Bible for Zoquetes: when the Bible looks at you and says «you didn't think of this».»

Reading the Bible can be an awe-inspiring, enlightening... or downright intimidating experience. María Vallejo-Nágera does not intend to solve this dilemma with an academic treatise or a pious manual. Her proposal is something else: to provoke curiosity, to unsettle the reader and, if all goes well, to leave him or her wanting to go straight to the biblical text. Thus is born Bible for Zoquetes 2, the second installment of a series that is as unconventional as it is deliberately personal.

A series that is not at all neutral (and proud to be so).

In the last two years, Vallejo-Nágera has published the first two volumes of this series designed to teach people about the Bible and encourage them to read it, not to explain it exhaustively. This is not a typical popular essay, nor is it a catechism in disguise. Bible for Zoquetes is a narrative bet, with a very recognizable voice: casual, feminine, sharp, provocative and entertaining.

The author writes from a specific place: after two years of biblical study at Harvard and Comillas Pontifical University, and after teaching courses on biblical popularization, she decides to put in writing a part of what she has learned. The result does not aspire to completeness, but to impact.

Vallejo-Nágera explains that her path as a biblical communicator began almost spontaneously, when she was “so fascinated by the Bible” that she couldn't stop talking about it. “I devoured it,” she recalls, and she told all her friends about it until she thought: “this can't be”. So she decided to set up “a tiny little school”, with no academic or institutional pretensions, designed solely “for a small group of friends”. They were all Catholics, but, as she humorously acknowledges, “they didn't have a clue”, so she looked for an unexpected hook: art. “Since they love art, I began to explain the Bible to them in front of the paintings in the Prado”. Thus was born the «Escuelita Virgen de Guadalupe», a project that began informally and that, “nine years ago now”, became the germ of a different and very personal way of bringing the Bible to new readers.

Few core ideas and many surprises

And what do we find in the pages of the «Bible for Dummies 2»? A handful of key ideas and a shower of interesting curiosities. The goal is to surprise the reader: to discover details he had never noticed before and a veritable gallery of secondary characters with stories of all kinds - disturbing, funny, noble, miserable - that populate the biblical text and usually go unnoticed.

The author's eye for asking uncomfortable or unexpected questions is simply brilliant. Vallejo-Nágera looks right where many read too long... and wonders: Why does it happen this way? What is behind it?

If you connect with the style, you have a great time.

This point is key and should be stated bluntly: this book is not for everyone. And that's okay. Vallejo-Nágera's narrative style is very marked. If you connect with it, you will enjoy it a lot. If you don't, you'll put the book down after a few pages, but it's definitely worth giving it a chance and experiencing it firsthand.

There is no middle ground. It's like that brilliant friend who makes jokes all the time: either you laugh with him or you'd rather sit at another table. In my case, I enjoyed the book immensely, although I didn't connect with the graphic jokes the author intersperses in the narrative. But the whole thing works. And it works very well.

Stories that whet the biblical appetite

Bible for Zoquetes 2 is not intended to replace the reading of Scripture, but to whet the appetite. It already does so, for example, when it approaches the Jewish tradition of Lilith, The author's work is also interesting when he dwells on figures scarcely mentioned in the biblical text, but fundamental for its comprehension.

In several scenes, the author completes the biblical context with references to the particular revelations of Blessed Catherine Emmerich, which often shed surprising light on difficult passages. Particularly illuminating is her contribution to understanding the famous episode of the struggle between Jacob and God, a text as fascinating as it is puzzling.

Or when he presents Melchizedek, a character who appears in just one line of the Bible and yet is a key figure in the Jewish and Christian priestly tradition. Vallejo-Nágera explains why his figure is so relevant, «to the point where the Church ordains priests as «priest forever according to the rite of Melchizedek».

The recourse to Emmerich, used freely and without complexes, reinforces the personal character of the book: Vallejo-Nágera does not hide from where he looks or what traditions help him to read.

In this second volume, Vallejo-Nágera recognizes that she has “spilled her guts” with one of those “tiny” characters that appear in the Bible and before which the attentive reader is forced to stop in his tracks: «Wait, wait, wait... what did the text just say about this poor girl? It is about Dinah, »the little sister of the twelve tribes“, an almost forgotten figure whose story - marked by violence and silence - often goes unnoticed.

From “the small verses that speak of her, which are very few”, the author decided to “dig deep” to investigate what the Talmud said, to consult articles recommended by her professors and to reconstruct a story that she describes as “fascinating”. The result is a very complete chapter that restores Dinah's place in biblical history. The surprise came later, when Vallejo-Nágera discovered that Catalina Emmerich also mentioned her: “I was totally amazed,” she confesses, confirming that even the margins of the sacred text hide stories that ask to be read with different eyes.

Understanding the human heart without anachronisms

One of the book's greatest strengths is its ability to explore human nature as it appears in the Bible. Jealousy, revenge or resentment are familiar to us; not so much personal and family honor, a decisive category in the biblical world and deeply transformed in contemporary culture.

Far from projecting current sensibilities on ancient texts, this work does just the opposite: it strives to understand the characters in their context, without sweetening them or judging them from modern parameters. In that sense, the treatment of the human heart, especially that of women and their historical situation, is worked with intelligence and sensitivity.

Bible for Zoquetes 2 does not pretend to please everyone. It aims to provoke, to awaken questions and to restore to the Bible something that is sometimes lost: the capacity for wonder. If the reader enters the game, the journey is well worth it. And, hopefully, you will end up where the author wants to take you from the beginning: opening the Bible on your own.