Also, maybe Eli was only carrying one volume of the Bible, because it was what he was able to grab when he had to bug out at some point? Why keep it if he has it memorized? Because someone who bothers to memorize the Bible is probably loathe to just leave behind part of it if he is able to carry it, especially if it might have some other sentimental value.
Also, it’s possible that it was the last copy of the Bible in the area If they’re somewhere in Nevada, it doesn’t help them much if there are millions of copies in New Jersey. Maybe things got bad enough that most of the books (bibles included) got burnt for warmth, or part of some local revolt of some sort? Crazy things happen. Of course, the lack of explanation of what any of these things might be could make the movie frustrating too.
Holy crap, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who knew what the Foxfire books were before. My Mom had all of them, and we used to be fascinated by them as kids. Excellent resources for all manner of frontier skills, as you noted, as well as how to make a baby doll out of a cucumber. Or was it a potato?
The movie takes place thirty years after the apocalypse. There are still plenty of people old enough to remember the days before the flash, as they call it, who would still have knowledge of the real bible and its stories, as Little Nemo guessed; and of course some of them would also be telling the next generation what they remember.
He says why. Basically he’s just not that eloquent.
And they tell you why there aren’t any Bibles. Because after the war, which was stated as having religeous overtones, the survivors burned all the ones they could find.
The reason the Bible was important was not because it was a “how to” book for surviving the wasteland. People knew how to do that. The war was 30 years before the setting of the story. It was important for the same reason the Catholic Church grew in prominance after the fall of the Roman Empire. Because it’s teachings could be used to inspire people and create social cohesion.
The Bible doesn’t have anything to actually teach about morality either. Nothing consistent anyway. It’s a compendium of a lot of ancient books with different agendas, conflicting messages and no straight line moral code. The goddamn Bible would be as useless as tits on a bull moose in that situation. It’s such a trite choice too.
Plus morality isn’t taught by books anyway. It’s hardwired into human biology. People put morality into books. Books don’t put morality into people.
I don’t know that any single book could be “the most important,” but any kind of basic medical ttextbook would have a chance to be useful. So would basic science, math or history texts. Religious texts would be useful only in providing paper to wipe with.
You wouldn’t have to duplicate the Bible, you would just have to write any old self-serving “inspired” crap you want, and say it was from God. That’s how the Bible came about in the first place, after all.
Did you ever notice how the human species managed to survive cholera and every other fatal disease that ever plagued us?
Some individuals didn’t, of course, but people in general, obviously, did.
Cholera is easily survivable, even with no medicine at all, by the way. The cure is: [spoiler]Water, and plenty of it.
Cholera kills by dehydration. Drink plenty of water, and you will survive.
The trick is finding clean water.[/spoiler]
I agree with your point about the movie being based on a stupid (and easily guessed) idea, but the idea that “everyone” would die of disease in any society is just as flawed.
The fact it was written by Gary Whitta, former editor of PC Gamer magazine (and a keen computer gamer) means that probably wasn’t unintentional.
And The Wasteland Survival Guide is only going to be as useful as the guy who did the research felt like taking it seriously; you’d better hope he wasn’t being a smartass to Moira when she was writing it.
I think the usefulness of that particular tome depends on how many Pan Galactic Gargle-Blasters its contributors and editors had imbibed when they uploaded the articles.
I wasn’t talking about humanity, I was talking about (within the film) Gary Oldman’s potential followers. I don’t see any indication they’re a particularly clever bunch.
Oldman’s character, it is implied, is dying of sepsis from a gunshot wound to the leg.
So I daresay some form of realistic survival guide would be useful. I don’t even recall if Oldman’s group had set up primitive agriculture or irrigation. If anything, studying a bible would significantly slow their recovery, and one bad epidemic (such as were commonplace before modern sanitation and I’ll assume will return after modern sanitation ceases to exist) will decimate them.
Have you ever flipped through The Secret? She even fricking “wrote” (and I use that term extremely loosely) a sequel called *The Power *which is almost as popular.
People will eat up all sorts of tripe if it’s hyped enough.
On the topic, I’d cheat - I’d find a generator and drag it to a library, and reduce-copy sections from:
the Foxfire series,
some disaster-preparedness or military survival book on bare-bones survival,
info on emergency medicine (something like Emergency Medicine Manual),
Basic Health/Sanitation guidelines (why as well as how, on the hope that we don’t forget about germs),
Engineering (specifically various building techniques as well as combustion and steam engines)
and Agriculture (crops and techniques which are useful in my area).
I’d find relevant sections and make copies (and in a big library laminate them as well) as long as the generator holds out.
