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Apocrypha Now
Mark Russell & Shannon Wheeler's faithful-yet-irreverent approach to the Bible made their book GOD IS DISAPPOINTED IN YOU a modern cult classic. Now, by popular demand, they turn their attention to the best parts left out of the canonical Bible, including the Midrash, the Apocrypha, Gnostic Gospels, and more! And if you thought the BIBLE had some weird stuff in it...
196 pages, Hardcover
First published May 31, 2016
30 people are currently reading
452 people want to read
About the author
Mark Russell
435 books385 followersMark Russell is the author of God Is Disappointed in You and Apocrypha Now. He also writes the comic book series Prez and The Flintstones for DC Comics. He lives and works in Portland, Oregon.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 56 reviews
April 25, 2018
This is the sequel to the incredibly fun God is Disappointed in You. While God is Disappointed in You was an abridged journey through the bible Apocrypha Now tackles the bits of religious text that got cut from the likes of the Midrash, the Apocrypha, Gnostic Gospels, and more!
As with the first book this is a hilariously told irreverent journey through the texts. Well worth reading as it is absolutely hilarious! The authors get humor and manage to make these crazy bible stories super engaging.
Rating: 4 stars.
Audio Note: Another fantastic performance from James Urbaniak. The guy gets the light tone of the story and the humor and is great with the voices.
As with the first book this is a hilariously told irreverent journey through the texts. Well worth reading as it is absolutely hilarious! The authors get humor and manage to make these crazy bible stories super engaging.
Rating: 4 stars.
Audio Note: Another fantastic performance from James Urbaniak. The guy gets the light tone of the story and the humor and is great with the voices.
March 2, 2023
In the sequel to God is Disappointed in You, Mark Russell takes on the Apocrypha plus the Gnostic Gospels. The jokes are just as funny as in the first book but I didn't enjoy this one as much. This is undoubtedly because I'm not as familiar with the subject matter, though I have read a book or two about the Gnostic Gospels in the past. Someone more familiar with the Apocrypha and/or the Gnostic Gospels would get more of a kick out of this.
December 9, 2019
These book of the bible were too funny for mainstream Christians, so only Jews, Episcopalians and some Catholics got to read them.
The audio book version was narrated by James Urbanism (Dr. Venture).
The audio book version was narrated by James Urbanism (Dr. Venture).
November 6, 2018
Not a bad book if you are open to non standard Bible teachings. Nicely read and interesting. Recommended
April 3, 2023
Very entertaining. If you think the bible is full of crazy stories, you definitely need to read what was left on the cutting room floor.
May 24, 2016
Oh man, I loved this book. Everything about it. Growing up with virtually no religion (technically I'm Jewish), I've always been fascinated with religious art (especially the 15th & 16th century Flemish stuff) and stories. As an outsider, the stories are often very strange and I find it hard to believe that some people read them literally rather than as moral teachings and fables.
Every so often, I try to read the Bible, but the language is so antiquated that I always loose steam and give up. "Apocrypha Now!" is a perfect solution in that it apparently sticks close to the actual material but presents it in a way that exaggerates and intensifies the humorous aspects or bizarreness of the original stories. Plus, it's got some great New Yorker style gag strips by Shannon Wheeler thrown in the mix.
I read this in chunks while putting my kids to bed and had to constantly stifle my laughter. I'm definitely going to track down their previous effort "God Is Disappointed In You".
Oh, I should also mention how great the presentation is: the book perfectly mimics religious publications complete with rounded page corners with gold gilded edges and a ribbon bookmark.
Every so often, I try to read the Bible, but the language is so antiquated that I always loose steam and give up. "Apocrypha Now!" is a perfect solution in that it apparently sticks close to the actual material but presents it in a way that exaggerates and intensifies the humorous aspects or bizarreness of the original stories. Plus, it's got some great New Yorker style gag strips by Shannon Wheeler thrown in the mix.
I read this in chunks while putting my kids to bed and had to constantly stifle my laughter. I'm definitely going to track down their previous effort "God Is Disappointed In You".
Oh, I should also mention how great the presentation is: the book perfectly mimics religious publications complete with rounded page corners with gold gilded edges and a ribbon bookmark.
April 14, 2019
I enjoyed the abridged and lightweight version of apocrypha texts. As I had the chance to read the transcriptions of some of the texts (e.g., Judas), I think the book manages to capture the main ideas of them well. The small jokes are pleasant, while not really interfering with the main text, and they really remind me of someone retelling me a classical story in his own words. I enjoyed very much the epilogue that contained historical context for late antiquity history of Jews and Christians. However, the comics that illustrated the book seemed to me often as just random and not connected to the story at all. This disconnect often interrupted the flow of the storytelling. Although as isolated comics they are nice, I found them to be too often disturbing in the book.
