Part 4: Evil Grows

Mankind grew from the single seed of Adam, planted in the fertile valley of Eve, for lo, did Eve never lose her girlish figure and Adam didn’t have anything else to do, TV not having been invented yet.  So, for the days of his life, which numbered a pile more than we are allowed to live, Adam toiled in the soil and plowed his wife, such that when he died, a ripe old man, he left a thriving race of humans, yea, unto the third and fourth generation.

When Adam died, he passed on the patriarchy to Seth.  As time went on, Seth died, and was followed in turn by Enosh, Kenan, Mahalalel and Jared.  By the time of Jared, the patriarchs had become tyrants.

It all started with Adam, who had seen one of his kids die at the hands of the other.  Adam set out to ensure nobody else had to die needlessly, so enforced god’s law with an iron fist.  God, for his part, became convinced Adam finally got it, and began spending more time golfing, only pausing to check the latest sacrifice tallies.

The people were becoming weary of the morning, noon and night sacrifices, extra portions on Saturday, as it added up in a hurry, and, despite their best efforts, their sheep flocks simply were not reproducing fast enough.  Some of them resorted to offering parts of a sheep instead of a whole one, some were offering fruits and vegetables as did Cain and some were simply only offering once, at eventime, as did the ancients according to the scrolls.

A certain portion of the population got tired of the whole thing and went off to start their own little community.  These people felt that life should be an enjoyable thing, filled with comely women, enough mutton (they still did not know you could eat anything else) and enough wine, something the devil had recently shown them, a thing that lowered their cholesterol and made them jovial and mirthful rather than severe and studious as god required.

God was really, really pissed with these people, because his followers up on the hill looked down in the valley and felt like the bastard stepsister, the one not invited to the party because she is plain and tall, or, if you like, the geeky cousin who is always spilling food and drink everywhere when he’s not talking in that whiny, nasally voice of his.  Secretly, god felt this way, too, because, lo, over there was the devil and the fun people, laughing it up and having a ball and god was not able to go over there because of his pride.  He wasn’t even able to admit to himself he wanted to, and threw a shoe at Gabriel, who went off to talk to Jesus.

And the new community cast about for how to organize its daily activities and found precious stones that were pretty and that the women liked to put in their hair, and the men found the women were happier with the pretty stones than without, so began to barter for them, so the rudimentary capitalistic economy blossomed, and there was full employment and everyone had plenty to eat and didn’t have to work all day long unless they wanted to.

And this really pissed god off.  God went down to a new patriarch, Enoch, and said unto Enoch that the evil in the valley would not be countenanced and that those who engaged in it were to be shunned and that Enoch should go down there and tell them that.

Enoch was a good man in god’s eyes, and he went down to the valley and told them they were evil, and they, in a specially mirthful way with wine, laughed at him.  Enoch was beside himself with fury.  Here he had come with a message from the most high god that these brutes should clean up their act and fly right and they had merely laughed at him.

God was very angry with the people in the valley as well, and took pity on Enoch, who was now the laughing stock of everyone in the valley, so brought Enoch up to heaven for just a little bit, until he got back on his feet, but Enoch moved into the guest house and hasn’t left yet, claiming he’s just not ready.

Jesus was very upset about this because now Jesus couldn’t have girls over into the guest house without first kicking Enoch out and Enoch kept telling god on Jesus, and Jesus was tired of the lectures about settling down.  So jesus began thinking about moving out.

Part 3: Murder

Well, Adam and his wife Eve had two kids. These two kids were both boys. Adam used to sit his kids down and explain the whole plan of salvation, always prefacing it with ‘This doesn’t make sense to me, but it’s what Gabriel said.’

And the two kids were named Cain and Abel. Cain was a bit stupid. Though Adam explained over and over again that the blood of the lamb was required, as sin required blood for atonement, so that the one sacrificing could be considered sin free, (also explaining how it made no sense, but Adam had learned his lesson and told Cain, ‘you’d better do what God tells you or else!’), Cain thought it was just a gift to appease God and thought that a personal touch would be better.

Cain was a farmer. He worked the land, living out the curse God had proclaimed on Adam, that he would grow crops by his sweat. Abel was rather more lazy, choosing to be a shepherd. He spent all day sitting and watching sheep, hundreds of them, and chasing off the predators, which was easy, because God had put the fear of man into them. Cain felt that sacrificing one of Abel’s sheep was just too easy and decided to give to God the things he had worked hardest on.

Well, Abel killed and burned a lamb in the way God said it should be done, and God looked down and was pleased and said to Abel that it was ‘a sweet smell unto the LORD.’

And Cain did say, ‘Seriously, God, have you actually smelled burning lamb? The mother, Eve, burns the lamb on a regular basis and it is not a sweet smell unto me.’

And God was sore and felt petulant and went to bed early after drinking a little milk. And Cain, coming second to the family alter, placed his fruits and vegetables, nearly perfect of form and taste, on the altar of the LORD. And Jesus smelled and it was good and Jesus thought to wake God, but he knew God was in a bad mood. The vegetables and fruit cooked nicely on the coals, making a very good shish kebab. Cain was pleased with himself.

But God, being asleep, ignored Cain’s offering. Cain felt hurt because he’d put so much effort and burned up all his good fruit and vegetables that he could have made a salad, both fruit and vegetable, and maybe some cold mutton with it, if he could scrape the burned parts off, and now he had no supper, except the cold, burned mutton.

Cain hung his head and went into his room in the family tent. There, Abel tried to console him, saying, ‘perhaps if you’d done what God told Father we are to do and sacrificed one of my lambs...’

