Jesus looked up doubtfully from the keyboard. "Dad, are you sure you want to re-write the whole book? I mean, it'll take ages."

"Ages, schmages," said God impatiently. "You're telling me we haven't got ages? Of course we have to do a re-write. Some of the guys I got to write down the first version were pretty flaky. Besides, bits of it are three thousand years old now - we gotta move with the times."

Jesus frowned. "But I thought you were outside ti- "

"Just start reading," snapped God.

Jesus shrugged and looked at the screen. "Book 1," he read. "Genesis. 1:001. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

"Ha," barked God. "And you ask if we need a re-write. With a lame-duck opening like that, who's gonna bother to read verse 2? No, we need a first line that's gonna grab 'em by the kishkas straight off. Something zappy, punchy ... I got it! 'Call me Israel ...'."

"Uh ... I think something like that's been done, Dad."

Mary looked up from The Gethsemane Book of Gardening Tips. "And anyway, it's too terse, too macho. You need something that'll appeal to your women readers - something like 'It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a full set of ribs must be in want of a wife'."

God waved a dismissive hand. "Chick-lit pap," he snarled.

"Better than dick-lit," sniffed Mary huffily, and went back to reading Brighten Up That Gloomy Sepulchre With Hanging Baskets!.

"So OK Mr. 'It's-been-done', you come up a snappy first line," continued God irritably.

"'Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way'.'' thought Jesus miserably. Aloud, he said "I think the original's fine, Dad."

God opened his mouth to retort, then gave in. "OK, we'll come back to it. Gimme the second verse."

"'1:002 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters'," read Jesus. He frowned. "Hey, Dad, if the earth was without form, and void, how could it be the earth? According to this you just made water. Created water, I mean - obviously you don't make water like - er - I mean you don't - "

"Well?" said God ominously.

"So shouldn't the first verse read 'In the beginning God created the heaven and a big wet blob'?"

God let out his breath slowly. "We'll come back to that one too," he said. "Gimme the next few."

"'And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. And God said, Let -'"

"Oh, for Pete's sake," said God testily. "Who were they writing this for, world-class slow learners? When do we get to the beetles?"

Jesus scrolled down the screen. "Uhh ... here we are, verse 25: 'And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good'."

God stared at him blankly. "Is that it?" he said. "'Every thing that creepeth'? I work my fingers to the bone creating half a million different kinds of beetle, every one a masterpiece, and they're just lumped together with 'every thing that creepeth'? Like they were some lousy apterygote?"

God stood up and strode agitatedly up and down the room. "Dear Me, I had no idea just how bad this was. OK, OK, take this down.

"Verse 1: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth and the stars and all that stuff, yada yada yada - you can fill it in later. And God saw that it was good.

"Verse 2: And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was very good.

"Verse 3: And God created holometabolous hexapods, normally with adecticous, exarate pupae, hind wings folded under elytra with reduced venation, hind two thoracic segments (mesothorax+metathorax=pterothorax) broadly connected with abdomen, so that the primary functional units of body are head / prothorax / pterothorax + abdomen, and genitalia retracted into abdomen: and God saw that it was FAN-FREAKIN'-TASTIC and any snivelling primate who has a problem with that can kiss my omnipotent -"

"OK Dad, just sit down," said Jesus hastily. "Now breathe deep - in, out, in, out - that's it."

God sat down heavily, breathing hard. "OK, son. OK. Better now. Just came as a shock, that's all. Guess I should have proof-read it more carefully at the time, but I trusted your Uncle Moses' judgement. Never again. I ask you - 'every thing that creepeth'!"

"Well, you can't really blame Uncle Moses and the other guys, Dad," said Jesus hesitantly. "I mean, you created them in your own image, they're bound to think the whole bang-shoot's for their benefit. Why did you do that, if you only ever meant them to be bit-players?"

God shrugged. "I'd been creating for six solid six days already - I was fresh out of new ideas, due for a rest. Then I happened to glance at the mirror, and thought hey, what the hell. Part laziness, part vanity I guess.

"As it was, after I'd wound Adam up and set him going I tinkered a bit longer with the details, trying to make him more beetle-like. First I tried retracting the genitalia into the abdomen. Guess I should have warned him first: you could hear the screams from Pison to the Euphrates.

"So anyway, that didn't suit, and antennae just looked silly, and there was nowhere sensible to put the extra pair of legs, so I left him as mini-me."

"Oh yeah, here it is," said Jesus. "Verse 27. 'So God created man in his own image ... male and female created he them, blah blah blah ... blessed them ... said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply ... have dominion over the fish of the sea ... fowl of the air ... every living thing that moveth upon the earth.'" Jesus frowned, puzzled. "But if they were just extras, why all the blessings and dominion and stuff?"

"Look a bit further down," said God. "See? 'And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it'. I'd got me a live-in gardener who'd work his nuts off for some poontang and all the fruit he could eat. Elementary employment psychology: you wanna keep staff on wages like that, you gotta make 'em think it's a blessing to work for you. Make 'em think they've got some, you know, authority."

He nudged Jesus, pointing further down the screen. "Hey, this bit was fun. 'And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them.' I tell you, some of the names that dumb schmuck came up with had me and your Uncle Lucifer rolling on the floor laughing our asses off. Wobbegong ... aasvogel ... gnu ... Ever wonder why there are birds called boobies and tits? He named those just after I'd introduced him to Eve, and I guess his mind was elsewhere."

"So where did it all go wrong?" asked Jesus.

God shifted his gaze uneasily. "Well, it's a little complicated ..." he began.

"Was it when you told 'em that fib about the tree of knowledge?"

"Hey, it wasn't really a fib," protested God. "And anyway, it was for their own good."

"Not really a fib?" queried Jesus. "'002:017 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.' They ate it, they didn't die, so what's that if it's not a fib?"

"It's not a proper fib if it's for their own good," said God defensively. "'Just say no', that was the message. You wanna put people off dope, sometimes you gotta exaggerate the dangers a little."

Jesus's eyebrows shot up. "Dope? What kind of tree was this, for Pete's sake?"

"Well, it wasn't so much the tree," said God uneasily. "More the patch of, ah ... mushrooms growing under it. Special mushrooms. I was ... aaah ... cultivating them for, ah ... personal consumption? I mean, you don't think I'd made this garden just to look at the friggin' flowers, do you?

"Anyway, I laid it on the line to Adam and the broad, 'Of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die'. Could I have made it any plainer? I mean, what part of 'Ye shall not eat of it' did the chick not understand?"

"But it wasn't all her fault, Dad," protested Jesus. "There was the serpent - "

"Ha!" said God. "That was the story the broad spun me when they'd got caught. Listen, sunshine, it was after she'd eaten the stuff that she began seeing talking snakes. Not to mention singing spiders and dancing purple centipedes.

"'Oh, the serpent beguiled me, and I did eat'," he mimicked in a high falsetto, squirming and wringing his hands. "Dumb-ass broad, did she really think I'd fall for that one? Didn't she think I'd 've remembered if I'd made any articulate ophidia? Mind, she was still whacked out of her gourd. And she'd only just noticed her old man was naked, so I guess snakes kinda stuck in her mind."

"Is that when you made them coats of skins, and clothed them?" asked Jesus.

"Had to," said God. "They were trying to sew fig leaves together and make themselves aprons, but they were so wasted they'd stripped two whole trees bare and still only sewn enough to cover Eve's left boob. If I'd left them to finish the job they'd 've defoliated the whole damn garden. Anyway, that was the last straw. They had to go.

"So I said to the broad, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. And unto Adam I said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife -"

"Oh, for crying out loud," yelled Mary from the sofa. "I'm trying to read here, and all I get is yack yack yack. Now put a sock in it the pair of you and let's have some peace."

There was a moment's appalled silence.

"Er ... yes, dear," said God.



Not for the first time, Jesus looked up doubtfully from the keyboard. "Dad, are you sure about that one? I mean, you really wanna replace the whole of Genesis chapter five with - what was it again?" He checked the screen. "Oh yeah. 'Nothing much happened for a couple of thousand years except a lot of screwing'. Uh, are you sure that preserves the majesty of the original?"

He closed his eyes in anticipation of his father's reply. Please don't say majesty-schmajesty, he pleaded silently. Resist the stereotype just this once, why don't you?

"Majesty-schmajesty," said God scornfully. "How did the first version go again?"

"Uh - 'This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created. And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, and after his image; and called his name Seth: And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters: And -'"

"Yeah, yeah, and Seth begat Enos and Enos begat Cainan, begat, begat, begat, yada, yada, yada. You call that majesty? You even call that writing?"

"The iterations have a certain measured dignity," said Jesus primly. "More so than 'Nothing much happened except a lot of screwing', anyway."

"Ha! Listen to my son the literary critic," jeered God. "'The iterations have a certain measured dignity'," he minced. "Well, you can shove your iterations where the sun don't shine, and measure your dignity while you're doing it. Listen, if we wanna get this book back in the bestseller lists, we gotta rip out all that kinda crap, it just puts the readers off. Pacy, gutsy, punchy, that's how we want it. Now c'mon, I want three more chapters knocked off before supper. What comes next?"

Jesus sighed. "'And it came to pass'," he read, "'When men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose'."

He grimaced. "Hey Dad, isn't that a bit, you know, tacky? Angels getting horny with human girls? Smacks of sexual predation, know what I mean? And cross-species sexual predation at that. Oh yuck, it gets worse: '... when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them...'. Eeeeuuuw. Now what kind of immortal slimeball would knock up some poor unsuspecting human virgin?"

There was a long and - there's no avoiding it - pregnant silence. Jesus slowly turned red. He gulped. "Er - except for you and Mom, of course, but that was different, I mean there was no coming in unto - was there? - I mean there can't have been 'cos she's still a - until Uncle Joe - but even after that - I - uh, shall we look at the next verse?"

God nodded, his face still stony.

"'And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth'," read Jesus hurriedly, "'And that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually'." He looked up. "Sounds like a script conference for an Austin Powers movie. Heh, heh -"

God's expression did not change. Jesus returned hurriedly to the screen.

"'And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them'." He turned back to God, eyes wide. "Hell's teeth, Dad, what did they do that made you so mad at them?"

God shrugged. "I wasn't so much mad as disappointed," he said. "See, I figured if I started over, next time I could make the tibial exopodites with straighter apodemes, so when -"

"Uh, Dad, I wasn't talking about the creeping thing. What about man and beast and the fowls of the air?"

"Oh, the vertebrates." God waved a dismissive hand. "They were expendable. Lumbering around, cluttering up a lot of good beetle habitats - uh-uh, no way was I gonna keep them in business. It was only finding Noah that changed my mind."

Jesus looked back at the screen. "Oh yeah: 'But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD'. So, what did this guy have that was so special?"

"Scabies," said God.

Jesus looked blank. "Huh?"

"Sarcoptes scabiei," said God reverently. "The itch mite. Jeez, what a little gem. No coleopteran, of course - I mean, you only get inspiration like that once in your average eternity - but still a classic in its own right. Not half a millimetre long, beautifully sculpted cuticle, jaws that can burrow into skin faster'n a scarab into a cowpat - I tell you son, that little beauty's not just a masterpiece of precision microengineering, it's - it's -" His eyes grew misty. "It's art," he whispered.

He sighed. "Trouble was, if I wanted to keep it safe while I rubbed out all the mistakes, it needed fresh human skin to live in; and try as I might, I couldn't get the skin to stay fresh unless I left all the bones and squishy stuff inside. Believe me, if there'd been another way..."

"So Noah and his family were kept on as walking mite farms," said Jesus slowly. "Errr - I'm not sure we should put that in the book, Dad."

"I'll decide what goes in the book," said God testily. "Just give me the next bit"

"OK," said Jesus wearily. "There's a bit about Noah's begats, then it goes on 'Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.'"

He frowned again. "Why gopher wood?"

"'Cos no-one else'll fetch it for you!" roared God gleefully, slapping his thigh. "Hey, didja hear what I said? I said no-one else'll -" He doubled up helplessly, tears streaming down his face.

Jesus stared at him, expressionless. "You’ve been waiting four and a half thousand years for someone to ask you that, haven’t you?"

At length God recovered, chuckling still as he wiped his eyes. "OK, OK, what's the next bit? Oh yeah, all that stuff about cubits. Length three hundred, breadth fifty, height thirty, I remember. 'Course, it woulda helped if I'd told Noah up front what a cubit was. First damn ark he made you could float in your bath.

"Anyhow, we got that sorted, and he finally made one the right size, so next we had to get the animals in."

Jesus scrolled down. "Yup, here it is: 'Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth, There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah'."

He shifted uncomfortably. "Dad, are you being, like, straight with people here? I mean, I can see how this'll make a great story for kids, but d'you really think grown-ups are gonna believe you could get two of every animal in the world into a boat that size? And, like, pairs of kangaroos and rattlesnakes and two-toed sloths all swam across the ocean and travelled thousands of miles to Palestine? Look, don't think I'm being awkward, Dad, but I think we're gonna have a, you know, credibility problem with this one."

"You mean you don't believe it?" thundered God.

Jesus flinched. "Uhhh ... not as such..."

"OK, you're right, it's a loada bobbemyseh. The important thing was, Noah believed it. I told him, all stern and solemn, 'Of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee'. Oy, I don't know how I kept a straight face. But he bought it! Let's face it, I hadn't picked him for his brains. Next thing you know, the little shmegegge's running round trying to pick up two of every animal in the neighbourhood, with me and the boys laughing our butts off watching. Gabriel started a book on the number of times the poor shmuck'd get stung, bitten, gored, kicked, shat on ... I tell you, we hadn't enjoyed ourselves so much since I stuck that 'Kick me' sign on Cain. I can picture Noah now, hopping from foot to foot with his loincloth full of assorted scorpions, trying to hold on to a female viper in one hand and catch a male with the other ... alivey, that you should get entertainment like that nowadays.

"Anyway, he finally gets 'em all in the ark, pulls up the ramp, and they sit tight waiting for it to rain. Well, I say sit tight, to tell the truth they were having to run a 24-hour shovelling rota just to keep the damn boat habitable. And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth."

"The whole earth?" asked Jesus dubiously.

"Of course not," snapped God. "I just floated Noah's boat, made it too misty for him to see the horizon, and let him drift a bit while I went round and hoovered up all the dreck from elsewhere. Then when I was sure I had a world fit for weevils to live in I went back and let 'em out."

Jesus was reading further down the screen. "There seems to be a lot of muddle here about how long they were afloat: forty days, a hundred and fifty days, seven months - couldn't anyone count?"

God scoffed. "Look, this shlemiel already thought he was six hundred years old - you tell me if he could count. Plus he was still half-concussed from thirteen kinds of snakebite and all the kicks in the head he'd got trying to sex mules. Is it any wonder he was a bit vague about what day it was?"

"Right," said Jesus. "So how do you wanna re-write all that? OK, no-one in their right mind's gonna believe the original, but at least you come out of it looking good. Well, righteous anyway: let's face it, no-one who's just massacred nearly everyone on the planet is gonna look exactly cuddly.

