It is remembered at the latest on Christmas Eve, when the Christmas Story is traditionally read. But also the Ten Commandments are known by almost everybody. That and much more is written in the Bible. The most sold and most translated book in the world.
The word “Bible” stands for the collection of valuable information. And for the irrevocability of a work itself.
Probably for this reason, clever publishers have used the name and made their own thing with it.
I would like to present you three Bibles of this very different kind:
The Black Metal Bible (unfortunately not available in English), the Running Bible and the Stretching Bible.*
The Black Metal Bible
It seems almost blasphemous to call a work Bible, which deals with one of the darkest musical genres of all. With musicians who – pretendedly – burn down churches and sacrifice people. Or at least with those whose acoustic realization deals with the dark themes of life. With bands from Pagan, Viking, Dark, Death and Black Metal. In his encyclopaedia Matthias Herr presents more than 600 of these bands.
Admittedly, this work is already a little bit older. It was published in 1998, but I still enjoy reading it. Just to see which bands are around yet or which bands would not appear in the Black Metal Bible today (but are nevertheless good). Even just reading the band names is very interesting and often amusing.
In the closing Matthias Herr deals with the topic “About good and evil”. He reflects on the Bible, the Darwinian Theory and the Third Reich. An extremely interesting article with extremely interesting approaches. Matthias Herr does not mince his words. He encourages us to think along, to rethink, to make the best of our possibilities and to work together with other people, to complement each other. According to my taste and already somehow biblical.
The Running-WOD-Bible
My Running Bible is unfortunately not available in an English translation. But I found another Running Bible for you. If someone of you have already read the Running-WOD-Bible*, feel welcome to tell me about it in the comments.
But there is a translation of my favourite topic…
The Stretching Bible
The Stretching Bible promises the best exercises for maximum fitness and mobility. Presented in the book are stretching exercises organised according to different parts of the body or according to the specific type of sport. There are stretching plans for desk workers, for relaxation before going to sleep (by the way, I also have such an exercises plan) or for a better posture. All programs are kept relatively short, so they can be integrated well into a busy daily routine.
The theoretical part is written comprehensibly and the instructions for the stretching exercises are clear and easy to “re-stretch”.
I think stretching is very important. Regular stretching helps you to be more flexible and thus to have a more relaxed life. By the way, you can find my detailed thoughts about stretching here.
The Stretching Bible is a very good book for stretching beginners. But for people with extensive yoga knowledge or stretching veterans – like me – the book does not really offer new insights.
Biblical thoughts
My four Bibles. At first glance, they don’t really match. But if you look closely, they do…
Basically, life is always about feeling good about yourself. Healthy, happy, satisfied. Just good. To achieve that, you often have to overcome yourself.
Now, the question of definition is what is “evil”. I love Death Metal, especially the melodic kind. In my wording you can already see that it cannot be evil. Because where love is, there it is good.
Running and stretching also fit wonderfully with the biblical quotation about overcoming evil with good. Running overcomes many health risks, such as high blood pressure or heart disease – all evil things no one wants to have. And stretching not only helps to improve performance, but also promotes mobility and the ability to regenerate. All good things with which one would gladly overcome the evil.
All a matter of definition
Finally, I would like to mention an anecdote that I read in a completely different book. The official Amorphis biography.
There it is told that the band celebrated Hellhammer’s bachelor party at the end of the tour through the USA in the year 2000. And now here it comes: the “bad guy”, who already played the double bass for Mayhem back then, even planned a church wedding, according to the story. So much for good and evil in the biblical sense.
Good & evil – a conclusion
So what is good and what is evil? Often the “bad” ones are not so bad and the “good” ones unfortunately not so good. And often it is only a matter of perspective what is good and what is bad.
That is why you should always question things critically and also look at them from different viewpoints.
And if you want to know more of my points of view – stay tuned! Amen.
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