Bible Fiction

Bible fiction refers to works of fiction that use characters, settings and events taken from the Bible, written by authors of varying faiths and with varying degrees of fictional license. Early Bible novels were consistent with belief in the historical truth of the Bible's narrative, including its miracles and God's explicit presence, and some of these early works, such as Lew Wallace's 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, became hugely influential and among the best-selling American novels of the nineteenth century. In more recent times, authors have written heterodox Bible novels drawing on modern, postmodern or realist approaches, at times stripping away miraculous or explicitly divine elements to retell Biblical narratives in a more historical or psychological register.