When doing "The Bible in Narnia" stuff, I left
The Magician's Nephew til last, and am finally done. This book, though written halfway through the series, is actually the prequel to
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. In it, we see Aslan creating Narnia, evil entering Narnia, etc. It's a book chock full of biblical parallels! I did some of the sections that I enjoyed reading the most, but there's so much more that could have been paralleled.
A sort of exciting thing about this book is that it's currently being looked at to be made into the next Narnia movie of the series! It's between this and
The Silver Chair, but it looks like
The Magician's Nephew is the lead choice. It'll be so cool to see how they do some of this stuff on film. I just hope they continue to keep the biblical parallels as obvious as they did in the others.
Anyway, so now the very last of "The Bible in Narnia" ~
The Magician's Nephew:
“Oughtn’t we to be nearly there now?”
“We do seem to be somewhere,” said Digory. “At least I’m standing on something solid.”
“Why, so am I, now that I come to think of it,” said Polly. “But why’s it so dark? I say, do you think we got into the wrong Pool?”
“Perhaps this is Charn,” said Digory. “Only we’ve got back in the middle of the night.”
“This is not Charn,” came the Witch’s voice. “This is an empty world. This is Nothing.”
And really it was uncommonly like Nothing. There were no stars. It was so dark that they couldn’t see one another at all and it made no difference whether you kept your eyes shut or opened. Under their feet there was a cool, flat something which might have been earth, and was certainly not grass or wood. The air was cold and dry and there was no wind.
... In the darkness something was happening at last. A voice had begun to sing. It was very far away and Digory found it hard to decide from what direction it was coming. Sometimes it seemed to come from all directions at once. Sometimes he almost thought it was coming out of the earth beneath them. Its lower notes were deep enough to be the voice of the earth herself. There were no words. There was hardly even a tune. But it was beyond comparison, the most beautiful noise he had ever heard. It was so beautiful he could hardly bear it... Then two wonders happened at the same moment. One was that the voice was suddenly joined by other voices; more voices than you could possibly count. They were in harmony with it, but far higher up the scale: cold, tingling, silvery voices. The second wonder was that the blackness overhead, all at once, was blazing with stars. They didn’t come out gently one by one, as they do on a summer evening. One moment there had been nothing but darkness; next moment a thousand, thousand points of light leaped out—single stars, constellations, and planets, brighter and bigger than any in our world.
...And now something else was happening. Far away, and down near the horizon, the sky began to turn gray. A light wind, very fresh, began to stir. The sky in that one place, grew slowly and steadily paler. You could see shapes of hills standing up dark against it. All the time the Voice went on singing.
... The eastern sky changed from white to pink and from pink to gold. The Voice rose and rose, till all the air was shaking with it. And just as it swelled to the mightiest and most glorious sound it had yet produced, the sun arose. ... Southward there were mountains, northward there were lower hills. But it was a valley of mere earth, rock and water; there was not a tree, not a bush, not a blade of grass to be seen. The earth was of many colours; they were fresh, hot and vivid. They made you feel excited; until you saw the Singer himself, and then you forgot everything else.
It was a Lion. Huge, shaggy, and bright, it stood facing the rising sun...
... Can you imagine a stretch of grassy land bubbling like water in a pot? For that is really the best description of what was happening. In all directions it was swelling into humps. They were of very different sizes, some no bigger than molehills, some as big as wheelbarrows, two the size of cottages. And the humps moved and swelled until they burst, and the crumbled earth poured out of them, and from each hump there came out an animal... Showers of birds came out of the trees. Butterflies fluttered. Bees got to work on the flowers as if they hadn’t a second to lose... And now you could hardly hear the song of the Lion; there was so much cawing, cooing, crowing, braying, neighing, baying, barking, lowing, bleating, and trumpeting. But though Digory could no longer hear the Lion, he could see it. It was so big and bright that he could not take his eyes off it.