But entertaining your buddies by fooling a scabies-ridden jerk into getting himself mauled half to death by the entire Levantine fauna then spending you know how long shovelling their crap out of a floating toilet - well, you're not gonna come out of that smelling any sweeter than he did."

"You think not?" frowned God. "I thought everyone loved a practical joker. And anyway, when it was over I did the nice guy bit - look, it's there in 9:001, where I blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply."

"You really said that? 'Be fruitful, and multiply'?"

"Well, those might not have been the exact words," admitted God. "More like 'Go screw yourselves'. But the idea was there."

"Uhh ... fine," said Jesus cautiously. "But we've still gotta be careful how we re-write it all. How about instead of you sparing Noah and his kids while you kill everyone else, we have you heroically rescuing Noah's family when everyone else gets tragically killed by some awful unavoidable catastrophe?"

"I see," said God slowly. "And how is it to be 'unavoidable', this catastrophe?"

"Well," said Jesus, warming to the idea. "Suppose you'd been called away to some other part of the universe, and while you're away this asteroid -"

"While I'm away," repeated God, the emphasis faint but ominous. "Y'shua, are you by any chance familiar with the term 'omnipresent'?"
"- and you zoom back down through the atmosphere like Christopher Reeve going back to rescue Lois from the earthquake in Superman I ... aahhh ... omnipresent. Yeah. That's a bummer."

"Not to mention omnipotent and omniscient," added God. "Face it, kiddo, 'unavoidable catastrophe' ain't an option: I got a reputation to think of, for Pete's sake."

"OK, so we take it from Superman III instead. Uncle Lucifer sends you some kryptonite cookies, only they don't kill you like he hopes but they turn you into your evil reverse self and he's the one who bumps everyone off, and in the last scene Noah and his family - I see Tom and Halle here, with a bunch of cute little kids - they're the last people alive and you've got 'em trapped on their houseboat - think Cape Fear, know what I mean? - and as you're about to waste 'em the audience can see you fighting with yourself, the good you trying to break through, and just then Noah's littlest kid steps forward holding up his teddy bear and says 'You wouldn't really hurt Snookums would you Mr. God?' and that breaks the spell and you embrace 'em all and fly off to kick Uncle Lucifer's ass, and we fade with the Noah family on the prow of the boat, looking nobly out into the future as the dawn comes up behind 'em. Waddaya think?"

"I think I'm sorry we ever got that DVD player. You got any ideas that don't stink?"

"OK, OK. Last throw. The Evil Dead, right? Some nosy humans come across this awful secret they're not supposed to mess with, and entirely through their own meddling it turns them one after another into evil zombies and you've got no choice but to snuff 'em all for their own good - all except Noah and his folks who've locked themselves in their houseboat to escape the evil. That'd play, wouldn't it?"

"Oh, sure," said God. "But doesn't it occur to you that that's pretty much the story we started with?"

Jesus shrugged. "So? The important thing is, we'll 've updated the production values. I mean, no-one watching The Evil Dead blamed Ash for carving up all the zombies - we package it right, they'll feel the same about you and all the drownings. Not your choice, they forced it on you.

"I can see the ending now: the flood gone, you standing there all firm-jawed looking out over all the desolation and the sodden corpses, and Mrs. Noah - I still see Halle, but Sarah Michelle might be a runner - hanging on your arm, asking you why it had to come to this. Now all we need is your last line ..."

"'Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn'?" suggested God eagerly.

"Uh, no, Dad. Hang on, I got it. 'A god's gotta do what a god's gotta do ...'"

"You really think so?" said God dubiously. "Sounds pretty lame to me."

"Just trust me, Dad. You have no idea how a great screenplay should end."

God shrugged. "Well," he said, "Nobody's perfect."

Thanks johnhanks. All manner of participation is welcome here. From whoever is willing to participate. True, we aren't a big board, but not much gets lost in the shuffle due to size either.

All are welcome.

Outstanding!

I'm going to reread it and get back to a comment.

God's fixation on beetles -



- stems from the quote:

The Creator, if He exists, has a special preference for beetles. – (John Haldane --Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, 10 [when asked what his study of biology had taught him about the Creator])



...comes from Pride & Prejudice, Chapter I of Volume I (Chap. 1).

IT is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.



Some guy hit my fender the other day, and I said unto him "Be fruitful

and multiply." But not in those words . . . . . . - (Woody Allen)

John is a fracking satirical genius. He's one of two people I've known personally who writing I've truly enjoyed - and the other one was my first husband.

He's found a fan in Bee already.

Reminds me of Woody's God, a play. I'm sure you all know of it.

http://members.fortunecity.com/bookdeposit...s/god/god2.html

Paul sat on his bed and looked glumly at the blank wall opposite. When he'd moved into The Gaps he'd insisted they give him the smallest, plainest room in the place; and, to his annoyance, they had. Well, at least it was well away from any - he shuddered at the thought - women's quarters. There was just the one shelf, on which he'd carefully arranged his treasured possessions. On the left was his Postcard From The Romans, which they'd sent in reply to his Letter: a nice picture of the Colosseum arena, with the message 'Wish you were here'.

Sometimes he wondered what they'd meant by that.

Next to the postcard sat his Damascus Road Souvenir Sunglasses, and next to them the Novelty Sailor's Spyglass that the other Apostles had bought him to commemorate his sea voyages. He'd assumed it was a regular spyglass until he'd looked into it and found it contained a picture of a pouting and scandalously unclad young man. Worse, the eyepiece had been inked, so that when he took it away it left a black ring around his eye. Not that anyone had told him, of course; not till he'd appeared at breakfast six days running with his eyes blackened like a harlot's, wondering why the others were choking over their Corn Flakes.

Still, no doubt the guys had meant well. No, really, no doubt. No possible doubt, none at all ...

His shoulders slumped. Who was he kidding? A lifetime's preaching and persecution and all he had to show for it were a couple of cheap gewgaws and a dog-eared postcard. Oh, and eternal life in the House of the Lord, of course. He laughed mirthlessly. First off, The Gaps was as draughty and uncomfortable as its name suggested; second, if you didn't have six legs and a carapace God couldn't even remember your name; and as for JC ... Paul winced as he remembered the humiliation of the first time he'd seen Jesus in the hallway downstairs, how he'd run up to him weeping with joy and thrown his arms around him, and Jesus had drawn back in alarm saying "Have we met?"

Because of course they never had. Paul had spent all those years writing letters about Jesus, sailing round the Med preaching about Jesus, telling anyone who'd listen what a wonderful guy Jesus was and how he'd save them all - and all that time he'd been busking it, piecing it together from an anecdote here, someone's granddad's vague recollection there; and in time he'd fallen head over heels in love with the picture he'd built up, the craggy hunk with the blond hair and blue eyes who'd love Paul right back the moment they met...

He hadn't expected a gloomy myopic little rabbi, five-three and 130 pounds, with a nervous tic that became uncontrollable whenever someone mentioned the c-r-o-s-s word. But no matter! This at last was Jesus, the Anointed One, the Saviour...

It had come hard when it turned out Jesus didn't like him very much. It was all Peter's doing, of course. Pete had kvetched to JC about Paul converting gentiles without insisting they get circumcised or even give up pork. "Where's the challenge in that?" Peter had railed bitterly. "Make it painless, and any klutz can pull in the goyim. You wanna get real gentile converts, tell 'em up front you're gonna take away their baconburgers 'n' shorten their pullovers, then see who's left in line. But oh no, St. Pauli Girl here has to make it all nice 'n' easy: 'No no, your goyness, you go ahead and enjoy your prawn salad, oh, and put your pants back on, we sure as hell wouldn't wanna make that thing any smaller.' Result? What shoulda stayed a respectable Jewish operation becomes Goys for Jesus. Oh, and weren't the goyische Popes grateful. Thirteen of this mamzer's letters they put in the bible, and a lousy two - two! - of mine. Founder of Christianity my aaaaahh ... ssssso, how's the beetle catalogue coming along, Sir?"

Paul suspected that if God hadn't stopped by at that point it would have come to blows. As it was, the old guy rewarded Peter's interest by taking him off for a three-hour explanation of coxal articulation in the Cerambycidae. Life had its occasional consolations.

But the damage had been done with JC. He and Pete went back a long way, Paul knew, and all Paul's hopes - that Jesus would like him, would want to get to know him better, would in time get, you know, really fond of him - had been blown away there and then.

He'd tried to win back a bit of kudos by telling JC and his Mom about his adventures, and for a bit they seemed impressed by the shipwreck and the snakebite and all, but then he'd blown it again: "Anyway, I shook off the snake into the fire, and felt no harm. So the barbarians looked when I should have swollen, or fallen down dead suddenly: but after they had looked a great while, and saw no harm come to me, they changed their minds, and said that I was a god."

Boy, was that the wrong thing to say. You could feel the temperature in the room drop a zillion degrees. "No doubt you'll be telling us your mother was a virgin next, Mr. OfTarsus," JC's Mom had said icily. This had baffled Paul, who at that point still hadn't caught up with the odd begetting and conceiving arrangements in JC's family, and who in any case didn't care to dwell on matters gynaecological. It had to be a joke, he decided. Someone had told him about jokes once, and what you were supposed to do when you heard one.

"Oh, hah hah ... hah," he'd essayed, slapping his thighs desperately, "A virgin having a kid. That's a good one. Like, anyone who's not some dumb pagan's gonna believe that. Wait till I tell the other ... guys ... they'll crack ... up oh hell you're gonna tell me you're a virgin aren't you I'm sorry Mrs., Mrs., er, Ma'am, Miss, nobody'd warned me and it's not the kinda thing you'd guess straight off, I mean you don't look like a virgin - NO NO not that you look like a, I mean - oh God - "

"So what did you do to show these heathens that you weren't a god?" asked Jesus ominously.

"Er - I - well, I laid hands on some sick people, and healed them."

Wrong answer. The atmosphere hardened further. "Oh, in your name, of course, JC," he added hastily.

"Well thanks, I'm sure," Jesus had said sarcastically, and he and his Mom had stalked out. As the door closed Paul heard Mary saying something about who'd asked that jumped-up little creep to stay in the first place, and Jesus saying "Well you have to work with the staff you can get, Mom ..."

Things had never really recovered after that. Mary still wouldn't speak to him, JC did so only when he had to, and God only when he needed someone to hand him the entomological pins. Paul got wearily to his feet and dragged himself to the washbasin to brush his teeth. Another lousy day in paradise loomed before him. Should he just cut his losses and get out? Hell, where else was there to go? No, he'd stay and make the best of it.

He shrugged resignedly. Let's face it, you had to work with the Messiahs you could get.

The first half was good. I've been informed it's bedtime, but hopefully they second half will be here tomorrow.

Thanks hanks.

"'And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard: And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father’s nakedness. And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.'"

Yet again, Jesus looked up doubtfully from the screen. "So, Dad, let's see if I've got this straight. Noah gets slewed and crashes out bare-assed in his tent, then Ham comes in and sees his old man's tallywhacker. OK, embarrassment all round I guess, if you're not a family that shvitzes together, but don't you think they all over-reacted a tad? I mean, cursing your grandson 'cos his dad's eyeballed your schlong doesn't make a lot of sense."

"Where does it say anything about Noah's schlong?" said God.

Jesus shrugged. "So what else would Noah want to hide?"

"Well, there were the nipple rings for a start."

"Nipple rings," repeated Jesus faintly.

"And the navel piercing. Not to mention the tattoos: dragons on both cheeks of his butt, and a snake coiling up each thigh." God shook his head sadly. "Poor schmuck'd had the world's first mid-life crisis. Male menopause, know what I mean? And by golly it had hit him hard. Just woke up one morning, asked himself where his life was going, what had happened to his youth, all the usual stuff. By noon he was stewed to the gills, and an hour later he was in Piercings 'R' Us Body Art Studio getting the full treatment. Woke up next day petrified his family'd find out and think he was gaga. Which they duly did."

"I see," said Jesus weakly. "Right. But why curse Canaan?"

"'Cos Canaan's girlfriend worked at Piercings 'R' Us, and Canaan was into the alter cocker for fifty shekels a day to keep schtumm."

Jesus frowned. "Hang on, this doesn't add up. The only survivors from the flood were Noah and his kids, right? So how come one generation later someone's already set up a Piercings 'R' Us Body Art Studio?"

God spread his hands. "These were very enterprising people. Ask anyone. You saw a market, you started a business.

"Anyway, we gotta think how we're gonna adapt all that. What's the last thing you've got?"

Jesus checked the revised screenplay. "Uh - the Noahs having their barbecue, then you doing the rainbow shtick."

"OK, so put in a voice-over: 'And Noah experimented with a range of alternative lifestyle choices to assert and redefine his identity as a mature male in the postdiluvian era. Then he went senile and croaked.'

Now, what's next?"

"A few zillion begats, then the Tower of Babel thing." Jesus scanned through the text. "'And the whole earth was of one language … plain in the land of Shinar … tower, whose top may reach unto heaven … LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language … let us go down, and there confound their language…' I see, so you had to stop 'em all speaking the same language to stop 'em building this tower, right?"

"Tower, shmower. You really think some piddling heap of bricks 'n' slime was gonna get me hot under the collar? No, I had to stop 'em all speaking the same language 'cos the way they spoke it was GETTIN' ON MY FRIGGIN' TITS."

Jesus stared at him. "I beg your pardon?"

"See, everyone in Shinar was putting on this shtick where every sentence you say turns upward at the end? So, like, everything you say comes out like a question? And, like, every sentence has to have, like, at least one 'like' in it? And it was totally pretentious and driving me, like, crazy listening to 'em? So I, like, scattered 'em abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth?"

"Seems a bit, ah, drastic, Dad. Why not just stop listening?"

"I tried, for crying out loud, but every five minutes I'd have one of 'em offering up some lump of char-broiled gristle with 'Lord, Blessed be thy, like, Name? Accept this, like, offering from thy humble servant Pissant?' Finally I just snapped and said to 'em, look, either you speak decent Hebrew like it's meant to be spoke, or it's confiscated and you're outta here: capisce? Booted out eighty percent of the population in a week. Best day's work I ever did."

"Best week's work, Dad?"

"What?"

"Best week's work? Like, you said eighty percent in, like, a week?"

God stared at him for a moment, then snapped his fingers in front of his face.

"Что это?" said Jesus. "Как ты делаешь? Это не забавный, папа!"

God snapped his fingers again.

"That's not funny, Dad!" repeated Jesus.

"Just checkin' I ain't lost it. What were you saying?"

"Uh - nothing, Father. I was merely raising a piffling query in response to the intriguing tension between the diurnal reference in your latter remark and the foregoing hebdomadal."

"Friggin' A," said God.

I love these stories, but I could see how some folks might consider them to be a tad too irreverent.

OTHO, I do believe in God, and I FIRMLY believe he has a sense of humor. Otherwise how to explain Bart Katz and RepubBub?

When has anyone worried about irreverent around here?

