TV Shows And The BibleChikamu

Luke Cage: Bible Quotes Prominent in Marvel’s Hit Superhero Show

After the introduction of Netflix’s wildly popular Marvel series Daredevil and Jessica Jones, a third member of the comic book team known as The Defenders emerged onto the scene in 2016. Luke Cage (who was introduced in Jessica Jones) follows a wrongly convicted ex-cop who literally becomes bulletproof due to a sabotaged radical healing experiment in prison.

Based primarily in Harlem, Cage (Mike Colter) is reluctant to use his superhuman abilities, but is ultimately pulled into a fight against powerful criminals that threaten to tear apart the city. One of those criminals is Willis “Diamondback” Stryker (Erik LaRay Harvey) who controls the illicit weapons industry in Harlem and has an unquenchable desire to eliminate Cage from the scene.

At first, Stryker’s hatred for Cage makes little sense. The connection between the two men, however, is eventually revealed—Stryker and Cage are half brothers whose father was a pastor of a small church in Georgia. Because of his past, Stryker often quotes Bible verses even as a precursor to his most heinous crimes. In episode eight, for instance, he threatens to kill NYPD detective Misty Knight (Simone Missick) while dropping in an apropos New Testament passage.

“Your adversary, the devil, walks around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour,” Stryker taunts. “First Peter, chapter five, verse eight.”

In episode nine, Stryker then uses Proverbs 18:24 to explain why he doesn’t have many friends. “A man of too many friends comes to ruin, but there is a friend who comes closer than a brother,” he tells crime underling Hernan “Shades” Alvarez (Theo Rossi).

Much of the season’s second half revolved around the growing tension between Cage and Stryker and flashbacks that revealed why Stryker hated his half-brother so much. The storyline in many ways was similar to the Old Testament story of Cain and Abel (Genesis 4) where Cain became jealous of Abel after God rejected his sacrifice but accepted Abel’s. 

In episode 10, Cage tells his friend Claire Temple (Rosario Dawson), “I am my brother’s keeper,” (a nuanced reference to the conversation with God and Cain) and insists that he can find a way to peacefully end the feud. In episode 11, however, Stryker proves this won’t the case when he vows to do to Cage what Cain did to Abel.

On the other hand, Cage’s use of the Bible is less conflicted and connected to helping people, not destroying them. In episode four, the story flashes back to the day when he received his super powers and escapes from prison. While hiding in a hotel room with prison psychiatrist Reva Connors (Parisa Fitz-Henley), Cage (whose real name is Carl Lucas) contemplates the need to create a new identity for himself, which is ultimately inspired by Luke 4:18.

“My father’s a preacher,” he explains. “He used to say, ‘This Spirit of the Lord is on me because I have been anointed to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim for the prisoners, and recovery of sight for the blind to release the oppressed.”