(Genesis 1:2a; Genesis 1: 3-4; Genesis 1:14-18; Genesis 1: 20-21; Genesis 1: 24-25; Genesis 2:1; Genesis 2: 5-6)
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There was soon light enough for them to see one another’s faces. The Cabby and the two children had open mouths and shining eyes; they were drinking in the sound, and they looked as if it reminded them of something. Uncle Andrew’s mouth was open too, but not open with joy. He looked more as if his chin had simply dropped away from the rest of his face. His shoulders were stooped and his knees shook. He was not liking the Voice. If he could have got away from it by creeping into a rat’s hole, he would have done so. But the Witch looked as if, in a way, she understood the music better than any of them. Her mouth was shut, her lips were pressed together, and her fists were clenched. Ever since the song began she had felt that this whole world was filled with a Magic different from hers and stronger. She hated it. She would have smashed that whole world, or all worlds, into pieces, if it would only stop the singing.
... When you listened to his song you heard the things he was making up: when you looked round you, you saw them. This was so exciting that [Polly] had no time to be afraid. But Digory and the Cabby could not help feeling a bit nervous as each turn of the Lion’s walk brought him nearer. As for Uncle Andrew, his teeth were chattering, but his knees were shaking so that he could not run away.
(Joshua 2:11; Job 4:14; James 2:19; Luke 23:30; Isaiah 14:13-15)
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For what you see and hear depends a good deal on where you are standing: it also depends on what sort of person you are.
Ever since the animals had first appeared, Uncle Andrew had been shrinking further and further back into the thicket. He watched them very hard of course; but he wasn’t really interested in seeing what they were doing, only in seeing whether they were going to make a rush at him... He simply didn’t notice that Aslan was choosing one pair out of every kind of beasts. All he saw, or thought he saw, was a lot of dangerous wild animals walking vaguely about.
When the great moment came and the Beasts spoke, he missed the whole point; for a rather interesting reason. When the Lion had first begun singing, long ago when it was still quite dark, he had realized that they noise was a song. And he had disliked the song very much. It made him think and feel things he did not want to think and feel. Then, when the sun rose and he saw that they singer was a lion (“only a lion,” as he said to himself) he tried his hardest to make believe that it wasn’t singing and never had been singing—only roaring as any lion might do in a zoo in our own world. ... And the longer and more beautiful the Lion sang, the harder Uncle Andrew tried to make himself believe that he could hear nothing but roaring. ... He soon did hear nothing but roaring in Aslan’s song. Soon he couldn’t have heard anything else even if he had wanted to. And when at last the Lion spoke and said, “Narnia awake,” he didn’t hear any words: he heard only a snarl. And when the Beasts spoke in answer, he heard only barkings, growlings, bayings, and howlings. And when they laughed—well, you can imagine. That was the worse for Uncle Andrew than anything that had happened yet. Such a horrid, bloodthirsty din of hungry and angry brutes he had never heard in his life.
... “He [uncle Andrew] thinks great folly, child,” said Aslan. “This world is bursting with life for these few days because the song with which I called it into life still hangs in the air and rumbles in the ground. It will not be so for long. But I cannot tell that to this old sinner, and I cannot comfort him either; he has made himself unable to hear my voice. If I spoke to him, he would hear only growlings and roarings.”
(Isaiah 59:2; Jeremiah 5:21; Ezekiel 12:2; Matthew 13:13; John 8:47; Romans 11:8; Psalm 81:12; 2 Thessalonians 2:11)
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...Digory slipped off the horse and found himself face to face with Aslan. And Aslan was bigger and more beautiful and more brightly golden and more terrible than he had thought. He dared not look into the great eyes.
... “This is the Boy,” said Aslan, looking, not at Digory, but at his councillors. “This is the Boy who did it.”
“Oh dear,” thought Digory, “what have I done now?”
“Son of Adam,” said the Lion. “There is an evil Witch abroad in my new land of Narnia. Tell these good Beasts how she came here.”