People that would are likely too busy at church, although I was thinking of judy and/or carol.

I think the stories are far too charming for folks to take offense.

Oh, I think personalizing God has gone back a ways. I remember those old movies with the Gods moving heroes around like chess pieces. Now we get the father and son editing team.

"'... Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven; And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.'"

Jesus stroked his chin thoughtfully. "O-o-kay," he said slowly, "I think we can do something with this. We've got, like, Independence Day here, right, but with the people on the ground as the bad guys, and the, er, aliens as the good guys. It's a switch, but people'll swallow it if we package it right.

"Mind, it's got a kinda Indiana Jones-y feel to it too - perhaps we could make Lot a bit like Harrison Ford, know what I mean? Hey, I don't suppose either Sodom or Gomorrah had a Temple of Doom, did they?"

"No," said God stonily.

"Pity. No matter, this is a re-write, we can be, you know, creative with the details. So, let's get started. 'There came two angels to Sodom at even; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom: and Lot seeing them rose up to meet them; and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground'." He pursed his lips. "'Bowed himself with his face toward the ground'? Nah, that ain't Harrison Ford. He looks 'em straight in the eye and shakes 'em firmly but warily by the hand, OK? Hey, what's the matter, Dad?"

God was shifting uneasily in his chair. "Y'know, I've been thinking," he said. "Waddaya say we just leave this whole bit out - go straight on to chapter 20?"

Jesus stared at him in astonishment. "Leave it out? The whole Sodom and Gomorrah story? Dad, you cannot be serious. Your biggest fans love this stuff. It's got everything real believers most cherish in the bible - sex, violence, homophobia, capital punishment - I tell you, we'll alienate the entire Southern Baptist Convention if we skip this one. I mean, why, for crying out loud?"

"Well," said God reluctantly, "It didn't happen, uh, quite the way the first version says."

Jesus snorted. "Ha! Show me anything we've looked at so far that did."

God avoided his eyes. "Uh, yeah, but this is a bit, you know ... trickier?"

Jesus folded his arms resignedly. "Tell me about it," he said.

God drew in his breath. "OK. Well, to start with these two strangers -"

"The angels you sent to warn Lot and his family," prompted Jesus.

"Uhh ... not exactly. They were more, er, travelling salesmen in my employ? Travelling in, ah, pharmaceuticals? Ever heard of, uh, angel dust?"

"They were dealers? And they were working for you?"

"Look, why do you think they told Lot, 'Nay, we will abide in the street all night' when he invited them in? They were at that gate every Monday night, dusk till dawn, regular as clockwork, all their customers knew where to find 'em. But tonight this overgrown friggin' Boy Scout decides he's gonna hustle 'em into his house and make 'em choke down his lousy unleavened bread, just so's he can pick up merit marks for hospitality. And of course, when the customers turn up outside and start hollering for 'em to come out and do some business, the little nudnik gets the wrong idea completely."

Jesus was baffled. "Wrong idea? You mean the mob weren't out to, ah, get up-close and personal with the two angels? But it says here, 'And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them'. I mean, this is 'know' in the biblical sense, right?"

God sighed. "Translators and their friggin' euphemisms. Look, what the mob actually said was bring them out unto us, that we may score off them. Lot heard it as score with them, and decides he's gotta play the friggin' hero to protect his guests' precious sphincters. Would you believe the shmuck even offered the mob his daughters? I mean, have you any conception of the calibre of people I was having to work with back then?"

"But Dad," said Jesus faintly, "I still don't understand why you were sending dealers to Sodom in the first place. I mean, I know you weren't averse to the odd magic mushroom yourself, but what was in it for you, supplying stuff to the Sodomites?"

God looked at him defiantly. "Look, kiddo, put yourself where I was back then. Great Oneness, Creator of the Universe and First Cause of All Things, and I'm hanging out with a tribe of flea-bitten nomads whose aspirations stretch as far as a bit of furtive begetting and the husbanding of their sheep, these activities not necessarily non-contiguous. I tell you, these people were boring me out of my friggin' skull. So to brighten things up a bit I started supplying Sodom and Gomorrah with happy sticks, just hoping it might prod 'em into doing something interesting. Write bad haikus, tie-dye their burnooses, invent thrash metal - anything, just so long as it was more creative than picking ticks off sheep."

"I see," said Jesus slowly. "So where it says here, 'And the LORD said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know'..."

God shrugged. "Just means I was paying a call to check on progress. And things were definitely looking up: by then the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah was mostly along the lines of 'Oh wow, man, look at the giant purple caterpillars', Gomorrah had already re-painted its city wall in psychedelic day-glo, and the mayor of Sodom was insisting the town put up a statue of the nice green pixie who sang him to sleep every night."

Jesus frowned. "I still don't see where Abraham comes into this. Look, verse 23: 'And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked? Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein?'"

God shook his head slowly. "You know, in all the time I dealt with Abraham I never once knew him get the right end of the stick. Just wait till we get to chapter 22: he goes into the desert to make a sacrifice, takes a few goats, forgets to take any sheep; so I tell him, OK, your biggest kid'll do, and next thing I know the klutz has his friggin' son strapped to the altar with the knife at his throat."

"Wow, Dad," said Jesus, wide-eyed. "But you stopped him, right?"

"'Course I did," said God. "Wasn't enough of the pimply little runt to make even half a proper sacrifice. Not even a decent hors d'oeuvre.

"Anyhow, back at Sodom, good ol' Abe had somehow got it into his fercockte head that I was about to zap the place on account of being outraged by the spaced-out citizens, so of course he got all sanctimonious, put on the 'Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked?' bit. So I had a bit of fun letting him bargain over the number of righteous people it'd take to save the place - even let him beat me down from fifty to ten. Boy, you shoulda seen the way he strutted off, like he'd single-handedly saved civilisation. Just as well he didn't look back 'n' see me and Gabe rolling on the floor laughing our asses off."

"Uhh, but Dad," said Jesus cautiously, "You did zap the place. Both places."

"Yeah, I still feel kinda bad about that," said God thoughtfully. "Really shouldn't 've happened. Sloppy fieldwork." He paused. "I suppose you want me to tell you about it?"

Jesus waited, arms folded.

"Well, the boys I'd sent with the monkey dust were holed up in Lot's house, getting more and more jumpy with the mob hammering at the door; then Lot goes and offers the rabble his daughters' virginity, so now on top of everything else there's two hysterical bimbos running round screaming -"

"Well, you can hardly blame the girls for being distressed -"

"- running round screaming for their lipstick and eye shadow, and finally Balthamos's nerve cracks and he uses the Mace."

"Mace?"

God rolled his eyes. "Verse 11, dummy, 'And they smote the men that were at the door of the house with blindness'. What d'you think they used, some kinda magic? 'Course, this doesn't make the mob any happier, so the boys have to barricade themselves in with the Lots overnight.

"Boy, was that a night to forget: Lot's wife yammering nineteen to the dozen about what kinda worthless shlimazl had she married that'd hand his daughters' cherries to a bunch of crazed junkies, the daughters sulking up a storm 'cos after all that they still had 'em, and all the while my boys pissing their pants about what I'd do to them if they arrived back without delivering the merchandise. Anyway, they decided if they could just get the family out of town they could persuade the people the whole thing was Lot's fault, and get back to some honest dealing."

"Gotcha," said Jesus, looking at the text on the screen. "'And when the morning arose, then the angels hastened Lot, saying, Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters, which are here; lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city -'"

"Yeah. Trouble was, by then Lot was acting kinda different - swaying a lot, couldn't focus, kept giggling all the time. The boys were urging him, like, 'Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed'. But Lot just giggled and slurred back, 'Oh, not so, my Lord: I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me, and I die: Behold now, this city is near to flee unto, and it is a little one: Oh, let me escape thither, (is it not a little one?) and my soul shall live'.

"Seems while everyone else was asleep the little putz had come across the boys' bag of goodies and musta thought, well, they ate my unleavened bread, I'm entitled to some of their pretty candies. So he tried a few, then a few more, and by morning there was nothing left in the bag 'cept wrappers, and Lot's brain was away visiting fairy-town.

"Anyway, after a lot of hassle the boys finally manoeuvred him out of the gate and pointed him toward Zoar, telling him even nicer fairies lived there and to be sure to say hello for them, then they went back in just in time to meet the mob coming back for their weekly packs of happy dust. Needless to say the townsfolk weren't too pleased to be told the cupboard was bare, specially the ones who'd got Maced chez Lot, and, well, it sorta went downhill from there."

"Downhill? How much further down could it go?"

"All the way," said God. "At first the boys just legged it, got chased down a few streets, dodged a few bricks, but then they got themselves trapped in this blind alley and figured it was time to get help. So they called up for an air strike as a diversion: just a low-yield tactical fireball to scatter the population and let our boys get away in the panic, that was the idea.

"Trouble was the guys up here, well, over-reacted. Word spread that we had two men down behind enemy lines, and suddenly everyone's all gung-ho, you know how it gets?"

Jesus nodded. "Black Hawk Down," he said. "The 'Leave no man behind' shtick."

"Anyhow, result was Sodom got blasted with the full works, fire, brimstone, the lot. Two minutes after they'd made the call the two dealers were standing there slightly singed looking out over a flat plain of red-hot clay."

Jesus shook his head slowly. "What a bummer," he breathed. "No poopy," said God.

Jesus frowned. "But wait a minute, that was just Sodom. How come Gomorrah got zapped too?"

God shrugged. "Collateral damage. You try telling one dingy desert rat-hole from another at that altitude. I told you, the mood up here was get our men out at all costs, guys were blasting away at anything that looked Sodom-ish. Civilian casualties regrettable but unavoidable - you know the score. Anyhow, the cover-up was easy enough: Abe and the gang didn't take any persuading that the Sodomites and Gomorrans had it coming - hell, they'd have done it years ago."

Jesus thought for a bit. "Uhh - well, perhaps you're right about leaving it out of the movie." He avoided his father's eye. "I mean, we wouldn't want the audience to get, uh, confused or anything.

"But hang on, what's this? 'But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt'. You what? You turned Lot's wife into the world's largest fries seasoning, just because she looked back at what you were doing to Sodom?"

"Of course not," said God scornfully. "Mind, if I'd thought of it ...

"But nope, it wasn't me - happened like this. The Lot family 've been on the Zoar road an hour or two, see, other travellers giving them a wide berth on account of the women's katzenjammer and Lot weaving about still singing along with the fairies. Now, the daughters have gone off to find a rock to pee behind, and back at the roadside Lot's struck up a witty conversation with an oleander bush while his wife stands there fuming and tapping her foot, when a train of mangy camels comes past, driven by this scrawny little hunchback with a withered arm and a wall eye. Well, the camel driver gives Mrs. Lot the once-over with his good eye, jerks his thumb toward Lot and says, Hey babe, you gonna stick with this loser or d'you wanna try a real man? And Mrs. L looks him up and down, takes in the guy's pock-marks, the little hopping things in his beard, the festering pits in his tooth, the way his clothes crunch when he moves; then she looks back at hubby, who's currently telling the bush about his impressive collection of gold-plated aardvarks, and she climbs up on the camel without another word.

"A bit later the daughters get back to find Lot all by himself, arguing with a salt-stack on account of he's still not seeing too good and he thinks it's his old lady with her back to him, acting stubborn. So they scream at him for a bit, like, 'For God's sake Dad, that's not Mom!', and finally something gets through and he manages to focus and yells out 'Holy poopy, she's turned into a pillar of salt, I told the stupid bitch not to look back!'. Nothing would ever persuade him otherwise: right into his old age, when he thought no-one was looking he'd sidle up to cruets and mutter 'You in there, Doris?'"

"And the real Mrs. Lot?"

"Last heard of working on a treadmill in a Bactrian leper colony, still swearing getting on that camel was the best move she'd made in her life."

Jesus scanned the next few verses. "Oh, yuk. According to this, after they'd left Zoar Lot's daughters got their old man drunk so he'd knock them up. 'Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father'. I mean, is that gross or what?"

God shrugged. "I told you, I was dealing with low-lifes here. Bit further down the page we get to how Abraham marries his sister. Guess if I wanted strict sexual morality I'd just picked the wrong family to work with."

He shook his head regretfully. "I mean, I know for a fact they'd never have tolerated that kinda thing in Sodom."

Hey, thanks for the link AV. That was well worth the read.

I used to have all his written works. Love and Death is one on my top five all time favorite movies, though he seemed to get full of himself later on.

No poopy? No poopy?

Holy poopy? Whoever heard anyone say "Holy poopy"?

Since no-one can be in any doubt as to what word has been replaced by 'poopy', what is the point of this infantile censorship?

I think I mentioned that there is a bit of a language filter. It was meant to be a bit humorous and keep things from degenerating into profane rants. Other than that we pretty much decided not to have many rules. I'm sorry if it upset you, but since the board was designed to have all comers and views represented, and I want to play along and not be pulling rank as moderator, it was easier to set a tiny bit of language filtering than just let anything stand or play subjective moderator.

It's almost impossible to keep everyone happy. I've lost members due to lack of moderation as well as moderation. It's a no win, but we still exist when so many are gone.

Of course all input is welcome.

Sorry John - I know it messes up the artistic intent. It is kind of funny though... Please keep posting.

Darned rights God has a sense of humor. He smote the enemy of Israel, those who had captured the Arc of the Covenant, with emerods until they finally sent the Arc back to Israel in an ox-pulled cart along with "golden emerods" they had made to honor the God of Israel who had smitten them with the emerods. Emerods, BTW, in TODAY'S lingo, are hemorrhoids. Painful lesson I'm sure...but damned funny...hemorrhoids so bad they didn't even need to be beaten on the battlefield to give it up!