December 4, 2023
While I found Apocrypha Now to be a humorous retelling of various Apocrypha, I found the foul language unnecessary and offensive. Do we really need God to use f-word?
May 13, 2016
The folks over at Top Shelf Comix know what the comics-reading world wants. And that’s a witty retelling of the Apocryphal writings of the bible. You know these Apocrypha and Gnostic books? They were the stories of the bible that history for some reason deemed unworthy to include in the official cannon. They were considered redundant, or false, or their authorship doubted. Whatever the case may be, they’re interesting as hell.
If you want the full scholar approach to these books, then you’re better off with a book by Bart Ehrman who does a pretty stellar job in his books to discuss these writings. What Mark Russell and Shannon Wheeler have done here is take a different approach and since we’re dealing with bonkers kookoo stories to begin with, they decided to take a more witty and absurdist slant to these stories. Think of something like the Daily Show: they’re true to the stories, but the punchline is exaggerated.
Compiled in a double-column tiny text bible style, Apocrypha Now accomplishes what it set out to do and does it remarkably well. The writing is funny and faithful to the point where you don’t know where the original writings begin and Russell ends. Wheeler breaks the monotony with some great New Yorker style cartoons of the characters and the occasional more in-depth comics a la R. Crumb.
Apocrypha Now sticks to its guns with a talented team and delivers as a thoroughly enjoyable book.
If you want the full scholar approach to these books, then you’re better off with a book by Bart Ehrman who does a pretty stellar job in his books to discuss these writings. What Mark Russell and Shannon Wheeler have done here is take a different approach and since we’re dealing with bonkers kookoo stories to begin with, they decided to take a more witty and absurdist slant to these stories. Think of something like the Daily Show: they’re true to the stories, but the punchline is exaggerated.
Compiled in a double-column tiny text bible style, Apocrypha Now accomplishes what it set out to do and does it remarkably well. The writing is funny and faithful to the point where you don’t know where the original writings begin and Russell ends. Wheeler breaks the monotony with some great New Yorker style cartoons of the characters and the occasional more in-depth comics a la R. Crumb.
Apocrypha Now sticks to its guns with a talented team and delivers as a thoroughly enjoyable book.
September 23, 2016
Apocrypha Now is the sequel to Russell (writer) and Wheeler's (cartoonist) God is Disappointed In You, which is a synopsis/paraphrase of the Old and New Testaments. Apocrypha Now similarly treats the non-canonical texts and Apocrypha of the Jewish and Christian Faiths. Yes Russell and Wheeler take liberties to make jokes, but those jokes usually highlight paradoxes or the logical results of some of the activities, events, and stories summarized. I got my copy at San Diego Comic Con 2016 so I also got a lovely drawing of my son on the title page by Shannon Wheeler. I enjoyed reviewing the Apocrypha by this method. It reminded me why I adore the The Book of Tobit so much and inspired me to pull The Book of Tobit off the shelf and re-read it. My version of Apocrypha Now came in a pleasant dramatically red hard cover from Top Shelf Productions with a lovely purple ribbon bookmark attached to the spin, making it very easy to mark one's place while reading. If you want to refresh yourself in what is in the non-canonical writings and you do not want to read through them in translation, verse by verse, and you like humor and a little sarcasm thrown in, then this is the book for you.
January 9, 2017
Wow, this book is loads of fun. I wish they had gone over this book in Sunday school. I may not have hated having to go as much I did.
Apocrypha now is a humorous and fun look at some of the stories left out of the Christian and Jewish religious texts. It features stories that are either slightly different than what we were taught in school, or completely missing altogether from our upbringing.
I would buy tickets to see this made into a movie.
It touches on subjects such as Adam's first mate in the garden of Eden, the 7 Earths and 7 Heavens, David vs Goliath, the city of Sodom, jesus's youth, and Judas's betrayal (a la Snape) just to name a few.
Even as an atheist, such as myself, it is entertaining. I highly suggest reading it. I actually found myself wishing it was longer.
Apocrypha now is a humorous and fun look at some of the stories left out of the Christian and Jewish religious texts. It features stories that are either slightly different than what we were taught in school, or completely missing altogether from our upbringing.
I would buy tickets to see this made into a movie.