A dozen different things that he might say flashed through Digory’s mind, but he had the sense to say nothing except the exact truth.
“I brought her, Aslan,” he answered in a low voice.
“For what purpose?”
“I wanted to get her out of my own world back into her own. I thought I was taking her back to her own place.”
“How came she to be in your world, Son of Adam?”
“By—by Magic.”
The Lion said nothing and Digory knew that he had not told enough.
“It was my Uncle, Aslan,” he said. “He sent us out of our own world by magic rings, at least I had to go because he sent Polly first, and then we met the Witch in a place called Charn and she just held on to us when—“
“You met the Witch?” said Aslan in a low voice which had the threat of a growl in it.
“She woke up,” said Digory wretchedly. And then, turning very white, “I mean, I woke her. Because I wanted to know what would happen if I struck a bell. Polly didn’t want to. It wasn’t her fault. I—I fought her. I know I shouldn’t have. I think I was a bit enchanted by the writing under the bell.”
“Do you?” asked Aslan; still speaking very low and deep.
“No,” said Digory. “I see now I wasn’t. I was only pretending.”
... “You see, friends, [Aslan] said, “that before the new, clean world I gave you is seven hours old, a force of evil has already entered it; waked and brought higher by this son of Adam.” The Beasts, even Strawberry, all turned their eyes on Digory till he felt that he wished the ground would swallow him up. “But do not be cast down,” said Aslan, still speaking to the Beasts. “Evil will come of that evil, but it is still a long way off, and I will see to it that the worst falls upon myself.”
(Romans 5:12; Romans 5:14; Romans 5:16-19; 1 Corinthians 15:22)
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“Son,” said Aslan to the Cabby, “I have known you long. Do you know me?”
“Well, no, sir,” said the Cabby. “Leastways, not in an ordinary manner of speaking. Yet I feel somehow, if I may make so free, as ‘ow we’ve met before.”
“It is well,” said the Lion. “You know better than you think you know, and you shall live to know me better yet.”
... Aslan threw up his shaggy head, opened his mouth, and uttered a long, single note; not very loud, but full of power. Polly’s heart jumped in her body when she heard it. She felt sure that it was a call, and that anyone who heard that call would want to obey it and (what’s more) would be able to obey it, however many worlds and ages lay between. ...
... “My children,” said Aslan, fixing his eyes on both of them, “you are to be the first King and Queen of Narnia.”
The Cabby opened his mouth in astonishment, and his wife turned very red.
“You shall rule and name all these creatures, and do justice among them, and protect them from their enemies when enemies arise.”
... “Well,” said Aslan, “can you use a spade and a plow and raise food out of the earth?”
“Yes, sir, I could do a bit of that sort of work: being brought up to it, like.”
“Can you rule these creatures kindly and fairly, remembering that they are not slaves like the dumb beasts of the world you were born in, but Talking Beasts and free subject?”
“I see that, sir,” replied the Cabby. “I’d try to do the square thing by them all.”
“And would you bring up your children and grandchildren to do the same?”
“It’d be up to me to try, sir. I’d do my best...”
(Genesis 1:28-30; Genesis 9:2)
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“But please, please—won’t you—can’t you give me something that will cure Mother?” Up till then [Digory] had been looking at the Lion’s great feet and the huge claws on them; now, in his despair, he looked up at its face. What he saw surprised him as much as anything in his whole life. For the tawny face was bent down near his own and (wonder of wonders) great shining tears stood in the Lion’s eyes. They were such big, bright tears compared with Digory’s own that for a moment he felt as if the Lion must really be sorrier about his Mother than he was himself.
“My son, my son,” said Aslan. “I know. Grief is great. Only you and I in this land know that yet.”
(Psalm 22:24; Isaiah 53:3; Isaiah 53:4; 2 Kings 20:5; John 11:35)
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“I’m sure Aslan would have, if you’d asked him,” said Fledge.