Badass butt boils.

http://www.bible-history.com/isbe/E/EMERODS/

EMERODS

em'-er-odz `ophalim, techorim): These words are used in the account of the plague which broke out among the Philistines while the captive Ark of the Covenant was in their land. `Ophalim literally means rounded eminences or swellings, and in the Revised Version (British and American) is translated "tumors" (1 Sam 5:6-12). In the Hebrew text of this passage the Qere substitutes for it the word techorim, a term which occurs in the next chapter in the description of the golden models of these swellings that were made as votive offerings (1 Sam 6:11-17). The swellings were symptoms of a plague, and the history is precisely that of the outbreak of an epidemic of bubonic plague. The older writers supposed by comparison of the account in 1 Sam with Ps 78:66 that they were hemorrhoids (or piles), and the older English term in the King James Version is a 16th-century form of that Greek word, which occurs in several medical treatises of the 16th and 17th centuries. There is, however, no evidence that this identification is correct. In the light of the modern research which has proved that the rat-flea (Pulex cheopis) is the most active agent in conveying the virus of plague to the human subject, it is worthy of note that the plague of tumors was accompanied by an invasion of mice (`akhbor) or rats. The rat is not specifically mentioned in the Bible, although it was as common in Canaan and Israelite times as it is today, a fact demonstrated by the frequency with which their bones occur in all strata of the old Palestinian cities, so it is probable that the term used was a generic one for both rodents.
The coincidence of destructive epidemics and invasions of mice is also recorded by Herodotus (ii.141), who preserves a legend that the army of Sennacherib which entered Egypt was destroyed by the agency of mice. He states that a statue of Ptah, commemorating the event, was extant in his day. The god held a mouse in his hand, and bore the inscription: "Whosoever sees me, let him reverence the gods." This may have been a reminiscence of the story in Isa 37:36. For other references see PLAGUE.

http://www.zianet.com/maxey/reflx135.htm

Debating the Disorder

"In Deuteronomy 28, Moses enumerated the many blessings associated with obedience unto the Lord God, as well as the many curses promised to those who chose to disobey His commandments and statutes. Notice the horrors that would be inflicted upon those who chose to spurn their God --- "The Lord will smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and with the emerods, and with the scab, and with the itch, whereof thou canst not be healed" (vs. 27, KJV). Most translations render the Hebrew word here as "tumors" or "boils," rather than "emerods" (which is simply an archaic form of the word "hemorrhoids" used by the King James Version translators). Not a few biblical scholars feel the condition described in this passage is "probably to be identified as hemorrhoids" (Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible, p. 1340). "The King James Version translators understood the affliction of Deut. 28:27 and 1 Sam. 5 as hemorrhoids," although the "modern versions are divided in their understanding of the term in Deuteronomy" (Holman Bible Dictionary, p. 635). The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia states that the Hebrew word employed "relates specifically to hemorrhoids" (vol. 4, p. 929). They are described in the Pulpit Commentary as "either boils or hemorrhoids, bleeding piles."

The major theological debate waged over the 1 Samuel 4-6 passage is whether the condition described is that of hemorrhoids or tumors associated with Bubonic Plague. Some scholars feel the reference to the mice in the account suggests the latter, since the plague was known to be spread, at least in part, by fleas on mice and rats in ancient times. Indeed, the mouse was often the symbol among primitive peoples of pestilence. "The narrative furnishes a good untechnical description of bubonic plague, a dreaded affliction of antiquity" (International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, vol. 4, p. 929). "Modern versions agree that the affliction of 1 Samuel was tumors, probably associated with bubonic plague" (Holman Bible Dictionary, p. 635). Other scholars feel this is assuming too much of a connection between the mice and tumors.

There are also strong arguments put forth that the physical affliction was clearly hemorrhoids. For example, the Hebrew word employed to describe this condition "is never read in the synagogue" (Pulpit Commentary, vol. 4). In the reading of this passage in 1 Samuel 4-6, whenever this word occurred the reader was instructed to substitute another less offensive word in its place. Since "the word was not thought fit for public reading in the synagogue, we may feel sure that it means some such tumors as the KJV describes" (ibid). The Latin Vulgate translates 1 Sam. 5:6 -- "And He smote them in the more secret parts of their posteriors." The ancient Syriac and Arabic versions read the same. This would certainly seem to suggest hemorrhoids! Some scholars feel this is being alluded to in Psalm 78:66 -- "And He smote His enemies in the hinder parts."


The first century Jewish historian Josephus doesn't really commit himself to identifying the affliction, but merely describes it as a "very destructive disease" which "produces mutations in the bodies of men" (Antiquities of the Jews, book 6, chapter 1, sections 1-2). "I suppose them to have been affected with enlargements of the hemorrhoidal veins, from which there came frequent discharges of blood" (Adam Clarke, Clarke's Commentary, vol. 2, p. 223). "The affliction struck the men in their secret parts and made them very uncomfortable. It was especially promoted by the sedentary habits of the Orientals and hence very common among them. Although the affliction is rather easily cured by the more advanced skills of the Western people, the popular medicine of the East had no cure for it. It was therefore a very terrible visitation" (Willard Winter, Studies in Samuel, p. 80).
Although the exact nature of the affliction which befell the pagan peoples in 1 Samuel 4-6 is open to debate, nevertheless it was unquestionably uncomfortable in the extreme, and led to some decisive action on their part in an effort to rid themselves of the curse that had come upon them. However, in this particular article I shall take the position that the "tumors" were hemorrhoids, although I freely admit one could just as easily argue a different malady. On the other hand, the King James Version DID declare them to be "emerods," did it not?! .... and since the KJV is purported by some to be "infallible," containing no errors at all, I suppose "emerods" is thereby to be considered, at least in the minds of some, the official, authorized, inspired "final word" on the matter!!! So .... hemorrhoids it is -- so sayeth the KJV.

Examining the Account in 1 Samuel 4-6

The Philistines were an aggressive, expansionist group who occupied the southwest portion of what came to be known as Palestine. They were part of a larger movement of "Sea Peoples" who originated in the Aegean area, and became a thorn in the flesh to a great many nations, including the people of Israel, against whom we find them contending numerous times in the OT writings. The Philistines "are mentioned nearly 150 times in 1 and 2 Samuel alone" (Expositor's Bible Commentary, vol. 3, p. 594). "The Philistines were the principal enemy of and the major political threat to Israel" beginning during the time of the judges, but "the threat reached crisis proportions in the battle of Ebenezer (1 Sam. 4:1-18), when the Israelites were soundly defeated and the ark of the covenant, brought over from Shiloh, was captured" (Holman Bible Dictionary, p. 1108).

As noted, the ark of the covenant had been captured by the Philistines. "And the slaughter was very great; for there fell of Israel thirty thousand foot soldiers. And the ark of God was taken" (1 Sam. 4:10-11). This was a great tragedy for Israel. Not only did many good men die, but the ark, which represented the presence of God among them, was gone; captured by pagans! The news was so shocking that Eli, who had judged Israel for 40 years, fell over dead when he heard it (1 Sam. 4:12-18), and his daughter-in-law went into premature labor and died shortly after giving birth, but not before naming the child Ichabod ("no glory"), saying, "The glory has departed from Israel, for the ark of God was taken" (vs. 19-22).

"Now the Philistines took the ark of God and brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod. Then the Philistines took the ark of God and brought it to the house of Dagon, and set it by Dagon" (1 Sam. 5:1-2). The Philistines had a very highly organized city-state system, with five chief cities ruling their land: Gath, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gaza, and Ekron (1 Sam. 6:17). Each of these chief locations was ruled by a "lord" (1 Sam. 6:18). The ark was brought to one of these chief cities (Ashdod), and it was placed in the temple of their god Dagon, who was the supreme god of the Philistines. The other two gods of the Philistines mentioned in the OT scriptures are Ashtoreth and Baalzebub. One may remember Dagon from the account in Judges 16 where, during a celebration to this god, Samson brought down the house around them (vs. 23-30). Later, the head of king Saul would be displayed in a temple of Dagon (1 Chron. 10:10).

The Philistines knew that the ark represented the presence of the God of the Israelites (1 Sam. 4:5-8). However, they were now in possession of this ark, which probably led them to believe their gods were more powerful than Israel's God. Thus, they brought Israel's God into the temple of their god, so that the former might do obeisance to the latter. Just the opposite occurred, however! The next morning they found Dagon lying on his face before the ark of God. They set him back in his place, but the next day he was again face down before the ark of God, this time with his hands cut off (1 Sam. 5:3-4). Josephus describes the event thusly: "When they went into his temple the next morning to worship their god, they found him paying the same worship to the ark ... in a posture of adoration to the ark" (Antiquities of the Jews, book 6, chapter 1, section 1).

In addition to causing their false deity to bow before Him, God dealt with the Philistines in other ways, as well. "But the hand of the Lord was heavy upon them of Ashdod, and He destroyed them, and smote them with emerods, even Ashdod and the coasts thereof" (1 Sam. 5:6, KJV). Needless to say, the people of Ashdod soon realized it was time to get rid of the ark of the covenant. They decided to send it to one of the other five great cities of the Philistines: Gath. However, the people of Gath fared no better. "He smote the men of the city, both small and great, and they had emerods in their secret parts" (1 Sam. 5:9, KJV). The ark was then quickly sent on to the city of Ekron, but "the hand of God was very heavy there. And the men that died not were smitten with the emerods; and the cry of the city went up to heaven" (1 Sam. 5:11-12, KJV). All of this took place over a period of about seven months (1 Sam. 6:1).

The lords of the Philistines finally realized that it was time to send the ark back to the Israelites. "Send away the ark of the God of Israel, and let it return to its own place, that it may not kill us and our people" (1 Sam. 5:11). They were not sure of how to go about this, however, so they "called for the priests and the diviners, saying, 'What shall we do with the ark of the Lord? Tell us how we shall send it to its place'" (1 Sam. 6:2). The advice of the religious leaders of the Philistines was: whatever you do, "do not send it empty; but you shall surely return to Him a guilt offering. Then you shall be healed" (vs. 3). When asked what this guilt offering should be, the lords of the Philistines were told, "Five golden emerods, and five golden mice, according to the number of the lords of the Philistines" (vs. 4, KJV). Thus, "ye shall make images of your emerods, and images of your mice that mar the land; and ye shall give glory unto the God of Israel: peradventure He will lighten His hand from off you, and from off your gods, and from off your land" (vs. 5, KJV).


They were to construct a new cart and hitch it onto "two milch cows," on which there had never been any yoke. "And they laid the ark of the Lord upon the cart, and the coffer with the mice of gold and the images of their emerods" (vs. 11, KJV). As an additional assurance that this endeavor was directed by God, they took away the calves of these cows, "reasoning that if cows new to the yoke would desert their newborn calves -- even temporarily -- to pull a cart all the way to Beth-shemesh, that would be a supernatural sign that the divine owner of the ark had sent the plague against them" (Expositor's Bible Commentary, vol. 3, p. 604). A cow unused to the yoke would not naturally abandon a calf for such a journey, but should they do so, then the God of Israel was obviously directing them. This was their reasoning.
The cows pulled the cart directly to Beth-shemesh, "and they did not turn aside to the right or to the left" (1 Sam. 6:12). They stopped in the field of Joshua the Beth-shemite and stood there by a large stone. The cart was taken apart and the wood was used to build a fire for a burnt offering, which consisted of the two cows, who were offered up to God. The ark was taken by the Levites, who notified the people of Kiriath-jearim, who in turn came and took it to the house of Abinadab. They then "consecrated Eleazar his son to keep the ark of the Lord" (1 Sam. 7:1). It would remain at this location for a great many years. "Not until David's accession as king in Jerusalem would the ark once again be restored to its rightful place of honor -- 2 Sam. 6" (Expositor's Bible Commentary, vol. 3, p. 605). What became of the five golden mice and the five golden hemorrhoids is unknown. Perhaps they are still with the ark of the covenant (the location of which is also unknown to man). Just imagine what a great archaeological discovery that would be should these items ever be found!"

Oooh. Fodder (Raw material, as for artistic creation).

Where's John?

There's john. I hope you aren't too insulted about the little filter. Of course there's always room for discussion about it. Everytime I shut it off the ranting got ugly after while, and some of the women really didn't like the things they got called.

St. Thomas More stood a long while with his head bowed, deep in thought. At length, he carefully placed his hands together before him in an attitude of prayer, then slowly peeled them apart, as though they were hinged along his little fingers.

"Book," said Ezekiel from the sofa. St. Thomas solemnly held up one finger. "One word."

Jesus slumped in his chair, catatonic with boredom. Where Dad had got the idea for these damn 'soirees' he wasn't sure, but this was one fad he couldn't wait to see the back of. They'll get people together who wouldn't otherwise meet, Dad had said, OT folk and NT folk chatting over canapés, throw in some assorted saints, it'll be good for corporate spirit. Jesus suspected he'd been reading up on management theory again. The charades, Dad insisted, made for good bonding. Participation was, of course, entirely voluntary, so long as it was understood that not participating was not an option.

More held up four fingers, then one. "Four syllables - first syllable -" chanted the others. St. Thomas got down on all fours. "Ba-a-ah," he said. "Mmma-a-a-ah."

"Sheep!" said Judith eagerly. "Lamb - er- Lamentations!"

St. Thomas shook his head. "Ba-a-a-ah," he said.

"Sheep - ram - ewe -"

"Utopia," said Jesus wearily. St. Thomas got up, nodded curtly at Jesus, and went back to his chair. Come on people, thought Jesus, how many books do we think this geek knows? He began to get up, trying to think of a title for his own charade that the assembled company might have a chance of getting right. Probably best to lay off movies: last time he'd spent half an hour going round pointing frantically at every saint in the room, and they still hadn't got Goodfellas.

"Hey, you've had lots of goes," protested God. "Let someone else take a turn."

"Fine by me," said Jesus, sinking back into his seat.

"So, who's it gonna be?" asked God brightly. The others avoided his eyes. "Well, if no-one else wants to," God went on, "I guess I -"

"Oh, sure," "Fine!" "Go ahead," came the chorus. Jesus closed his eyes in despair. In the previous soiree's charades, God had done his all-time favourite book: it had taken eleven and a half hours for the guests to work out Preliminary Notes Toward a Definitive Field Guide to the Polyphagous Coleoptera of Costa Rica and Southern Nicaragua. Perhaps it wouldn't have been so bad if he hadn't insisted on doing it as 'whole thing'. As it was, some of the words Jesus had heard St. Teresa of Avila muttering on her way out he'd had to go and look up.

"Book! One word!" they all shouted as God went through the initial motions. Well, that cut it down. God described a circle with his hands. "Whole thing," said Jesus wearily. Best go through the main candidates in order.

"Gen-"

He stopped dead, staring bemused at the small frog that had plopped onto the coffee table in front of him. Another fell beside it, then another. And then -

And then there was a monsoon of frogs raining from the ceiling, guests screaming and trying to cover their heads with their arms; now there were flies and locusts mingled with the frogs, and a driving, stinging hail; and out of the wall materialised a chariot with a furious Egyptian whipping terrified horses, another behind it, and another, frogs squelching messily under the wheels, and following the chariots a wall of green water, engulfing them, men and horses screaming as they were swallowed up -

"Exodus!" shouted Jesus desperately. "It's Exodus!"

The tidal wave abated; as the waters ebbed, the soiree's guests floundered and groaned soggily on the sodden floor. The frogs and insects spiralled toward the ceiling and vanished. God strolled back to his seat, beaming proudly.

"Uh, Dad, you've still got a few things to learn about charades," said Jesus, shaking a last struggling frog from his sleeve. "Number one being you're not allowed to use props."

------------

Well, John was here. Don't be shy, you can call me an idiot for having a filter.

I've got many faults, but acting the prima donna isn't one of them. Honest ;-).

Is that lambentations? Very nice writing. I could never get the back and forth quotations to sound right, so I never got the hang of story writing. It's quite a gift.

"Oh, fuc-"

Arms flailing, Jesus overbalanced and fell headlong down the stone steps, landing face down at the bottom.

"- rying out loud," he finished cautiously. You never knew who might be listening. He levered himself up gingerly, praying he hadn't landed on any beetles. Cussing was one thing, but coleoptericide, involuntary or not, would land him in Dad's bad books for weeks. Dusting himself down, he looked back up to see what he had tripped on. It looked like an ancient wooden staff, carefully wedged across the middle step. "Oh, nice one, Uncle Moses," he muttered. So much for hoping the old mamzer might forgive and forget.

