In Competition No. 2535 you were invited to submit a version of a Bible story recast for the atheist/agnostic market. This assignment, inspired by initiatives such as the Manga comic Bible and the Australian Bible Society’s text-message version of the Good Book, takes efforts to improve the accessibility of the Christian message to an absurd extreme in the interests of testing your powers of wit and ingenuity.
It was a strong field and difficult to whittle down to six. Alanna Blake, Gerard Benson, Josh Ekroy, Virginia Price-Evans and Mrs E. Emerk were pipped at the post by the winners, printed below, who each get £25. The bonus fiver goes to Noel Petty’s rationalist Job.
In the land of Ur dwelt Job, a perfectly rational man, who ate healthily, lived sensibly and invested wisely. But there came a time when his investments crashed, his flocks had murrains and his body was covered in boils. ‘You’ve evidently done something terrible,’ said Eliphaz. Bildad turned up. ‘It was fated,’ he said. Zophar had a different line. ‘I’ll lend you my rabbit’s foot if you like.’ ‘Nonsense,’ said Job, ‘one person in 100 gets the boils, and it’s the same odds for the other two. So one in a million gets all three, and it happens to be me. I’ll just go on being sensible and wait for the laws of probability to run my way.’ And lo, the boils and the murrain disappeared and the investments recovered. And Job knew that it might easily have gone the other way, but he’d still have been right.
Noel Petty
And Moses said unto Pharaoh, the Sea is Red, as blood is.
And Pharaoh said, the blue-violet spectrum is suppressed, red clouds are in the east, it is reflection. Also, it saith Red on the map.
And Moses said, Behold the frogs, the lice and the flies.
And Pharaoh answered him, frogs shall fatten upon the insects, and shall be a delicacy; peradventure a feast approacheth.
And Moses foretold murrain of cattle; and outbreaks of boils.
And Pharaoh said, Better: white meat is meeter; and it is good that bodies rid themselves of toxins in this wise.
Thunder, locusts and darkness, Moses said. Are they not plagues?
And Pharaoh said, thunder presageth rain, which is good; locusts, it is their season; and locusts bring darkness. Longer in bed.
Thy firstborn shall perish, cried Moses.
Stoppeth exponential population growth, said Pharaoh. I like thy thinking. Truly, Israelites are men of science.
Bill Greenwell
The wedding party was going really well until the wine ran out. ‘Can’t your boy do something?’ someone asked Mary, thinking that as Jesus was a strong lad he could carry in another case. When she put it to him he frowned. There had to be a way round this one. ‘Let’s take the winejars,’ he said, ‘and swill them under the pump.’ Cana, like most of the ancient world, had high levels of algae in its water supply. Added to the lees and sediment they bred fast, making the water characteristically red. ‘Bloody miracle!’ spluttered a half-cut guest. The rest agreed. ‘Your boy’s got a future,’ they told Mary, who didn’t drink and was puzzled by all this. He’d never done anything like this before: fooling people was all very well, but he’d have some explaining to do when she got him home.
D.A. Prince
And they found some premium building land on the plain of Shinar, and said unto themselves: let us build a multistorey holiday hotel whose top will reach unto heaven. And it shall be called Babel Towers. And the work was begun. But the council in that land waxed angry, for it had not received sufficient baksheesh for planning permission to be granted, and said: let them be visited with the twin regulations which are called Health and Safety. And the builders saw the need to cut corners. So they gathered workmen from far corners of the earth, even where the hire of labour is cheapest. But speaking many tongues, the chippy understood not the brickie, nor the brickie the sparks. And lo, Babel ran far over budget and into penalty clauses. And when it was done, the edifice stood empty for many years, for no man would hire it.
Brian Murdoch
The Story so far: following his mom’s impregnation by radioactive ball lightning, mild-mannered carpenter’s apprentice Jeez had developed special mutant powers. He can walk on water! He can turn it into wine! He can make edible facsimiles of fish and bread. Above all, he can forgive! Leaving his family to travel about the ancient world with his crack team of loyal disciples, Jeez determined to forgive as many people as possible before the authorities catch up with him. But he didn’t count on crooked disciple Judas betraying him to the law! Now, crucified on Calvary, there seems no escape. There’s no water to walk on or turn into wine and the sadistic Roman soldiery are in no mood for a buffet. The situation looks hopeless until, mustering all his remaining strength, Jeez unleashes his biggest wave of forgiveness ever! Will it work? Now read on…
Adrian Fry
Noah was the archetypal eco-warrior who stood out against the prevailing mores and was preternaturally sensitive to environmental issues. Divining that freak rainfall conditions were imminent, he foresaw a devastating rise in sea and river levels leading to an ecological cataclysm. The danger inspired him to build an ark, constructed with timber from sustainable forests, which was large enough to accommodate his family and a large stock of breeding pairs of endangered species. When Planet Earth was duly inundated, only the occupants of the ark survived. Eventually, a turn of the climatic cycle saw the flood waters subside, enabling Noah and his family to return to dry land where they celebrated with a magnificent barbecue. Above them, as a visually poetic symbol of the immutable laws of physics, a rainbow appeared in the sky.
W.J. Webster
Competition No 2538: Bizarre books
You are invited to submit an extract from one of the following books (maximum 150 words): What to Say When You Talk to Yourself, Nuclear War: What’s in it For You, The Joys of Cataloguing. Entries to ‘Competition 2538’ by 27 March or email lucy@spectator.co.uk.
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