“Wouldn’t he know without being asked?” said Polly.
“I’ve no doubt he would,” said the Horse. “But I’ve a sort of idea he likes to be asked.”
(Matthew 6:8b; Matthew 7:7; Philippians 4:6)
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When the travelers reached the top, they walked nearly all the way round it outside the green wall before they found the gates: high gates of gold, fast shut, facing due east.
... When he had come close up to them he saw words written on the gold with silver letters; something like this:
Come in by the gold gates nor not at all,
Take of my fruit for others or forbear,
For those who steal or those who climb my wall
Shall find their heart’s desire and find despair.
“Take of my fruit for others,” said Digory to himself. “Well, that’s what I’m going to do. It means I mustn’t eat any myself, I suppose...”
... He knew which was the right tree at once, partly because it stood in the very center and partly because the great silver apples with which it was loaded shone so and cast a light of their own down on the shadowy places where the sunlight did not reach. He walked straight across to it, picked an apple, and put it in the breast pocket of his Norfolk jacket. But he couldn’t help looking at it and smelling it before he put it away.
It would have been better if he had not. A terrible thirst and hunger came over him and a longing to taste that fruit. He put it hastily into his pocket; but there were plenty of others. Could it be wrong to taste one? After all, he thought, the notice on the gave might not have been exactly an order; it might have been only a piece of advice—and who cares about advice? Or even if it was an order, would he be disobeying it by eating an apple? He had already obeyed the part about taking one “for others.”
While he was thinking all of this he happened to look up through the branches toward the top of the tree. There, on a branch above his head, a wonderful bird was roosting... The tiniest slit of one eye was open... “And it just shows,” said Digory afterward when he was telling the story to the others, “that you can’t be too careful in these magical places. You never know what may be watching you.”
...Digory was just turning to go back to the gates when he stopped to have one last look round. He got a terrible shock. He was not alone. There, only a few yards away from him, stood the Witch. She was just throwing away the core of an apple which she had eaten. The juice was darker than you would expect and had made a horrid stain round her mouth. Digory guessed at once that she must have climbed in over the wall. And he began to see that there might be some sense in that last line about getting your heart’s desire and getting despair along with it. For the Witch looked stronger and prouder than ever, and even, in a way, triumphant; but her face was deadly white, white as salt.
... “Foolish boy,” said the Witch. “Why do you run from me? I mean you no harm. If you do not stop and listen to me now, you will miss some knowledge that would have made you happy all your life.”
“Well I don’t want to hear it, thanks,” said Digory. But he did.
“I know what errand you have come on,” continued the Witch. “For it was I who was close beside you in the woods last night and heard all your counsels. You have plucked fruit in the garden yonder. You have it in your pocket now. And you are going to carry it back, untasted, to the Lion; for him to eat, for him to use. You simpleton! Do you know what that fruit is? I will tell you. It is the apple of youth, the apple of life. I know, for I have tasted it; and I feel already such changes in myself that I know I shall never grow old or die. Eat it, Boy, eat it; and you and I will both live forever and be king and queen of this whole world—or of your world, if we decide to go back there.” ...
“Do you not see, Fool, that one bite of that apple would heal [your mother]? You have it in your pocket. We are here by ourselves and the Lion is far away. Use your Magic and go back to your own world. A minute later you can be at your Mother’s bedside, giving her the fruit. Five minutes later you will see the colour coming back to her face...”
... “What has the Lion ever done for you that you should be his slave?” said the Witch. “What can he do to you once you are back in your own world? And what would your Mother think if she knew that you could have taken her pain away and given her back her life and saved your Father’s heart from being broken, and that you wouldn’t—that you’re rather run messages for a wild animal in a strange world that is no business of yours?”
(Genesis 2: 8-9; Genesis 2: 16-17; Genesis 3:1-5; James 1:14; Luke 22:40; 1 Corinthians 10:13)
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... “That is what happens to those who pluck and eat fruits at the wrong time and in the wrong way. The fruit is good, but they loathe it ever after.”