Jesus didn't come down to the Gaps basement that often: well, ever, to be honest. It was cold and damp and dingy - perfect for tenebrionids, Dad said, thus vetoing any ideas about brightening it up. When Uncle Moses had had his Great Falling Out with Dad and moved here from the Patriarchs' Wing, no-one had imagined he'd stay more than a day or two at the outside; but two weeks later he was still here, having his meals sent down by dumb-waiter and sending up by return peremptory demands for toilet paper and soap. Especially soap: the old guy must be getting a cleanliness fetish to go with his paranoia.

Well, it was paranoia, he told his squirming conscience. Dad had tried to convince Moses that the Genesis adaptation didn't mean his original was dud, exactly, just, well, a bit, musty; but would the old fart listen? Half an hour he'd ranted on, how he couldn't believe they hadn't even consulted him but had just gone ahead, replaced his own muscular blank verse with dialogue that'd disgrace a five-year-old, destroyed any semblance of balance ("Four pages on paraglossal adaptations in the Polyphaga?"), and above all how the whole thing was a plot to cheat him out of his royalties. "Look at this," he'd yelled, brandishing the title page: "The right of Adonai Elohim to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988. And where does that leave Moses bar-Levi? Out in the friggin' cold, that's where."

God had tried to deny it at first, laughing it off all hail-fellow-well-met and joshing him about the time he'd turned Moses' staff into a snake then made his hand leprous. Moses had stood there grinding his teeth, and finally burst out "Yeah, yeah, Ad, we all know you're a great one with the party tricks, now what about the fershlugina book? Are you really gonna claim you're the sole author?"

And God said unto Moses, "I AM THAT I AM AND YOU ARE THAT YOU ARE - namely a ferdrayter alter cocker I wouldn't trust to write my laundry list."

Well, that had done it. Moses had drawn on his full dignity and informed God that he'd be moving out of the Patriarch Wing immediately.

"Fine," God had snarled. "There's a room in the basement you can have."

And here he was, down in the damp and dark. Jesus shivered. "Enjoy your trip?" sneered a voice at his side. "Aaah!" shrieked Jesus in alarm, jumping backwards and banging his head on a low alcove. Rubbing the bump, he realised he’d landed on something tubular and metallic, now slowly buckling under his feet. He looked down. So that's where Dad had hidden Mom's trombone. Well, the secret was safe with him: at least now they got a bit of peace in the evenings. "Oh, hi, Uncle Moses," he said with badly feigned equanimity. "Didn't see you there at first."

Moses emerged from the shadows. "Well, I heard a ruckus and thought I'd better investigate," he said. "Oh my, I see you've found my staff for me. I'd been wondering where that'd got to - was kinda hoping someone might stumble across it, know what I mean?" He smiled - well, bared his teeth - and, with some difficulty, wrenched the staff out from its jammed position on the staircase. "So, what brings Number One Son to these lowly parts?"

Jesus hadn't been looking forward to this meeting. But Dad had insisted he come … "Oh, just dropped in to see how you were," he fibbed. "Uh, Mom was wondering if your futon needed cleaning, or anything ..." He trailed off before the old man's flinty gaze.

"Tell your Mom the futon's fine," rasped Moses. "And tell her when it does want cleaning I won't need help from some goys' pin-up girl."

"Right, right," said Jesus hurriedly. "So - ah - what's new, then, Uncle Mo-"

"Enough with the Uncle already," snapped the old man. "You're thirty-three years old. Give or take a couple of thousand, of course. And I'm not your Uncle."

"Uh - right - uh, Moses," gulped Jesus. "You're right, of course. Just force of, uh, habit I guess. Anyhow, now I’m here what do you say we, you know, chew the fat a little. I mean, you must get real out of touch down here, I could catch you up with the latest, you know, news –"

“You think I care from news?” said Moses contemptuously. “In my day I was the news. You think I need to hear about the mewling pantywaists they’ve got running things nowadays?”

“Oh, you made the news in your day all right,” said Jesus, with what he hoped was an ingratiating grin. “They still talk about you bringing out the tribe, slaying the Midianites and most everyone else you and the guys bumped into, then talking to Dad on the mountain and getting the Commandments ‘n’ all. Say, they were in the news again just this week - seems the chief justice of Alabama's Supreme Court has installed a 5,300-pound monument to the Ten Commandments in the state Judicial Building.”

Moses stared at him, aghast. “A graven image?” he hissed. “You mean this Albanian goy has commemorated the Commandments by breaking the second one?”

“Alabaman,” corrected Jesus uncomfortably. “Uh, I don’t think it’s an image of a person or anything,” he went on. “It’s basically the King James version of the Commandments sitting on top of a granite block.”

Moses narrowed his eyes. “This ‘Chief Justice’, how many camels does he have?”

“Well, I don’t think he’s actually got any –“

“Ha!” roared Moses. “No camels. And he calls himself a chief? How many wives?”

“Er, one I suppose –“

“Ha!” roared Moses again. “So the goyische putz can’t satisfy more than one woman at a time. And his tribe, these Alabamans – who are their neighbours?”

Jesus frowned. “Uh, I think it’s the Georgians, the Mississippians, the Floridians -”

“And has this ‘Chief Justice’ led the Alabamans into battle with the Floridians, laying waste their tents, driving off their cattle and putting their people to the edge of the sword, sparing only the virgins for themselves?”

“Well, they might have trouble finding –”

“I thought not,” thundered Moses. “Like I said, pantywaists. And this fool thinks he can make a mockery of me?”

“A mockery?” said Jesus, confused. “Uh, I don’t think that’s what he -”

“A mockery,” bellowed Moses. “Against my express commandment he raises a graven image of that which is mine, to mock me and glorify himself in the eyes of his tribe.”

“No, no, that wasn’t the reason,” stammered Jesus. “He said he put it there because he was concerned about the nation's moral decline.”

“And he thinks setting up a graven altar with words on will make his tribe righteous again?” said Moses incredulously.

“Well, he says the Ten Commandments are the moral foundation of law. I mean, they’re the way you brought Dad’s rules to the Israelites, aren’t they?”

“Oh, sure,” scoffed Moses. “I brought the tablets down from the mountain and found ‘em all dancing bare-assed round a golden calf, remember? I mean, waddaya think I did, stick the Commandments on top of a granite block and say, hey guys, here are some words I’d like you to look at? Or d’ya think I just -” He drew his finger across his throat with a relish that made Jesus shudder.

“I think you just – er …” He made an unconvincing imitation of Moses’ throat-cutting gesture.

“Friggin’ A,” said Moses. “Exodus 32:28: ‘And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses: and there fell of the people that day about three thousand’. That’s the way to deal with moral decline. The only place blocks of granite have in law enforcement is flying through the air in lots of hand-sized chunks.”

“Er, ye-e-es,” said Jesus cautiously. “Up to a point, Unc – er – Moses. But you gotta realise times have changed. However much Chief Justice Moore would like to have sinners stoned, he’s not allowed any more.”

“Not allowed,” sneered Moses contemptuously. “D’you think I asked Pharaoh if I was allowed to bring on the deaths of the first-born? D’you think I asked the Amalekites if I was allowed to put them to the sword? It’s like I said: the man’s a pantywaist.”

“No, honest, Moses, you don’t understand. People don’t do things that way any more.”

Moses stared at him, then nodded slowly. “Course, this goy’s one of your gang, isn’t he? ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone’, all that crapola. So what’s the goddam hypocrite doing with my Commandments?”

Jesus frowned. “Why do you keep saying your Commandments?” he asked. “Surely they’re Dad’s? Didn’t you get them direct from him, up on Sinai?”

“Your old man handed down a few ideas, certainly,” said Moses coldly. “Mostly to do with what people could and couldn’t do to beetles, as I recall. So I smiled and nodded and took them down, then edited them a bit.”

“Edited them?” gasped Jesus. “You edited Dad’s Commandments?”

“Look,” said Moses stonily. “I’ve gone down in history as the guy who brought divine moral authority to his people. If I’d come down the mountain with what your father gave me I’d be remembered as the short-lived bearer of Laws Concerning The Public Evisceration Of Anyone Found With Little Leggy Bits Stuck To The Soles Of His Sandals. Did us both a favour in the end. I mean, don’t you think ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me’ sounds better than ‘Thou shalt not like any insects better than beetles especially those damn show-off butterflies’? And how long d’you think I’d have lasted if I’d stuck with ‘for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate weevils’?”

“I see,” said Jesus weakly. “And the one about the graven images?”

“I had to put my foot down there. Your father had said ‘Thou shalt make unto thee graven images of the entire Order Coleoptera, starting with the Polyphaga, with the Adephaga to follow’. Seems he had the idea of using the tribe as unpaid lithograph artists to illustrate this beetle catalogue he was planning. Anyhow, I put in a judicious ‘not’ and threw in ‘or of any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth’, so’s not to leave any loopholes. Let him draw his own damn pictures, we had better things to do.”

“Uh, right. And ‘Thou shalt not take the name of …’?”

“’- the dung beetle in vain’. Your old man got very sensitive about people making fun of his handiwork. That’s why he added ‘Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, but shalt put fake antennae on thy head and push six-foot-high balls of camel poopy round the yard all day’. I just cut the end off that one, like I did with ‘Thou shalt not kill holometabolous hexapods with adecticous, exarate pupae and mesothorax and metathorax combined to form a pterothorax’ and ‘Thou shalt not steal cotton from boll weevils’.”

Jesus frowned. “But what about ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery’? I mean -”

“Well, OK, that was a bit of a stretch from ‘Thou shalt not make smutty jokes about cockchafers’, but my wife had told me to be sure to get the adultery thing in somewhere, and that seemed as good a place as any. Then in place of ‘Thou shalt leave the lid of the bread bin loose so flour beetles can get in’, I slipped in ‘Honour thy father and thy mother’. That one was Zipporah’s idea too. She always was keen that our son should honour her.”

“And did he?”

“Well, not at first. But then she publicly circumcised him with a sharp stone and threw his foreskin at his feet, and he didn’t give her a lot of lip after that.” Moses paused reflectively. “Anyhow,” he continued, “That was the Eight Commandments sorted.”

“Eight? But -”

“Your old man came with eight. But I needed to add a couple to get me out of a spot of bother. See, there was this fink in the tent next door kept spreading rumours that I was shtupping my maidservant."

"And were you?"

"Well sure. But that's not the point, this guy was undermining my authority. Anyway, he was only kvetching about it 'cos he fancied her himself. So I added IX Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour and X Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's maidservant, then hightailed it back down the mountain to organise the shmuck's stoning."

“But wasn’t Dad mad when he found you’d changed his Commandments?”

“Oh, he never used to proof-read anything he’d dictated. It was always the same – he’d drone on about paying proper respect to ladybugs or whatever, I’d scribble away, smile, nod, grovel a bit, then go and tell the tribe whatever was good for business. He never checked. I remember the time my stupid brother-in-law bought ten gross of badgers’ skins from an Ishmaelite wholesaler who swore they were going to be next year’s to-die-for fashion item. Damn near bankrupted the dumb fink. So he comes to good ol’ Moses, offers 50% if I can get the schmutters off his hands, and before you know it you got Exodus 35: ‘And Moses spake unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, saying, This is the thing which the LORD commanded: whosoever is of a willing heart, let him bring an offering of the LORD; gold, and silver, yada, yada, yada, And rams’ skins dyed red, and’ – waddaya know – ‘badgers’ skins’. We cleaned up - unloaded the whole ten gross at thirty shekels apiece. Oh, and next time the Ishmaelite came callin’ he found the skins really were to die for.”

Jesus was nodding thoughtfully. “You know, when we were going over Exodus Dad was puzzled about that – swore he couldn’t remember ordering any badger skins. He didn’t remember asking for all that interior decoration in chapters 36 through 40, either.”

Moses shrugged. “Well, Zipporah’s sister dabbled in curtains and engravings and things, so we thought we’d put a bit of business her way. You remember Aholiab, son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan, an engraver, and a cunning workman, and an embroiderer in blue, and in purple, and in scarlet, and fine linen, free estimates, no job too big or small? That was her trade name: I mean, we could hardly let on that a woman was decorating the tabernacle, could we? She had to wear this long fake beard, always complained it tickled her ti–”

“Anyway,” said Jesus hurriedly, “That brings me to what I came for –”

“You mean it wasn’t just to chew the fat with your old Uncle?” said Moses innocently. “Check on his futon, bring him some news …?”

Jesus flushed. “Well, that, but also … Dad wanted me to bring you your copy of the Exodus re-write.” He produced the slim volume from his pocket and handed it over hesitantly. Moses took it as he might a decaying fish.

“Your father wants me to check it? Proof-read it? Approve it?”

Jesus gulped. “Uh – no, I think what he said was ‘choke on it’,” he said reluctantly.

Moses riffled through the half dozen or so pages. “It would appear to be three pages, double-spaced in very big letters on one side of the paper,” he observed with ominous calm. "You've cut it a bit, then."

Jesus swallowed nervously. "Well, the book was thirty-four thousand and thirty-eight words," he said. "It really needed trimming."

"And you trimmed it to how many words, exactly?"

Jesus looked at the floor. “Two hundred and three,” he said.

“Not one of which, it seems, is spelled M-o-s-e-s.”

“Well, Dad wanted to break away from the, er, personality cult thing –”

“Well I’ll read it later,” Moses said placidly. “When I’m sitting down. Tell them upstairs I’m OK for toilet paper for a day or two, will you? No doubt you can find your own way out.” He turned and began to walk away, then called back "Oh, and thank you for finding my staff."

Jesus swallowed. “Er - ‘bye, then …” He turned to mount the steps.

A few paces down the passage Moses paused, listening. Almost at once there was a wail, then a series of thumps and thuds followed by a stream of curses.

“Oh, my!” Moses called out happily, “I see you’ve found my soap as well.”

Lightning flickered at the high Gothic windows, momentarily highlighting in an eerie glare the two figures crouched over the motionless form on the slab. "Nearly time," breathed the taller of the two. "Take the readings again." The other, his back hunched grotesquely, shuffled across to the great bank of dials that covered one wall.

"TCA cycle?" said the first.

"Running."

"Pentose phosphate shunt?"

"Cocked and ready."

"Axon potentials?"

"Steady at minus 60."

Outside, the storm was reaching its height. The first figure seized a huge circuit breaker, counting down aloud; then, as a great lightning bolt crackled above them, he pulled it down. "NOW!"

The two stared intently at the creature on the slab, then the hunched figure gasped aloud as its legs jerked convulsively. "Jesus Christ, you've done it - it's - it's alive."

"I told you I had the power," said the other exultantly. "No-one would believe me, they laughed at me, but I've done it - we've done it - you and me, Igor."

"For the last time, will you drop the Igor thing?" said the hunchback plaintively. "My name's Pete, remember? And can I take this damned hump off now?"