It touches on subjects such as Adam's first mate in the garden of Eden, the 7 Earths and 7 Heavens, David vs Goliath, the city of Sodom, jesus's youth, and Judas's betrayal (a la Snape) just to name a few.
Even as an atheist, such as myself, it is entertaining. I highly suggest reading it. I actually found myself wishing it was longer.
January 6, 2022
The author tries too hard to make things funny and relatable that the original stories are completely distorted. If the reader isn't already familiar with the stories, they are unable to distinguish which bits are just over exaggerations and which are complete fabrications for the sake of making a joke.
November 2, 2016
A funny, and fascinating read.
July 25, 2023
3.5 stars, rounded up to 4 stars.
This is the sequel to God Is Disappointed in You and is worthy of space on your book shelf right next to the original. In fact, I just saw that Amazon has a two book set for $80 used with a nice slipcase if you're looking for hardcover versions and have some cash to spare. This second book is made up of the deleted scenes and fan fiction that didn't make it into the final cut of what we know as the Bible today. Kind of like those Star Wars books that are no longer considered cannon. The book is made up of The Midrash, the Apocrypha, and the Gnostic Gospels.
I like that this book goes into more detail about Cain and Abel and the Tower of Babel that I thought was lacking in the first book. I was surprised at how prominent the role of the Devil is in this book. The stories are all fun and interesting, but I do think you'll get more or less out of these stories depending on how familiar you are with the corresponding parts in the Bible. Raised as a good Catholic boy, I am a kind of familiar with the New Testament, so I enjoyed the Gnostic Gospels that had Jesus as a boy turning kids into sheep and Peter in a wizard battle with Simon Magis. I wish there were more of the Gnostic Gospels as this section was kind of brief.
The cartoons by Shannon Wheeler are excellent and, like the first book, add a lot to the overall package. This book has a few multi-panel comics here, too. I'm pretty sure that the first book just had single-panel comics, not that either is superior.
I definitely recommend this if you were a fan of God Is Disappointed in You, though I would read that one first. In this brief journey, I have learned a lot about what the Bible actually says. I could probably read a whole book about all the Bible's different parts and how it came to be, though that's not what this book is trying to be.
This is the sequel to God Is Disappointed in You and is worthy of space on your book shelf right next to the original. In fact, I just saw that Amazon has a two book set for $80 used with a nice slipcase if you're looking for hardcover versions and have some cash to spare. This second book is made up of the deleted scenes and fan fiction that didn't make it into the final cut of what we know as the Bible today. Kind of like those Star Wars books that are no longer considered cannon. The book is made up of The Midrash, the Apocrypha, and the Gnostic Gospels.
I like that this book goes into more detail about Cain and Abel and the Tower of Babel that I thought was lacking in the first book. I was surprised at how prominent the role of the Devil is in this book. The stories are all fun and interesting, but I do think you'll get more or less out of these stories depending on how familiar you are with the corresponding parts in the Bible. Raised as a good Catholic boy, I am a kind of familiar with the New Testament, so I enjoyed the Gnostic Gospels that had Jesus as a boy turning kids into sheep and Peter in a wizard battle with Simon Magis. I wish there were more of the Gnostic Gospels as this section was kind of brief.
The cartoons by Shannon Wheeler are excellent and, like the first book, add a lot to the overall package. This book has a few multi-panel comics here, too. I'm pretty sure that the first book just had single-panel comics, not that either is superior.
I definitely recommend this if you were a fan of God Is Disappointed in You, though I would read that one first. In this brief journey, I have learned a lot about what the Bible actually says. I could probably read a whole book about all the Bible's different parts and how it came to be, though that's not what this book is trying to be.
July 20, 2017
Great commute entertainment! James Urbaniak's narration is ideal. He doesn't ham it up with too many character voices, but the few exceptions (such as his version of New Testament Satan) are fantastic. Despite most of the book being about apocryphal texts, it's accessible enough for people who aren't Biblical/Talmudic scholars. I didn't have many belly laughs, but I was totally content with consistent amusement (save for a couple brief passages Russell and Wheeler clearly have great reverence for, such as "The Thunder, Perfect Mind").
I love satire that's obviously written by someone with deep love for and grasp of the subject. There's something special about it - it's sharp and insightful without being needlessly mean-spirited. I have a degree in religious studies, and this reminded me a lot of how my classmates and I would joke about old texts (particularly in our Biblical Foundations class).
I love satire that's obviously written by someone with deep love for and grasp of the subject. There's something special about it - it's sharp and insightful without being needlessly mean-spirited. I have a degree in religious studies, and this reminded me a lot of how my classmates and I would joke about old texts (particularly in our Biblical Foundations class).
