Monday 16 January 2012

The Devil's Own Bible

There is such a thing, the Codex Gigas. Supposedly crafted by a monk after he made a deal with the devil. More recently, the subject of a National Geographic documentary.

First off, I like how modern technology has brought these amazingly crafted documents into the era of world-wide accessibility. You want to view the thing? Go do so!

Anyway, investigation was about who created such a thing? If one person, it would be the work of most of a lifetime. If a group, they had remarkable consistency.

One page in particular is of interest to most, that of a large scale picture of Satan. There is a dark shadow on the page... mark of evil possession? Evidence from being nearly destroyed in the fire in the 17th century? But why only that page and the one opposite? The document makes you wait a few minutes, building up the suspension of... suspension, before revealing the answer that occured to me after only a few seconds thought: most people would find the image fascinating and have the book open to that page, leading to light damage and explaining the dark shadows. Boom, human psychology!

Moreover, that basically explains the entire book. Spoiler: they do decide it is the work of one person and it took decades, and suppose it is one monk in a monestary sealing himself away to work on this with a passion. There's a more simple answer (which includes that one), one crank did this. Cranks do a lot of things, with a passion that drives them to create large works that look epic for the times. [The only difference for most is that they produce stuff accepted by the times.]

Nowadays, it's even easier to produce works. Check out Crank.Net. People do lots of things in for they believe in. This bible is just one more example.

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