"Spoilsport," said Jesus, as the other reached behind his back and pulled the pillow from under his shirt. "Just get into the spirit of things for once, why can't you?"

On the slab the beetle continued to wave its legs in the air. "Jeez, don't you think you should turn it over?" said Peter. "Make sure it runs properly?"

"Of course it'll run," snapped Jesus. "D'you know how many of these my Dad made back in the old days? Listen, when our firm makes coleopterans we make 'em high-spec - none of your production line garbage. And now I'm a full partner. From now on it's Yahweh and Son, suppliers of quality hexapods for the discerning universe. Go on, flip it over - then you'll see precision engineering in action."

Peter carefully turned the insect over onto its legs. It waved its antennae for a few seconds, then put a foreleg forward uncertainly. "Go on," breathed Jesus, "Go on, you little beauty -"

The beetle started to plod forward. Almost immediately its middle legs entangled with those before and behind, and it fell flat: the port antenna broke off, while the starboard elytrum swung open, tipping the insect onto its side. It waggled its legs frantically for a few seconds, then, with a very small sigh, imploded.

There was a long silence. At length Peter said awkwardly, "Well, it was a good try, Jeez."

Jesus was still staring disconsolately at the slab. "It's not fair!" he moaned. "I mean, it always worked for Dad - what's he got that I haven't got?"

Peter hesitated, then said, "Hey, lighten up, man, who needs another friggin' beetle anyway? And even if you did there's plenty of new species evolving all the time -"

"Peter!" came a severe voice from the doorway, "I've told you before, we do not use the e-word in this house."

Peter went pale as God walked into the room. "Uhh - of course when I say friggin' beetle," he stuttered, "I don't mean that in any - disrespectful - way - oh poopy." He ran out. God watched him go benignly, then as the footsteps faded snapped his fingers. There was a distant shriek and a series of thuds. God shook his head and sighed. "We really must get that stair-rail fixed. So, what've you boys been up to all afternoon?"

He strolled across to the slab and looked down in amusement at the small deflated corpse. "Ha!" he scoffed, "Amateur Night, eh?" He prodded the wreckage with a finger. "You didn't really expect this thing would run, did you? Not with this much gamma-amino butyrate in it." He looked around mystified at the dials and switches and the great capacitors hung from the ceiling. "And what the fudge is all this junk?"

Jesus reddened. "It just seemed - sort of - appropriate. It's how they do this kind of thing in the" - he swallowed - "in the movies."

God guffawed. "And of course, they'd know," he said scornfully. "I suppose that's why you asked me to lay on all the lightning and stuff too?"

"Uhh, yeah," mumbled Jesus, shuffling from one foot to the other. "Sorry if it put you to any, you know, trouble -"

God raised a hand placatingly. "Hey, no sweat. To be honest, I enjoy whipping up the odd storm now and again - reminds me of the old days, know what I mean? 'And the LORD sent thunder and rain that day: and all the people greatly feared the LORD', that kinda schtick. But in future do me a favour, will ya, and leave the creating to me?"

"OK, Dad," sighed Jesus.

"I mean, what were you gonna try next?" God went on, "Your own little Big Bang?"

Jesus frowned. "You know, I've been meaning to ask you about that. I mean, what was there before the Big Bang? And if what was there before was so lousy, why did you wait to have the Big Bang when you did and not a zillion aeons before? Or is it that there wasn't such a thing as before, on account of if there was no time then nothing could be before what came after 'cos what came after was no more after than before was?"

"Er -"

"And why did it have to be a Bang, anyway?" Jesus went on. "I mean, some people would call that, you know, grandstanding? Like, you could just as well have started everything off with a Small Fzzt or a Medium-Sized Slrrrrp. Who were you trying to impress?"

"Hey, it's a figure of speech," protested God. "It didn't sound anything like a Bang, if you must know." He leaned forward confidingly. "In fact - and this is real uncanny - one day I played the recording backwards and it sounded exactly like three Mexicans wrapping a goat in Cling-Film."

Jesus stared at him. "Oh wow," he said woodenly. "I mean, spooky or what?"

God shook his head slowly. "Friggin' A," he said.

"So ... anyway ...," continued Jesus, "After the Big ... Mexican Goat-Wrapping ... Unwrapping, whatever ... then what?"

"I was creating my ass off for six days, that's what. Don't you ever read?"

"Course I do, dad. We did the Genesis re-write together, remember? But we never really covered ... you know ... why. Why we're all here, where we all come from -"

God sighed. "Y'shua, I thought I'd explained all that. You see, when a Daddy beetle and a Mommy beetle love each other very much, the Daddy beetle plants a seed inside - "

"No, I mean what it's all about?" said Jesus. "Like, everything? Life, the Universe, Everything? Why are we here? What's it all for? I mean, dammit Dad," - his arms flailed helplessly - "What's the meaning of existence?"

God sighed with relief. "Is that all? Jeez, I thought you were really putting me on the spot there for a minute. Well, see, what it's all about is -"

"Aaargh - damn - OWW!" Jesus had tripped over something on the floor, and sat rubbing a bruised elbow.

"Uhh - you OK?" said God indifferently. Jesus was staring malevolently at a scruffy white cat, which lay stretched out stiff and motionless on the carpet while simultaneously sitting up and licking its paw complacently. "It's that friggin' moggy of yours, getting underfoot again," he complained.

"Don't go blaming Erwin for your own clumsiness," said God sharply. He bent down and petted the cat. "Ooh, did the nasty man put his big clumsy foot on oo, den ..." The cat purred, rubbing its head against God's sleeve without disturbing its rigor mortis by so much as a millimetre.

"Any normal family that wanted a cat would get a Persian or a Tabby," grumbled Jesus. "But oh no, we've got to have Schrödinger's. At least a Persian would just pee on the bedspreads, not decompose over them at the same time. And I saw it eat a beetle last week," he added vindictively.

"Yeah, but he simultaneously didn't eat the beetle," God said indulgently. "Did oo, sweetums? Dat was just a naughty little quantum superposition, wasn't it, Daddy's little squared probability amplitude?" He cleared his throat. "Anyhow, like I was saying, the meaning of existence -"

"So this is where you two have been skulking!"

"Oh ... hello, dear," said God as Mary bustled into the room. "We were just -"

"I suppose this is your doing?" Mary shrilled. She waved an arm toward the window, where a few last slivers of lightning flickered in the gloomy sky.

"The storm?" said God nervously. "Uh - Y'shua asked me if I'd lay one on for him. Artistic ambience, or some crapola. You know ... kids ..." He trailed off lamely.

Jesus flinched as Mary rounded on him. "Uhh ... it was, you know, for atmosphere, Mom. Sort of ... necessary backdrop, know what I mean?"

"But it's Thursday!" Mary yelled. "You know that's my tennis day. We got soaked out there. And worse, Joan got struck. Twice." She pointed to the doorway, where a crisply blackened figure just recognisable as St. Joan of Arc glowered at them, smouldering slightly.

"Hey, Joanie" said God cheefully. "Just like old times, eh? I always said you'd never be able to quit smoking."

Joan turned on her heel and stalked away, jabbering furiously: Jesus's French wasn't too hot, but he caught the word 'chatte' and wondered vaguely why Joan thought the cat was female. "Umm - sorry if we spoiled your tennis, Mom," he muttered.

"I don't understand what you see in that stupid game anyway," snorted God. "You only started playing 'cos all the Opus Dei crowd are into it. I mean, what other attraction could there be?" He sniggered. "Unless you're drawn by the hairy balls."

Mary stared at him for a moment, then nodded slowly. "Yup, that's it," she said. "Hairy balls. And the chance to smash the poopy out of them with stretched catgut. You wouldn't believe what a buzz that gives a girl." She turned and swept away.

God watched her go. "Of all the friggin' virgins in all of friggin' Palestine, I had to go and choose - "

"'Of all the virgin joints in all the towns in all the world, I have to walk into hers'," said Jesus brightly.

God stared at him. "What?" he said at length. Jesus flushed. "Never mind," he muttered. "Movie stuff. Uh, you were saying? About the meaning of existence?"

"Oh yeah," said God vaguely. "See, what I had in mind was -" He broke off, looking toward the doorway. "And to what do we owe this unexpected pleasure?" he said coldly.

Jesus turned and was startled to see Moses standing there, dripping wet and trailing a sodden futon on the floor behind him. "The basement has flooded," announced the old man with icy dignity.

"And?" snapped God.

"And, I understand from that goys' pin-up you are pleased to call your good lady that it's all down to your boy here" - Moses jerked his head disdainfully at Jesus - "wanting to amuse himself with a nice thunderstorm. And as your good lady for all her shameless pandering to idolatry at least has some notion of decent behaviour toward a senior citizen, she has said I can have his room until the basement's dried out." He turned to Jesus, held out the futon and let it drop squelchily onto the carpet. "In the meantime," he said, "This is all yours. Sleep on it in good health." He turned and strode quickly away.

Jesus turned back to God, struggling for words. "Dad - you can't just let - I mean, I know Mom's mad but - this isn't fair! You've got to do something!"

"I don't know," said God uneasily. "I really don't think I should get involved -"

"Get involved?" shouted Jesus. "You mean you're gonna let this happen? You're gonna let that old fart have my room? But I'm getting screwed here. Can't you see, I'm -"

"Now calm down," said God. "I'm sure the basement will be dry in a week or two. Anyway, I thought you wanted to know the meaning of existence? See, it's all about -"

"- getting comprehensively SCREWED!" yelled Jesus, throwing up his hands in despair and running from the room.

God looked down at the cat, spreading his hands in bewilderment. "So how come he asks, if he knows all along?"

Wonderful John. Thanks.

Cuppla emerods above me there on the thread!

I'm up to VIII. Thanks John. I like to have lots of time to read your stuff carefully, it's so layered.

Funny, now I CAN imagine Charlton Heston as Moses.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was ‘zyqxizx’.

“OK,” said God happily, “So that’s ‘z’ on a triple letter score, triple word score, plus double points for using all seven letters –”

“Are you sure that’s a real word?” asked Jesus suspiciously. “I mean, is it in the dictionary?”

“Of course,” snapped God. “What, you think I’d cheat or something?”

“Well no,” said Jesus. “I just wondered what it meant, that’s all.”

“Don’t you know anything? It’s Early East Toltec. A small obsidian cooking pot used in the ritual preparation of iguanas’ kidneys.”

“OK, but is it in the diction– oh, never mind.” It would be by the time he looked, he knew from bitter experience. Half-heartedly he put a ‘t’ down next to the ‘i’. “’It’,” he muttered sullenly. “Two points.” He flushed at Dad’s unconcealed snickering.

Already Dad was laying his next tiles, extending from the ‘q’ of his first word with several more z’s and x’s. (As well as being robustly expansionist with vocabularies, God never saw any need to be constrained by the numbers of each letter supplied with the game.) He’d made ‘qzoxxzi’: no doubt a Maori ceremonial corn-plaster, or Middle Finno-Ugaritic for the spring loading mechanism of an elk trap. Jesus sighed inwardly. It’d be at least another two hours before Dad’s inevitable nine-thousand-and-forty-six-to-seventeen victory, unless he could distract him and get the game abandoned.

"Say," he said brightly, "Did you see that Christian Coalition of America press release? Seems over 15,000 people attended the 2002 God Bless America Conference. D'you think you will?"

"Will what? Hey, are you going to lay any tiles today, or what?"

"Bless America," Jesus pressed on doggedly.

God shrugged. "Well, as primates go they seem OK. Hell, with the contribution they've made to world culture and history, why not? Fine people, for bipeds. Yeah, go on, bless 'em. Now go on and lay some tiles, for my sake." He paused expectantly. "And of course they had it pretty rough with the Turks massacring 'em and all," he added conversationally.

Jesus winced. "Uh, Dad, that's Armenia."

God looked at him, baffled. "No, it says ‘qzoxxzi’: it's Middle Finno-Ugaritic for the spring lo-"

"No, Dad, it's Armenia you just blessed. I was talking about the Christian Coalition of America."

God frowned. "America. America," he muttered, perplexed. "Doesn't ring any bells. Big place, is it? As big as Armenia, I mean?"

Jesus waved an arm despairingly. "Dad, it's America. Where the movies come from. Tom Hanks, remember? You said Forrest Gump reminded you of me? And this Christian Coalition is real big-time. I mean, its President is Roberta Combs, for crying out loud. The Roberta Combs."

"Ha!" came Mary's voice from the sofa. "So what's this Roberta Combs person got that suddenly makes her so special?"

"Well, she describes herself as mother of two and grandmother of one -"

"Strike two," said Mary bitterly. She went back to her New Covenant Book of Pork Recipes.

"I've got a print-out of the press release here somewhere," Jesus continued. "Yeah, here - 'Many members of the liberal media inaccurately reported our Road to Victory conference as the revival of the Christian Coalition, when in fact we have always been here, this movement is alive, we aren't going anywhere -"

"That I can believe," God muttered.

"'And will continue to affect social change in America," noted Dr. Pat Robertson, Founder and President Emeritus of the organization'. Uh, I think he means 'effect'."

God shrugged indifferently. "Look, are you gonna lay any tiles -?"

Jesus pressed on. "'We had thousands of people come out and join us to hear about abortion, Internet pornography -'"

"Yes, I've been meaning to ask you what you look at on that machine so late into the night," began God. Jesus reddened and ploughed on. "'We have had over 40 million sinful abortions since Roe v. Wade -'"

"So they're not what you'd call pro-choice," said Mary. Jesus looked at her in surprise. "Why, are you?" he asked incredulously. Mary shrugged. "Not sure. I mean, I don't recall the big-shot Archangel offering me a choice," she said. "Perhaps if he had ..."

"'And until we are Godly'," Jesus hastened on, "'And understand the need to adhere to God's desires and wishes, we will suffer and be punished'."

"And this Robertson guy is one of the 'Godly', is he?" said God slowly. "One of the ones who knows my desires and wishes?"

"So it would seem," said Jesus cautiously.

"Then he'll know that I desire and wish you to lay your friggin' tiles."

Jesus gave in. "OK, OK," he muttered. "There, two more points. So anyway, you gonna bless America or not?"

God inclined his head to one side. "I'm thinking about it," he said. "This Robertson guy, does he speak for all of 'em?"

Jesus frowned. "Says here the Coalition is America's largest Christian grassroots organization with more than 2 million supporters. Gosh, that's nearly one percent of the population."

"So 99% of them aren't like him?"

"Uh ... apparently not."

"Then they're in with a chance," said God.




Exterior: the walls of Jericho. Day.

PAN along the wall; parapets lined with soldiers. ZOOM to C/U on their CAPTAIN, who we can see is a slimy, treacherous coward (memo to casting: find some Brit). His brow is beaded with sweat, he licks his lips nervously: he glances toward his bow and arrows stacked by the wall a few feet away, and then back to -

CUT to JOSHUA, standing with feet apart and arms akimbo before the wall: behind him are seven priests with seven trumpets.