“Oh I see,” said Polly. “And I suppose because she took it in the wrong way it won’t work for her. I mean it won’t make her always young and all that?”
“Alas,” said Aslan, shaking his head. “It will. Things always work according to their nature. She has won her heart’s desire; she has unwearying strength and endless days like a goddess. But length of days with an evil heart is only length of misery and already she begins to know it. All get what they want; they do not always like it.”
“I—I nearly ate one myself, Aslan,” said Digory. “Would I—“
“You would, child,” said Aslan. “For the fruit always works—it must work—but it does not work happily for any who pluck it at their own will.” ... “the Witch tempted you to do another thing, my son, did she not?”
“Yes, Aslan. She wanted me to take an apple home to Mother.”
“Understand, then, that it would have healed her; but not to your joy or hers...”
... “That is what would have happened, child, with a stolen apple. It is not what will happen now. What I give you now will bring joy. It will not, in your world, give endless life, but it will heal. Go. Pluck her an apple from the Tree.”
(Proverbs 14:12; Proverbs 21:2; Proverbs 12:15; Proverbs 28:26)
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Scripture Verses:
Genesis 1:2a - Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep.
Genesis 1: 3-4 - And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.
Genesis 1:14-18 - And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness.
Genesis 1: 20-21 - And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind.
Genesis 1: 24-25 - And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds.
Genesis 2:1 - Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.
Genesis 2: 5-6 - Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground, but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground.
Joshua 2:11 – When we heard of it, our hearts melted in fear and everyone’s courage failed because of you, for the LORD your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below.
Job 4:14 – Fear and trembling seized me and made all my bones shake.
Luke 23:30 – Then “‘they will say to the mountains, “Fall on us!” and to the hills, “Cover us!”’
James 2:19 – Even the demons believe that—and shudder.
Isaiah 14:13-15 – You said in your heart, “I will ascend to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.” But you are brought down to the realm of the dead, to the depths of the pit.
Isaiah 59:2 - But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.
Jeremiah 5:21 - Hear this, you foolish and senseless people, who have eyes but do not see, who have ears but do not hear.
Ezekiel 12:2 - They have eyes to see but do not see and ears to hear but do not hear, for they are a rebellious people.
Matthew 13:13 - This is why I speak to them in parables: “Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.
John 8:47 - Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.
Romans 11:8 - “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that could not see and ears that could not hear, to this very day.”
Psalm 81:12 – So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts, to follow their own counsels.
2 Thessalonians 2:11 – Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false.
Romans 5:12 – Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin
Romans 5:14 – Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come.
Romans 5:16-19 – Nor can the gift of God be compared with the result of one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification. For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ! Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.
1 Corinthians 15:22 – For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.
Genesis 1:28-30 - God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.
Genesis 9:2 – The fear and dread of you will fall on all the beasts of the earth, and on all the birds in the sky, on every creature that moves along the ground, and on all the fish in the sea; they are given into your hands.
Psalm 22:24 – For he has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help.
Isaiah 53:3 – He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Isaiah 53:4 – Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering.
2 Kings 20:5 – This is what the LORD, the God of your father David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears.
John 11:35 – Jesus wept.
Matthew 6:8b – Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
Matthew 7:7 – Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
Philippians 4:6 – In every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
Genesis 2: 8-9 - Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. The LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Genesis 2: 16-17 - “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”
Genesis 3:1-5 - Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
James 1:14 – But each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed.
Luke 22:40 – And when he came to the place, he said to them, "Pray that you may not enter into temptation."
1 Corinthians 10:13 – No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.
Proverbs 14:12 - There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.
Proverbs 21:2 - A person may think their own ways are right, but the LORD weighs the heart.
Proverbs 12:15 – The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice.
Proverbs 28:26 – Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered.
