Bible to point out how uncomfortable many Christians would be if their novel mimicked the Bible in content. What I don’t believe you can do is use the content of the Bible as support for R-rated content in a novel, per the MPAA’s standard. For the main reason that, unlike novels, it doesn’t show much, just report.
I am being honest here. I don’t believe the MPAA rates films according to what the viewer is likely to imagine with their mind’s eyes. Only what is shown on screen. Likewise, I believe the same rule would apply in a novel, that they would rate it not on what is told and the likely images a reader might get, but what is shown in the novel. Otherwise if ratings depended upon the images one might get from certain words or allusions, there should be a lot more movies rated R than there are.
If we disagree on that point, then I guess we disagree.
Judges 3:21,22
1 Samuel 18:27
Judges 19: 22-29
Ezekiel 16 (metaphorical, but certainly R-rated). There are a host of R-rated scriptures (though I will fully admit that you are probably right in that most of them are “told,” rather than “shown”). Travis has already mentioned Ezekiel 23:20.
I really think too many authors worry about the content of their books and not the quality of their books. What are you saying with your content? Are you simply trying to sell your story to a secular crowd? Are you afraid that your fiction will seem too tame if you don’t spice it up? Why not simply focus on the story, and let the Spirit lead you? There will always be those for whom the book is not appropriate. We should all be focusing on speaking truth in our fiction, not trying to score points on a ratings card, no matter what on what part of the spectrum our stories happen to lie.
I think that is the point of those who advocate for allowing mature content. According to them, that is focusing on the story and where the Spirit naturally led them. I doubt many of us would advocate to throw in mature content for the sake of spicing it up. As Jeff’s definition states, it shouldn’t be gratuitous.
I’m sorry, but I have to disagree on the “sex” part. Though Song of Solomon is certainly vivid, it isn’t the most detailed section of the Bible in regards to sex. There’s a story before that in which a man “knew” his wife and (this part is the most vividly detailed to me) “spilled his seed on the floor.” No description of the actual act of sex beyond the one-word descriptor of “knew,” yet afterward it goes a little further to describe (using old-style wording) a married man letting his semen not go in his wife, but to just drop dead on the floor. God, seeing this as wicked, also had him drop dead on the floor.
I don’t know. Its weird in a way, because when it comes to the crucifixion, you have songs like Carman’s “This Blood” that sound like this:
It’s using R-rated imagery to make a point. This from a musician who would be rated G otherwise. You can do wrong both ways: you can PG it, and make a bloodless crucifixion with a serene Jesus, or go hard R and almost fetishize it. I don’t think you can really look to the Bible to sanction one way or the other.