JOSHUA: I know what you're thinkin' punk. You're thinkin', did he march those priests round the walls seven

times, or only six? Well, to tell you the truth I kinda lost count myself in all this excitement. But being this here's the 44 Ramshorn, the most powerful B flat trumpet in the world, and would blow your walls clean down, you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well do ya, punk?

CUT to CAPTAIN, trembling and wide-eyed with panic. His nerve breaks and he lunges clumsily for his bow.

CUT to Joshua: he brings his arm down, and there is a blast on the trumpets.

CUT to CAPTAIN, who is aiming his bow shakily toward JOSHUA.

CAPTAIN: Eat bronze, you son of a bi- - aaaaarghhhh.

CUT to CGI montage of walls tumbling down, falling soldiers, rubble, etc.

As the dust settles, PAN from horribly mangled body of CAPTAIN to JOSHUA.

JOSHUA: You don't listen, do ya, as$hole?

Jesus sat back from the keyboard and rubbed his hands in glee. And they'd tried to tell him writing screenplays was difficult. He'd show 'em. Now, what came next? Oh yeah, verse 21: 'And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword'.

Oh sh!t, another massacre to justify. And as if the 'man and woman, young and old' bit wasn't hard enough, this time he'd have PETA on to him about the ox, sheep, and ass as well. OK, let's get on with it.

Exterior: a street in Jericho two hours later. Day.

TRACKING SHOT of Israelite SERGEANT running up the street toward JOSHUA.

SERGEANT: Sir, Sir, we've been trying to spare the civilians like you ordered, but they keep throwing

themselves onto our swords. Look.

The SERGEANT turns and points behind him with his sword: immediately a Jericho GRANDMOTHER leaps from a doorway and impales herself on it. The SERGEANT shakes her off, then holds his sword up above his head out of harm's way. From a balcony above him, a crazed Jericho MOTHER drops two babies and the family cat onto the sword.

SERGEANT: (staring at the kebab) Aw sh!t, don't you just hate it when that happens?

CUT to another soldier running up the street toward JOSHUA. He is a raw country boy of about 17.

SOLDIER: Sir, Sir, every ox, and sheep, and ass in the city has rabies!

JOSHUA: (grimly) You know what you have to do, Sergeant.

SERGEANT: See to it, soldier.

SOLDIER: But ... the calves ... those big soulful eyes - I can't -

The SERGEANT puts a kindly hand on his shoulder and leads him off to do his duty. CUT to C/U of JOSHUA.

JOSHUA: (though clenched teeth) War is hell.

Jesus re-read the lines exultantly. Hot damn, he was on form today. Roll over Steven Spielberg, this'll knock 'em dead - not a dry eye in the house. OK, bring on verse 22 and we'll go for the big emotional climax: 'But Joshua had said unto the two men that had spied out the country, Go into the harlot’s house, and bring out thence the woman, and all that she hath, as ye sware unto her. And the young men that were spies went in, and brought out Rahab, and her father, and her mother, and her brethren, and all that she had'.

He narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. Tricky; but hey, the public had gone for the hooker-with-the-heart-of-gold shtick often enough, once more wouldn't hurt. He set to work ...

Ten minutes later he was reading the final lines aloud.

RAHAB Josh, Josh, where are you going?

JOSHUA I'm going to Sh!ttim. Back where I belong.

RAHAB Please, please take me with you.

JOSHUA No. I'm through with everything here. I want peace. I want to see if somewhere there is something

left in life with charm and grace. Do you know what I'm talking about?

RAHAB No. I only know that I love you.

JOSHUA That's your misfortune.

RAHAB Josh! If you go, where shall I go? What shall I do?

JOSHUA Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn.

Jesus wiped away a tear. Now they'd fade on Joshua walking away from the burning city toward the sunset; and roll credits. He might as well use verse 25 as a voice-over: 'And Joshua saved Rahab the harlot alive, and her father’s household, and all that she had; and she dwelleth in Israel even unto this day ...'.

He frowned. That last bit sounded wrong. I mean, no-one was gonna believe the broad was still living there three thousand years later. He stroked his chin thoughtfully. Perhaps writing the OT screenplay wasn't such a cinch: after all, it wouldn't do for it to end up sounding like a fairy tale.

Greetings from Massachusetts!

Edem

8^)

Welcome.

Whereabouts in Massachusetts?

Innocent will probably be pleased. I left invites for who I could, but got locked out of the email and PM program at the end. Sorry to see the Gaps go.

Hi Ed!

Hey John!

It's always a delight to read the latest chapters.

I tried to contact Bre a while ago; she replied and then the Gaps and her own site disappeared and I couldn't re-connect. But...

I've been rather busy with the parental duties. Ellis, just turned 7, is now involved in soccer and baseball and school and Hebrew school and.... and Adam, well, Adam's almost 9 months old. I sleep when they let me.

I don't know how much I'll contribute (see above) but it's nice knowing you folks are out there...

Blessed be Gaps forever. Amen.

Somerville.

Grandparental duties for me. Sam, 7 weeks.

Best,

J

More chapters, please.

Thanks.

"Uhh - Dad?"

There was no reply: God's motionless form remained sprawled across the recliner, head lolling, eyes closed and mouth open.

Jesus tried again, a little louder. "Dad? Dad?" Still no response. He felt an absurd unease. Surely ... surely Dad wasn't ... I mean, everyone knew Nietzsche had been talking out of his -

He panicked. "DAD! Oh, no! No! OH MY GOD!"

God twitched. "Fnrf. Srtr. Zswrd?" He jerked bolt upright, eyes wide. "Let there be litotes. Make thee an ark of gopher droppings. For I the Lord thy God am a banana daiquiri -" God stared around wildly. "Whassup? Wha' happ'nin'?"

"Uhh ... it's me, Dad."

God blinked several times, and finally focused on Jesus. "You ... woke me up?" he said at length. Jesus nodded nervously. "You woke me up?" God repeated incredulously.

"Sorry, Dad," gulped Jesus. "I, uh, I needed to ask you a coupla things. I've nearly finished Judges, but there are some bits I'm kinda hung up on."

God levered the recliner upright. "One lousy book," he grumbled. "I leave him to adapt one lousy book, and can he do it himself, no he has to come and interrupt my nap, my precious nap for cryin' out loud ... OK, what's the problem?"

"Well first off there's chapter 1 verse 19: 'And the LORD was with Judah; and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron'."

"Judah," muttered God, "Judah, Judah - oh yeah, I remember. So like I said, what's the problem?"

"For Pete's sake Dad, think about it. He's got you with him, but between you, you can't beat these valley people 'cos they've got iron chariots? I mean, what happened to the omnipotence thing?"

"The iron chariots weren't the half of it," said God. "We sent an emissary to the inhabitants of the valley to learn their language, and he came back saying 'These guys are like WAY cool, they asked, like, waddaya think of the chariots, and I'm, like, Hello, you people act like I'm, like, some total dweeb, I mean like, gag me with a spoon or what but it's not like I've never seen iron before, and they're like, Omigawd, you Israelites and your, like, TOTALLY mega-cool humour, let's go hang in the mall, 'kay?' So Judah and the boys voted to give the valley a miss."

"Ri-i-ight," said Jesus cautiously. "OK, I'll find a way of working round that. But I've got more of a problem with Jephthah."

"Uhh - which one was he?"

"The one who burned his daughter for you."

God's brow wrinkled a moment, then cleared. "Oh, yeah, I remember. Nice girl. Tell the truth, I'd 've preferred a good meaty bullock, but you take what you can get. How's this a problem?"

Jesus gritted his teeth. "Dad, we're writing a movie for the modern family audience, remember? Wholesome clean-cut heroes don't barbecue their virgin daughters; and nice, cuddly, caring deities don't just let them."

God shrugged. "What could I do?"

Jesus stared at him incredulously. "What could you do? You could 've stopped him, for Pete's sake. I mean, you stopped Abraham sacrificing what's-his-name, Isaac."

God waved a hand irritably. "That was different."

Jesus folded his arms. "In what way different, exactly?"

God hesitated. "Well ... Gabe and me had a major bet on whether this Jephthah schmuck'd go through with it." He smiled smugly. "Needless to say, I won."

"Dad ... how ..." Jesus struggled for words. "How could you?"

"It was a no-brainer," protested God. "Anyone dumb enough to promise he'll sacrifice 'whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me' and then be totally gobsmacked when it turns out to be his own kid, has got to be dumb enough to go ahead and do it. I mean, who did he expect would run out of his front door to hug him when he got home - King Nebuchadnezzar? Pass me that book. Yeah, here we are, listen to this: 'And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me'. That had me 'n' Gabe in stitches: she's gonna get griddled, 'n' the creep's kvetching how much aggravation she's giving him. Oy, the low-lifes I had to work with in those days, you just wouldn't believe."

Jesus sighed. "Yeah, poor you, Dad. But I still don't see how we're gonna dress this one up so you 'n' Jephthah come out of it looking good."

God frowned thoughtfully, then brightened. "We'll play up how it was the dumb bunny's own choice to get fried. Look - 'And she said unto him, My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth unto the LORD, do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth'. See? Her decision, me 'n' Jeff off the hook."

"That does not let you off the -" Jesus began hotly.

"In fact," God went on, "We'll make it clear she was a suicidal fruitcake with, oh I dunno, terminal PMT or something. See here, 'And she said unto her father, let me alone two months, that I may go up and down upon the mountains, and bewail my virginity'. That sound like any normal well-balanced chick to you? Running up and down mountains caterwauling about not getting laid? Who'd she think she was, Julie friggin' Andrews?"

"But you -" began Jesus again, but again God steamrollered effortlessly on.

"And finally she runs back down the mountain, dodges Jeff's last desperate running tackle, and throws herself straight in the fire. And it was a custom in Israel, That the daughters of Israel went yearly to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in a year, on account of her being such a total airhead. End of story."

"But Dad -"

"End of story," God repeated emphatically.

Jesus closed his eyes. What was the use? "Yes Dad," he said dispiritedly.

"So," said God, "You got any other textual problems you need me to solve for you, or do I get to finish my nap?"

"Well ..." said Jesus hesitantly.

"Yes?" sighed God. "Out with it."

"Well, there's the whole Samson thing."

God blinked. "Samson? Samson? But he's one the most popular characters in the whole damn book. What 've you got against Samson, for crying out loud?"

Jesus took a deep breath. "OK, for one thing we're meant to believe he killed a thousand men with the jawbone of an ass. Now, leaving aside the question of whether this was in any way justifiable homicide, just how credible is it? What, they all waited in line while he took 'em out one by one, like some lame martial arts movie?"

God raised a hand in protest. "Hey, hey, two minutes ago you were complaining I didn't do the omnipotence thing with the iron chariots. Now you're complaining my boy's too omnipotent for you?"

Jesus gave him a hard look. "Well even if you were working his strings, and I'm not convinced, couldn't you have used some smarter prop than the jawbone of an ass? I mean it all sounds so, y'know, Conan the Barbarian. People'll never take it seriously."

"That remains to be seen. Any other problems?"

"Yeah. He's stupid. And when I say stupid, I mean brain-dead stupid. Like, Delilah makes three blatant attempts to get him captured and killed, so the fourth time he tells her exactly how she can do it. Congratulations contestant Samson-bar-Manoah, you have posted a new world record for stupid. Look, Dad, audiences don't go for dumb hunks any more. It was OK for Weismuller to have the IQ of a tree, and sure, Schwarzenegger could never aim that high, but nowadays people expect the brawn to come with a brain on top."

"Hmmm. And?"

"And, the guy's an animal abuser. Look here: 'And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took firebrands, and turned tail to tail, and put a firebrand in the midst between two tails..' Can you imagine what PETA will say about that?"

"So ... overall?"

"Overall? Overall, he's a stupid barbarian psycho. OK, that might put him in good company in this particular book, but most of the others we can do something with. Face it, this guy's a write-off."

God sighed. "Y'shua, have you ever heard the word 'satire'?"

"Huh?"

"Or 'irony'? Look, Samson-bar-Manoah was a clerk in the accounts office at the Timnath vineyard. He was about your build - five-three, 130 pounds, short-sighted - and boy, was he boring. A kind of standing joke grew up in the locality, that the little ass had bored a thousand men to death just with his jawbone. You see any pattern emerging here?"

"Er -"

"Anyway, you know how it is with urban myths, someone takes a story and runs with it, and pretty soon everyone's believing it. I mean, Sam started going around with this 260-pound stenographer called Delilah, and she was always nagging him to get his hair cut, and -"

"OK, Dad, I get the picture," said Jesus wearily. He frowned. "But where do the foxes come in?"

God sighed again. "Y'shua, even clerks can snap. One day in the office he got so pissed off with Delilah's nagging and everyone laughing at him, he set fire to three hundred faxes."

"Ohh," said Jesus. "Of course. Sorry" He turned and walked toward the door, then stopped, frowning in puzzlement. "Faxes? Hey, wait a minute, this was -"

But God was fast asleep.




"You cannot be serious," protested Jesus. "It'll make us a laughing stock. Just cut it, why can't you? I mean, you cut the whole Book of Ruth -"

God waved a dismissive arm. "Pure chick-lit," he sneered. "Sam One is a different ball-game. And I say chapter five stays in."

"But -"

"IT STAYS IN."

Jesus slumped in his seat. "OK," he said heavily, "You're the boss. You want to make a Farrelly Brothers comedy, you got it." Teeth clenched, he high-lighted, copied then pasted into the screenplay: 'And they laid the ark of the LORD upon the cart, and the coffer with the mice of gold and the images of their emerods'.

"Happy now?" he said bitterly. "You have the holiest object on earth sharing an ox-cart with five gold mice and -" He swallowed. "Five gold haemorrhoids."

God shrugged, spreading his hands. "Look, is it my fault the Philistines were that dumb? Send piles of gold, I told 'em. When I saw what they'd come up with, I was so wasted laughing my ass off I just let it go. So anyway, what comes next?"

Jesus scrolled down the screen. "Uh, Sam finds Saul, Saul and Jonathan get into a few scrapes, there's the obligatory genocide at Amalek, 'slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass' - Dad, didn't you ever get tired of working with psychopaths?"

God shrugged again. "I worked with whoever'd get the job done. You call 'em psychopaths; I prefer to think of 'em as ... thorough."

"Yeah, well, infant and suckling, you don't get any more thorough than that," muttered Jesus sourly. He brightened. "Hey, but we're coming to the David and Goliath bit. Now there's a story we can really go to town on - clean-cut young hero, a villain the audience'll love booing, the underdog beating the bully. What a movie. We could sign up the kid who plays Harry Potter. Or do you think Elijah Wood?"

"Do I think Elijah would what?" said God, baffled. "He's still two books away. Get a grip, for Pete's sake."

"No, Elijah Woo- - oh, never mind," said Jesus. "OK, let's see how we're gonna present this one. In the red corner we've got Goliath of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span ... uhh, what's that, six times one-and-a-half plus ... nine feet nine?" He frowned. "You really think people 're gonna believe that? What is this, Hulk?"