May 14, 2019
Apart from the hilariously drawn cartoons, which, by itself, wins this book at least 3 stars, the central purpose to this book would be basically boiled down to "How can we make Jesus and God accessible to the modern, smartphone addicted reader?" Mark Russell has devoted two books to his mission, 'Apocrypha Now' and 'God is Disappointed in You." It is refreshing to see a book that explores the apocryphal texts of the Gnostic Christians without dealing in claims to some higher truth. Instead, Russell brings these stories to us as they are: allegories with a truth claim about the nature of God." Using modern lexical dialogue as well as references to 21st century culture, Russell brings down the Bible from the heights of King James floridity into the modern age.
November 3, 2017
This book is laugh out loud funny. As a person who was brought up by a fundamentalist, bible study group, mother (who also read palms and communicated with spirits) and a cowboy father who thought God was more likely to be found on the prairie than in a church, I not only was familiar with the stories being rendered I appreciated the sardonic wit applied to them.
Covering stories from the Old Testament (some of my personal faves) and books that were left out of our modern day Bible, it brings those characters from history into a modern perspective. Entertaining and a quick read, I give it all possible stars.
Covering stories from the Old Testament (some of my personal faves) and books that were left out of our modern day Bible, it brings those characters from history into a modern perspective. Entertaining and a quick read, I give it all possible stars.
September 5, 2018
Early Christianity was weird. Any time I look around now and wonder how anybody could be so off-kilter, the apocrypha comes along and stands testimony to our timeless and indefatigable ability to derail our own thoughts. Especially when we cogitate with the best of intentions.
Pride is a silly thing. Russell steps aside here more than he did with the Bible, and allows the source material to befuddle on its own.
What is that Twain quote: “Truth is stranger than fiction, as fiction is bounded by what is comprehensible, where truth is not.” Something like that. Bingo.
Pride is a silly thing. Russell steps aside here more than he did with the Bible, and allows the source material to befuddle on its own.
What is that Twain quote: “Truth is stranger than fiction, as fiction is bounded by what is comprehensible, where truth is not.” Something like that. Bingo.
August 4, 2020
An interesting and fun take on non-canonical texts, this book covers the Midrash, Apocrypha, and Gnostic gospels with a tongue in cheek irreverence. As a Christian raised in the southern US, I was surprised to realize how many of the stories I had heard as a child were from these texts.
This is not a book to read for a scholarly take, but I enjoyed it for it's approachable wit.
This is not a book to read for a scholarly take, but I enjoyed it for it's approachable wit.
October 4, 2021
Overview of the Bible and Apocrypha+ that reads like it was written by Mel Brooks. Laughed myself silly! As a C and E Episcopalian married to a Lutheran I have a working knowledge of the stories and can easily understand where they're coming from.
James Urbaniak was the perfect choice to narrate this laugh riot!
James Urbaniak was the perfect choice to narrate this laugh riot!
December 20, 2020
I enjoyed this book just as much, if not more than I enjoyed God is Disappointed in you. I find the history of these texts that didn't make it into the Bible fascinating, especially since clearly a lot of these texts were referenced to in the actual Bible.
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July 12, 2022A boldly humorous retelling of the Non-Canonical books. Stories from the Midrash, the Apocrypha, and the Gnostic Gospels in an easy-to-understand and enjoyable way to learn about. Irreverent yet faithful.
November 1, 2022
Humorous speedy run through many stories from our scriptures. Hard to know what is real and what is embellished. If you are familiar with the stories, this take on them will bring a smile to you. If not, you will wonder a bit.
February 2, 2023
Never disappointed when reading these comedic renderings of scripture. The Apocrypha are given a condensed and humorous rendition that gives a decent preview or a funny refresher. Definitely read God is Disappointed in You first.
June 17, 2017
I gave up in the first 2 hours. This book reminded me of the various reasons why I don't get news from late night comedy TV shows.
October 23, 2017
Not as good as “God Is Disappointed In You”, but still very enjoyable.
December 8, 2017
Apocrypha Now fills in the blanks through the apocryphal books of the Bible (i.e., Midrash, Deuterocanonical books). It is not as compelling as its companion book, but has its moments.
January 2, 2018
Funny...but not as funny as the first book "God is dissapointed in you".
April 28, 2018
Not as good as the one before it, but still pretty funny.
May 21, 2018
Excellent and hilarious and insightful.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 56 reviews