Jorge Luis Borges’s classical short story “The Book of Sand” is a timeless piece of literature which illustrates the difficult choices a man must make on the course of his life. The story tells a tale of a man who is consumed by a book, and how the book drastically changes his life. The lessons learned by the main character are applicable to any persons life, but they can also be compared to the Bible and the major themes found there. Jorge Luis Borges’s “The Book of Sand” and the Bible, particularly the book of Matthew, both give warnings about the dangers of temptation, which any person can relate, sympathize or learn from. To begin, “The Book of Sand” is primarily a story about temptation. The story revolves around two characters, a man and a stranger. Both share a fascination with books, but they are both completely different. From the beginning of the story, the reader can tell that the stranger is not a good man. The reader is very suspicious of the man’s intentions in selling a priceless book to the man. Throughout the story, the reader asks questions of the stranger’s real intentions, and what the book really is.…show more content… A reader with evil a slim knowledge of the Bible will find that Borges’s story has several comparable elements. The man in the story is representing the common man, while the stranger represents the devil and the book represents temptation. Temptation is the major theme of the story, as well as the Bible. In Matthew 18:7, Matthew says that “What sorrow awaits the world, because it tempts people to sin. Temptations are inevitable, but what sorrow awaits the person who does the tempting.” This verse clearly shows Matthew’s wisdom towards straying from temptation. Matthew’s wisdom may have helped the man in the story if he knew how bad temptation was and how much sorrow it would cause