God shrugged. "Well, maybe the writers exaggerated a little. Seven feet, tops. Perhaps six-eight. Still a big guy. For a primate putz," he added sotto voce.

"And in the blue corner," continued Jesus, "We've got David son of Jesse, ruddy, and withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to ..." He cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Should we play that down a bit? Some of the, uh, real fervent believers - you know, SBC 'n' all - they get a bit twitchy about boys being too, uh, pretty. Specially with the Jonathan thing coming up later."

"Whatever," said God indifferently.

Jesus frowned. "And we're going to have to do something about the fight too. OK, on the surface it's little-good-guy-beats-big-bad-bully, but if people stop to think about it they'll realise it's just accurate-projectile-weapon-beats-sword - i.e., no contest. Like that bit in Raiders of the Lost Ark where Indiana runs into the huge swordsman who flashes his sword about all over the place, then Indiana pulls out a gun and shoots him."

"So? You have some point here?"

"Just that Spielberg was playing that one for laughs. Everyone in the audience fell about. If we want to get the audience on the edge of their seat, you know, scared their guy's really gonna get creamed, we're gonna have to liven up the fight. At the very least we need Dave to dodge a few cuts and thrusts -"

"But that's not the way it was," complained God.

"Oh, and you were there, I suppose -" Jesus began sarcastically, then stopped himself. "Uhh, yeah," he mumbled, "'Course you were, I, uh, keep forgetting." He sighed. "OK, let's hear the Really Authorised Version."

"Well, first off," God began, "The book says there went out a champion out of the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, of Gath. What it doesn't say is what he was a champion at."

"And that was?" said Jesus, with sudden foreboding.

"Flower arranging."

"Nggkkk."

"I tell you, the guy was a wizard. He could do things with gladioli that'd make you weep. And here at Elah he'd created his chef d'oeuvre, a huge wild spray of freesias and fern fronds subtly offset with begonias, with a few cheeky fuchsias making a sort of satirical in-your-face commentary that subverted yet somehow simultaneously reaffirmed the holistic intention of the composition. I mean, can you wonder the Israelites were demoralised? How were they gonna compete with a virtuoso like that?"

"Nggkkk."

"Anyway, they sent for Jesse the Ephrathite, who'd won the Bethlehemjudah All-comers Floral Aesthetics and Amusing Phallic Vegetable Show six years in a row with his witty poinsettia orchestrations, but the old guy said he was retired and maybe one of his sons could fill the bill. They asked Eliab, then Abinadab, then Shammah, but one look at the pure exuberance of Goliath's freesias locked in their eloquent dialogue with the gentler green of the ferns, and they just folded. Well, can you blame them?"

"Er -"

"Things were looking bad for Israel, I can tell you. Saul was a gibbering wreck, manically stuffing dandelions in jars then having them stoned for looking defeatist; some of his captains were talking openly of surrendering to the sheer abandon of Goliath's fuchsias. But just when all seemed lost, along came David."

"Oh, good," said Jesus heavily. "And no doubt he whipped up a spontaneous masterpiece out of grass and ragweed which reduced Goliath to tears and sent the Philistines packing with their tails between their legs."

God frowned. "No, that's not how I remember it. See, Dave started by pointing to a teensy droop in one of Goliath's fuchsias - 'Uhh, d'you wanna fix that before it gets, like, embarrassing?'. Now, that totally wrong-footed Goliath - he was all set to laugh David out of the contest, not patch up his own work - and while he was trying to prop up the droopy flower, Dave kept it coming: 'And you really think that fern there - no, that one - you think that's green enough?' and 'Yeah, but where's the stylistic integrity in begonias?' and 'Where do you stand on the validity of post-diluvial sepal expressionism?' - and all the while Goliath's getting more and more flustered, and redder and redder in the face, I mean he tries like to come back with statements about the role of the floral artist in post-modern barbarism, but still David's needling him with little barbs about existential reality and the nature of floristic truth, until finally Goliath busts a blood vessel and falls upon his face to the earth."

There was a long silence.

"I ... I see," said Jesus at length. "So David was the first ..."

"... the first Critic," finished God sombrely. "I'm afraid so. 'Course, the writers didn't want to set that down for posterity, so they dressed it up a little - didn't mention Goliath's trademark pinking shears and petal polish, instead made up some guff about his greaves of brass, spear like a weaver’s beam and so on, then had Dave take him out with a slingshot." He sighed. "And the rest is history. Dave gets taken on as Saul's Chief Artistic Advisor, marries the old guy's daughter and when Saul snuffs it he takes over the kingdom."

Jesus frowned. "But it wasn't that simple, was it? I mean, what's all this stuff about Saul wanting to kill him? Trying to pin him to the wall with a javelin, for Pete's sake."

"Oh, it wasn't all sweetness and light," said God, "I s'pose it really went downhill after Saul showed David his watercolours, and Dave said he'd seen more sensitivity to colour, texture and composition the last time his dog vomited. Once a critic, always a critic, I guess. I tell ya, it was only having Jonathan in tow that kept Dave alive."

Jesus shifted uncomfortably. "Yeah, well, like I said, maybe we should play down that side of the story. I mean, a lot of the believers, they're not gonna be too keen on a couple of fit guys babbling on about how much they love each other." He looked up suddenly, his eyes widening in horror. "Oh my Dad, Luke says I'm of the house and lineage of David. Dad, say it ain't so, I'm not descended from -"

"Hey," said God, raising his eyebrows. "Getting a tad homophobic all of a sudden, aren't we? Embarrassed to think you might have AC/DC connections? What happened to the infinite love and compassion shtick?"

Jesus avoided his eye. "We gotta be sensitive to market forces, is all," he muttered.

"Oh, and market forces mean you gotta disown anyone a teensy bit gay?"

"Gay, schmay," spluttered Jesus. "Hell's teeth, you've even got me talking like you now. Look, I don't give a monkey's what David did with his schlong. He could've screwed his camels for all I care."

"Funny you should -"

"But if people found I was related to a critic -"

God raised a hand soothingly. "Y'shua, it's your Uncle Joe who's of the house and lineage of David. And you're no kin of his, now, are you?"

Jesus slumped with relief. "Then there's hope," he muttered.

Thanks, Bee will be pleased.

Hey there, Hi there!!!



Innocent




Amen.

sotto voce = to speak under one's breath or to speak confidentially

chef d'oeuvre = masterpiece

OMG! I mean.....

You gotta get this stuff published. I see it as an illustrated volume. Line drawings, sylized, but simple.

This is really very, very good.

Thanks.

More please.

"OK, Dad, here's the pitch. We open on the darkened royal bedchamber, slowly tracking in on the figure tossing and turning under the covers. As we get closer we see he's a thick-set, balding guy tormented by a whole heap of neuroses that the movie's gonna tease out. We could do a montage of all the faces from his past who're haunting him - all the rival capos he's had to rub out to take over the Family - Abner, Ishbosheth and the rest: then fading up through them all comes Saul, jeering at him and telling him he's a nogoodnik who'll never amount to anything. His wife Carmela is peacefully asleep beside him -"

"Hang on," God interrupted irritably. "David's wife was called Michal."

Jesus flushed. "Did I say Carmela?" he said brightly. "Michal, of course. Michal." He paused. "Uhh, don't you think Michal's a kinda boyish name for a tough guy's wife? I mean, after all the Jonathan business we don't want the audience left in any, you know, doubt about our man's, ah, proclivities. Carmela has a nice feminine ring -"

"Her name was Michal," God insisted. "For Pete's sake, what is it with you? Ever since we got HBO it's been Tony this, Carmela that, Uncle Senior -"

"Junior," corrected Jesus automatically.

"- whatever," snapped God. "The broad's name was Michal, got it?"

Jesus sighed. It was always hard to get Dad to think creatively. Well, since the Big One, anyway. "OK," he said heavily, "His wife Michal is peacefully asleep beside him. You do realise that'll get a belly-laugh from the young male audience? The very demographic that makes or breaks this kind of movie?"

"I should care?" said God. "OK, so you've told us his wife Michal is peacefully asleep. So are half the audience by now - you gonna make something zappy happen, or what?"

"You know as well as I do what happens next," protested Jesus. "Chapter 11 verse 2 - 'And it came to pass in an eveningtide, that David arose from off his bed, and walked upon the roof of the king’s house: and from the roof he saw a woman washing herself; and the woman was very beautiful to look upon.'"

"That's more like it," said God, rubbing his hands. "Never mind all the tossing under the covers crapola, cut straight to the chase."

"But we've got to establish character and background first," Jesus insisted doggedly. "The audience have gotta know this is a guy with a past, and it's catching up with him. We've also gotta get across that he and Carmela -"

"Michal."

"- that he and Michal might sleep together but they don't have, er ... relations any more."

God frowned. "They got plenty relations. There's Michal's brothers, there's -" He snapped his fingers. "Oh, I see. You mean they don't bottle the gherkin these days."

Jesus reddened. "Uhh ... yeah, that's what I mean. We get a good enough director, he can subtly let the audience know there's some past, like, indiscretion that came between them -"

God snickered. "You mean that bit in Chapter 6, when Michal Saul’s daughter looked through a window, and saw king David leaping and dancing before the LORD; and she despised him in her heart, then came out to meet him, and said, How glorious was the king of Israel to day, who uncovered himself to day in the eyes of the handmaids of his servants, as one of the vain fellows shamelessly uncovereth himself?"

"Uhh, yeah," said Jesus uncomfortably. "We'll need to flash back to that at some point, and link it up with David's shrink prescribing nude aerobics therapy or something -"

"David's what?"

"His, uh, shrink," mumbled Jesus nervously. "See, I thought we'd have this sub-plot where David's secretly seeing this lady therapist over his anxiety attacks -"

God gave him a hard look. "You sure you came up with this all by yourself?"

Jesus reddened further. "Of course I did," he said, and quickly went on: "So anyway, Dave gives up on sleeping and puts on his bathrobe and goes upstairs to the roof to watch the dawn, and that's when he first sees Bathsheba, taking a shower on her own roof just across the way.

"Now, this is gonna need really tasteful handling. Nothing full frontal, natch - we're aiming for a 15 certificate here - and we somehow gotta show David standing there panting for this naked chick without the audience thinking he's some kinda sleazy voyeur."

"Perish the thought," said God dryly.

"So throughout the show we make sure we got lots of shots of To - of David with his goomahs -"

"His what?" demanded God incredulously.

"Er ... his goomahs," said Jesus. "All right, concubines, then. Thing is, we need to establish that David has plenty of chicks waiting to drop their pants at a click of his fingers, so if catching a glimpse of a girl in the shower knocks him sideways, it's 'cos there's some special, you know, sexual chemistry there."

"Sexual chemistry," said God, nodding slowly. "You don't think it was just sexual biology, then?"

Jesus gritted his teeth and plunged on. "Anyway, David sends for his consigliere to find out who the girl is, and the guy says, 'Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?' So David sends a coupla his gorillas round to fetch her, and next thing we know they're in the sack."

"The gorillas? We're making wildlife porno now?"

"David and Bathsehba, for Pete's sake! And it's not porno. Thing is, audiences these days won't cope with subtle hints, so we need to show the lovers actually, ah, you know -"

"Tastefully, of course," said God sarcastically.

"Of course," said Jesus. "Strictly soft focus. So anyway, a bit later Bathsheba tells David he's knocked her up, right? So David sends for Uriah to come back from the war, and tries his damnedest to get him to visit his wife: 'And David said to Uriah, Go down to thy house, and wash thy feet'." He frowned. "Why's he telling Uriah to wash his feet? Did he have real bad foot odour, or a fungus, or something?"

God snickered. "Euphemism, Y'shua, euphemism. See, Dave figured if he could get Uriah to give Bathsheba a good hard f- ... ah, foot-washing, the dumb Hittite 'd never suspect the kid wasn't his."

Jesus reddened again. "I knew that," he said truculently. "Anyhow - and this is where the movie really takes off - Uriah is too noble for his own good, and makes this real tear-jerker speech: 'The ark, and Israel, and Judah, abide in tents; and my lord Joab, and the servants of my lord, are encamped in the open fields; shall I then go into mine house, to eat and to drink, and to lie with my wife? as thou livest, and as thy soul liveth, I will not do this thing'. I see Russell Crowe, doing his firm-jawed bit like in Gladiator - whaddaya think?"

God shrugged. "Whatever," he said indifferently.

Jesus felt a moment's irritation. He'd had, if Dad only knew, a serious Artistic Crisis over David's motivation here. The guy was king, for Pete's sake. Why didn't he just tell Uriah: 'Look, doodyhole, I've knocked up your wife and she's moving in with me. Feel proud. Oh, 'n' if you got any objections, Joab 'n' the boys 'll be happy to call round 'n' discuss 'em with you, capisce?'. But then he'd thought: What Would Tony Do? He'd discuss it with Dr. Melfi, of course; and she'd guide him to a less confrontational strategy. And when that didn't work, WWTD? He'd have the tight-assed little Hittite putz stiffed, that's what. And whaddaya know, that's exactly what David had done. Jesus felt exhilaratingly ... vindicated.

"So anyway," he went on, "The rest of the script pretty much writes itself: Dave switches to Plan B, gets Uriah set up and killed, this pisses you off so you rub out Dave and Bathsheba's kid in return, we get the weepy bit where D and B are all guilt-stricken and contrite, and at the end, sadder but wiser, they have another kid and call him Solomon, so we're all set up for the sequel. Good, eh?"

God was frowning. "Hang on, hang on - whaddaya mean, it pisses me off? What does?"

Jesus felt a horrible foreboding: they'd been here before. "Uhh ... David ... bumping off Uriah?" he said falteringly. "Look, it says so here, 'the thing that David had done displeased the LORD'. And you sent Nathan to tell him so."

"Ha!" barked God: Jesus's heart sank further. "First off," God continued, "Since when did I care what these primate pricks did to each other? And second, if by some bizarre quirk I did care, you think I'd 've trusted Nutty Nat with the message? Look, hardly a day passed without Nat turning up at the palace saying I was pissed about something or other. The week before, he'd told David I was gonna slay all the first-born and deliver the Nation of Israel into the hands of the Philistines 'cos I was outraged over Dave using his fish knife to cut up his lamb chop. No, it just happened that this time Nat struck a chord, that's all."

"OK," said Jesus cautiously. "But I think it'll play better if we keep to the original storyline. I mean, if it's all the same to you."

God shrugged again. "I told you, I could care less," he said.

"Fine," said Jesus, relieved. "Now all we gotta do is write in the flashbacks, and it's a wrap."

"Flashbacks?"

"You remember? Michal looked through a window, and saw king David leaping and dancing around bare-assed? Uhh ... the place he was in, where she looked through the window - did it have a name?"

God frowned, puzzled. "Not as I recall. Why?"

"Oh, nothing," said Jesus innocently. "If you're not bothered, what say we call it ... oh, I dunno ... how d'you feel about calling it The Bada Bing?"

ROFLMAO!

Bada bing!