Pinocchio is a cultural icon and one of the most reimagined characters in children’s literature.

What is Pinocchio? Pinocchio It is the story of a piece of wood, who has a father named Geppetto (a diminunitive of Giuseppe) and, apparently, no mother.

Geppetto (Giuseppe) is a carpenter, specifically a wood-worker.

And either Pinocchio and Jesus were raised in a modest, if not poor, home.

This piece of wood arrives on earth and incarnates, becoming an human being, son of a carpenter whose name is Giuseppe.

The last scene of the life of Jesus Christ is the death on the cross. What is the cross? It is piece of wood, that his the last companion of the life of Jesus. From this moment Pinocchio starts. A sort or reverse engineering. We can even consider Pinocchio the sequel of the gospels.

The only female figure in the entire history of Pinocchio is the enigmatic fairy with Turquoise Hair, who every now and then intervenes. In the judaism, and specifically in the rabbinic literature, there is a female figure “Shekhinah”, who does the same things of the Fairy with Turquoise Hair: she intervenes when the way is lost. In the Christian religion the fairy with Turquoise hair is the Madonna (the Virgin Mary).

To help Pinocchio on his path in life and to make the right decisions is Jiminy Cricket, charged as being Pinocchio’s conscience, and in this respect, Jiminy is like the Holy Spirit, who guides us and helps us make moral choices. 

On his way, Pinocchio is approached by a couple of nefarious fellows from the original book, a fox and a cat, and it’s ironic the fox is named Honest John, because in all actuality, he is not honest, and represents the temptation to sin, and it’s no coincidence Collodi chose a sly fox to play this part. The fox and the cat convince Pinocchio down the easy path and Pinocchio finds himself performing for a local puppeteer by the name of Stromboli (the Devil).  This is all allegorical, from a Christian perspective, of succumbing to temptation and sinning, something for which we need the grace and forgiveness of Gods, and in this story, that figure, represented by the Blue Fairy (Madonna), does come to his rescue. 

In the book of Jonah of the Bible, Yahweh(God) commands the prophet Jonah to go to the city of Nineveh to prophesy against it for their great wickedness against him.However, Jonah instead attempts to run from Yahweh by going to Jaffa and sailing to Tarshish. A huge storm arises and the sailors, realizing that it is no ordinary storm, cast lots and discover that Jonah is to blame. Jonah admits this and states that if he is thrown overboard, the storm will cease. The sailors refuse to do this and continue rowing, but all their efforts fail and they are eventually forced to throw Jonah overboard. As a result, the storm calms and the sailors then offer sacrifices to Yahweh. Jonah is miraculously saved by being swallowed by a large fish, in whose belly he spends three days and three nights. While in the great fish, Jonah prays to God in his affliction and commits to thanksgiving and to paying what he has vowed. God then commands the fish to vomit Jonah out.

Pinocchio is certainly no ordinary puppet. He seems to be created with an innate knowledge of certain things, like Jesus was also a child with innate knowledge. Indeed Pinocchio saves his fellow puppets from a fiery death at the hands of the puppet master (Stromboli). He is selfless and offers the sacrifice of his own self to save his friend Harlequin. This selflessness is again displayed when Pinocchio saves his father from the Whale’s stomach. He puts his life and all his worldly pleasures behind him for the well-being of his sickly, old father.

In the story of Pinocchio, at a certain point Pinocchio is transformed into a donkey. Because the donkey cripples, they decide to throw him down into the sea. Luckily some fishes arrive and eat the skin of the donkey and free Pinocchio who was inside the donkey. Pinocchio is now free and tries to swim, but he is swallowed by a whale. And who does he find in the whale? His dad, Geppetto (his God).

After all, the story of Pinocchio is the story of the rebellion and the return to the Father: it is an expansion of the parable of the prodigal son. Pinocchio lives all the mysteries of salvation, from baptism (the bath on the sea) to the cross (when he was hung from the big oak tree) till the resurrection (he dies as wood puppet and he resurrects as human).

Pinocchio is a modern sacred book that re-writes with a contemporary languages archetypical stories common to many religions.