The Brick Testament
is a project consisting of sections of The Bible illustrated with photos of LEGO figures reenacting them.
Apart from the obvious stylistic choice, the site is also notable for illustrating not only the well-known Bible stories, but emphasizing the less palatable sections that you will never have learned in the typical Sunday School, such as "The Iron Chariots".
Oh, and have we mentioned that the author is an atheist who likes to mock the very subject she is illustrating whenever she has the chance? She occasionally inserts her own humorous comments, such as ones that highlight obvious inconsistencies in the source material (for example: 1 2). But her main method of mocking the Bible is simply by remaining as true to the text as possible, not pulling any punches in portraying the sex and violence. The gruesomeness of the subject matter obviously contrasts with the medium of a cute and colorful children's toy. It also makes The Brick Testament highly unique among illustrated Bibles, most of which are so highly sanitized they are practically parodies themselves.
This webcomic provides examples of:note
- Adaptational Villainy: Invoked by the author herself regarding God. In the actual Bible, there are plenty of passages that prove that God Is Good All Along (e.g. Psalm 23, the Parable of the Prodigal Son, and the entire Book of Jonah). Here, the author includes none of these passages, as they would do nothing to benefit her misotheistic message.
- A Million Is a Statistic: Averted. During the story of Noah's Ark, she goes out of her way to remind us that yes, Noah's family and some animals lived on the boat, but everyone else on the planet dies. Every man, woman, and child drowns around them. When the rainbow of peace shines over a field of skeletons, it's almost comical.
- Anachronism Stew: Played for Laughs - Tubal is shown making all types of bronze and iron tools - including sextants, jackhammers, power drills, and power saws.
- Angry Eyebrows: Yahweh has them. So does Moses, which is consonant with the tradition of having Moses and God played by the same actor in adaptations of Exodus.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: In this page, the insults that the crowd throw at Samson are "Murderer!", "Arsonist!", and "That riddle sucked!"
- Author Tract: The message the author's trying to get across is that God Is Evil. How do you know? She conveniently forgot to do comics on either the Book of Jonah or "The Prodigal Son," both of which prove that God Is Good All Along.
- Built with LEGO: Everything except the backgrounds. The lack of Lego sets based on Bible stories has meant that the author has been forced to improvise, such as with custom-made versions of animals which don't (or perhaps didn't) exist in Lego form (
example). Jesus also happens to be Qui-Gon Jinn's original variant with a different hairpiece. - Calling the Old Man Out: Revelation has several scenes where the people call God an egotistical megalomaniac, which is actually in keeping with several verses from the book itself (even the Beasts get in on it).
- God Is Evil: The take on things. The stories tend to avoid allowing the people killed by Yahweh or the Jews to just be a passage in passing, with some verses broken up into several individual comics to emphasize the killings.
- One comic jokes that the reason the Jews decided to start worshipping Baal is that they really liked the idea of a god who wasn't constantly killing them.
- Insane Troll Logic: The teaching of Paul in the epistle for Romans is illustrated with this statement.God: Man, it takes a lot of patience to put up with all these people I made irrevocably evil only for the purpose of destroying them in order to make my wrath and power known. I really should be commended.
- Kubrick Stare: Jesus, especially, with an incredibly serious look on his face.
- Light Is Not Good: The angels have maniac evil faces (most notable in the Revelation section) despite their white clothes and butterfly wings, which makes Yahweh's evilness more obvious.
- Lighter and Softer: Oh so very much subverted. LEGO doesn't make everything cuter.
- MST: Some characters add in snarky comments during some scenes.
- Nightmare Fuel Coloring Book: The choice of medium makes the blood'n'gore (represented by heaps of translucent red tiles) and mass destruction that much more disturbing.
- Really 700 Years Old: Takes Joshua 6:25 literally and shows Rahab the prostitute living in a modern city.
- Setting Update: The Law and the teaching of Jesus are illustrated in modern setting.
