The recent thread on Vampires gave me an interesting idea that I thought I'd share with yall.
The basic concept would have 2 races, one sins the other doesn't. The idea can kind of be traced to the verse in Hebrews that says, "without the shedding of blood, there can be no forgiveness." The idea is that the race that falls into sin becomes vampiric (to what extent is negotiable) in that they must feed regularly on the blood of the innocent in order to survive. Also, the sensitivity to light could be a nice symbolic element to bring in. Then, the Innocents would be a tan race, while Vampires would be a pale race that dresses in heavy clothing to avoid the sunlight. The more I think about it, the more I'm inclined to make the Feeding less of a daily need and more of like an annual supplement to their diet, that they need in order to survive. The two races could have a long history together, until one day one of the sinless race gives his life in someway for the vampires. Idea needs lots of fleshing out, and it's not so much something I'm planning on working on as it is a suggestion for someone else to pick up and run with.
Some intricacies could be a "chosen/religious" race of vampires that feed on the livestock of the Innocent or some such (yes, I know, it sounds like Twilight, but let me finish). This would be a way of working the people of Israel into the mix. Also, Innocents who marry Vampires become Vampire...or at least the kids would (dominant gene thing), as a way of portraying original sin.
Some things about the "savior"
1) Innocent who chose to somehow (magically?) be born as a Vampire.
2) Born to a Vampire from the Religious/Chosen group that feeds on livestock. Skin is different color than most Vampire's but still pale.
3) Displays unusual talents for a Vampire and people begin to follow him.
4) Angers the leaders of the Religious/Chosen and is punished by being made the victim of the annual feeding (not sure how that would work).
5) His sacrifice eliminates the curse, but not the craving for blood and many Vampires still pray on the Innocent and on the Turned Vampires.

So, what do ya think? I'm not one for allegory, and this is definitely an allegory. So somebody who's good at allegory, please adopt this poor lonely idea. It needs a home.

In Christ,
Jordan

Yeah, yeah, blame it all on me! I'll tell you what I think shortly. Now I have another post I need to plan, too: "Perfect Peoples on a Imperfect Planet: Possible?"

I'll gather my thoughts on vampires tomorrow.

What happens to the "chosen" people if they fall away, fail to believe in the "savior", or otherwise no longer believe?

Don't know. I was just throwing an idea out there for somebody to catch and play with. I really haven't put that much thought into it.

A picture of him. Though how accurate a picture is up in the air.

I like the allegory, but I shudder to think of Christ as a vampire. Or even a Christ-like figure. It just seems wrong to me. Perhaps that's my inner Dracula-reader coming out, but how could Christ live as a vampire and yet be sinless?

Remember that the vampiricism is a metaphor for the need for blood to cover sin, this is the same as the Jewish system of animal sacrifice, except more disturbing (in fact the "Jews" in this world are the animal-feeding Vampires). You do bring up a good point however, about making the savior a Vampire, allow me to explain why I did this. My thought was heading along the line of Christ's decent into humanity in order to be the perfect savior. Perhaps a better way to handle this would be to have the Savior be an Innocent (darker-skinned, not harmed by sunlight, and not needing to feed on blood) that is somehow miraculously born to a Vampire woman. Actually, I kinda like that. And since the Chosen Vampires feed on animal blood anyways, he would be safe from their attacks. In fact, I could take a spin on this and say that his dying for the Vampires could be when as punishment (for displeasing them), the leaders of the Chosen execute him by feeding on Him, which causes the Chosen to have the same hungers as other Vampires that animal blood cannot satisfy. And from the spot where the Savior was buried, a fountain of blood (like the hymn talks about ) could well up and all the Vampires who drink of the Fountain (or maybe...drown in it...interesting thought) are freed from the Vampiric effects of sin, and become LIKE (but not the same as) the Innocents.

Hmmmm...and here I said that I was done with the idea...oh well .

In Christ,
Jordan

hm...ok. So it doesn't sound like you're following the traditional idea of a vampire then. I have always thought of them as demon possessed corpses, and...well, enough said.

But from what you have described it sounds very interesting.