God Is A Zombie?

Graphic by Katie Wallace

Written by Amanda Hermes. Media by Katie Wallace.

Graphic by Katie Wallace
Graphic by Katie Wallace

Most fairytales start with once upon a time, but this is not a fairytale.   This is decaying flesh, mindless drones, and cannibals. What we are dealing with here is Zombies. The word Zombie comes from the Haitian word “Zombi” which means “spirit of the dead.”  Zombie originated from Haitian folklore.

Photo from maps.com
Photo from maps.com

In the country of Haiti it was believe that you could become a zombie when you were so annoyed with the people you lived with, that you just had to get a way. There was an antidote to this “curse” of humanism. This antidote is called Coup-Padre. This antidote would cause your heart rate to slow and your breathing to become non-existence it would give you the appearance of death. You would be buried as if you truly died, but after everyone had left you would be resurrected by a Bokor, essentially the person who administered the antidote. You would become a mindless being. Your body would be intact, but you would have no memories and you would walk around like this, and remain under the power of the Bokor, until the death of your Bokor at which point you would be “free,” the living dead.

With the beginning of the 20th century the meaning and ideas of what a Zombie is has drastically changed, but did you know that Zombies go all the way back to the Bible? No, seriously they do In John 11:1-12:19 we see the story of a man named Lazarus, who was sick and died. Lazarus had two sisters who called for Jesus to come and heal him, but Jesus did not come right away. When Jesus arrived Lazarus had been dead and buried for three days. Yet Jesus called out to Him and told him to come out. Lazarus came out of the tomb and was very much alive and breathing like nothing had ever happened. Is this not the same as the Haitian folklore?

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Photo from fnne.ws

Today we have T.V. shows and movies that portray Zombies as this monster. They have flesh peeling off, they hunger for the living, if they bite you, and you turn into a Zombie. Zombidom is like an infectious disease, it’s basically leprosy on steroids. In Luke 5:12-16 is the story of a man with leprosy. Leprosy is a disease that you cannot be healed from. It starts with decaying flesh and eventually you lose whole limbs. You are separated from the ones you love, never to see them again. The only difference between Zombies and lepers is the hunger for the living. If you think about it being a leper was such a state uncleanliness that you really don’t make human contact, so you walk around aimlessly waiting to die. Zombies walk around without knowing what they are doing, they are waiting for their Bokor to die so they can be free to do what they want to do.

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Graphic by Katie Wallace

As Christians we can see God as our Bokor, except he will never die. If this is the case could we not call Jesus the original Zombie, for he was dead and buried for three days, like Lazarus, and was raised from death by God. Could we then say that we have been bitten from the Jesus bug, are we then Zombies for Christ? Instead of waiting for our Bokor to die, we are waiting for ourselves to die so that we can rejoin our God and live with Him for all eternity.

As you can see Zombies were not the terrifying creatures that we think of today. Zombies were originally the product of Christ’s miraculous signs, with the most amazing being Himself. We have changed something that was so innocent and pure into something hideous. The Haitians may think that Zombies originated from their voodoo, but they should look farther back into history, to see how God is the ultimate Zombie creator.

 

Work cited

“Zombies.” Zombies. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Nov. 2014.

The Holy Bible: New International Version, Containing the Old Testament and the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Bible, 1978. Print

 

1 COMMENT

  1. There are so many things wrong with this article. Firstly, if you are going to start with a lesson in etymology, then be sure to spell the word right. The original word in the Haitian Creole was Zonbi not Zombi.

    Secondly, the raising of Lazarus from the dead was not similar to the Haitian legend. Lazarus was dead. The Haitians, at least according to the account given in this article, were still alive, simply poisoned to seem dead. Lazarus’ return was a miracle performed by the Son of God. The Haitians were “bought back to life” by tricks and deceit. Lazarus also retained all of his memories, so I have yet to see any similarities.

    Thirdly, it is dehumanizing to say that the only difference between zombies and people suffering from leprosy is a hunger for human flesh. Lepors are still people, they are simply sick with an incurable disease. To say that someone is no better than the fictitious characters that are brutally murdered on screen without a second thought is both ridiculous and hurtful.

    And lastly, God is not our Bokor. He did not poison us against our will and bury us alive just to bring us “back to life” to command our every action. He created us in Hos image with the free will to choose whether or not to follow His commands.

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