And Cain was sore wroth and said unto Abel, ‘You only want me to sacrifice one of your lambs so you can extort my good vegetables from me, which you were going to use to make mom like you better.’

And Abel became annoyed and said, ‘If you would do as I and raise sheep, we’d not have this problem, but the free market set the price for a lamb, not I.’

And Cain became wroth and said, ‘What free market? You have a monopoly on sheep because Dad won’t make you share! He makes me let everyone have vegetables, but your sheep he won’t make you share with anyone! Now shut up and let me sleep.’

About this time, God woke up to go to the bathroom. Looking down on the earth, he saw Cain going to bed. God was annoyed and knew he had to make sure early on that these people obeyed his laws, and here was Cain going to bed with no sacrifice.

So God yelled out unto Cain, ‘Wake up, Cain.’

And Cain said, ‘What?’, the call of God not being as rare then as it is now.

And God said to Cain, ‘Why are you going to sleep? You have not offered unto me a sacrifice!’

And Cain said unto God, ‘Yes, I did; I offered a sacrifice of fruits and vegetables, didn’t I, Abel?’

And Abel was still annoyed from earlier, and lo, was a brother, so said unto God, ‘No, he didn’t.’

And Cain, wroth with Abel, picked up a pottery and threw it at Abel, striking him on his head such that he died. And Cain was immediately very sorry he had done this and knew he could not bear to tell his mother, as he cradled Abel’s head, letting the blood run through his fingers.

And Jesus was aghast that this would happen and went unto God and said, ‘Cain did offer a sacrifice, a very nice shish kebab, which smelled divine.’

And God was ashamed and concerned that he had missed a sacrifice and that the child Abel had died, reducing the nascent human population by 25%. And God said unto Cain, ‘Don’t tell anyone about this. I curse you to wander the earth and you will never be able to grow anything again. Anyone who so much as comes near you will receive this curse seven times over.’

And so Cain, heartbroken, stole away in the night, never to be heard from again. God told Adam Cain was jealous of his brother’s sacrifice and killed him for it. He said Cain was scared that when people found out, they’d kill him over it, which Adam thought was odd, because there were only two other people on the whole planet, but Adam was now used to God saying things that didn’t make much sense.

And secretly, Adam thought that Abel had been asking for it, because he knew Abel, but he comforted his wife, saying, ‘We can make more children, for low, we have our whole life before us, hundreds of years.’ And they did.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Part 2: Sin

And god awoke on the seventh day to see down on his world that, verily, his new man, ‘Adam’, was dancing and cavorting with the comelier of the angelfolk that had gone down to the planet with the devil. And god was very mad with this, so mad he could not think straight, so he set to drinking in earnest. Then he slept, after sternly telling the scribes he was ‘exhausted from the draining process of creation.’ They dutifully wrote it down, and, to this day, many of the race known as man still keep every seventh day in honor of god’s sloth.

And, on the eighth day, god decided on what to do, and went down unto the planet and created woman and gave her the jealousy and the ability to make man do her bidding, and thus put an end to the cavorting with the more comely angelfolk. The devil, who was still a snake, was annoyed with god because Adam told the best stories and was such a nice guy.

So the devil decided to take control of the situation. In the midst of the garden stood the tree of knowledge of good and evil, whose fruits imparted to the eater the ability to see clearly who was the more good and who was the more evil. God thought the tree abominable because it always showed god in an unflattering light and god was good, as all the scribes had written, so god had forbidden Adam to eat of the tree of knowledge.

Well, god told Adam he’d created Eve out of Adam’s rib to make Adam think he somehow had to hang around and protect Eve. Adam did so. Adam began to be fond of Eve.

One day, the serpent met Eve in the garden. The serpent was the new name for the devil because his snake body was much larger than normal. The serpent said to Eve, ‘eat of the tree of knowledge, why not?’

And Eve said that god told them not to because ‘in the day we eat of it, we shall surely die.’ And the devil said, ‘that’s a bunch of hooey. My cohorts and myself eat of it all the time, and it opens our eyes and allows us to discern who’s good and who’s evil. It makes us like gods in that regard.’

And Eve thought a bit, and wanted to be like gods, so she took the fruit and ate it, and immediately saw the goodness radiating out of the serpent, and how he looked at Eve with a benign and concerned look.

‘I must tell Adam!’ Eve exclaimed, and was off. When Adam heard, he was heartbroken. This creature that he loved, made out of his rib, was to die that very same day. So filled with love and passion and heartbreak, and so distraught at the thought of living without Eve was he that he said, ‘give me a piece of that damn fruit,’ and ate it.

Immediately, Adam saw truly. He saw the fruit was harmless, that his wife was only mildly evil, that his dog was purely good. Adam also saw he was totally naked, for the first time. He also saw that his wife was totally naked, which gave him some ideas.

At that time, the lord god entered the garden, calling ‘Adam, Adam, where are you?’ And Adam and Eve had to run behind a bush. God said ‘Adam, why have you hidden yourself?’ And Adam said, ‘Because we were naked and getting it on and we wanted some privacy.’

And the lord said, ‘How do you know you are naked? You must have eaten the fruit.’ And adam said, ‘It’s pretty obvious we’re naked.’ And the lord answered him and said, ‘Then why have you never noticed it before?’

And the lord was sore wroth with Adam and said unto him, ‘I’m only going to ask one more time: did you eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil or did you not?’

And Adam said, ‘Well, I did. The wife brought me some and it was delicious.’ And the lord said, ‘Don’t try to blame this on the woman; you are the one who should know better. Don’t you remember me telling you that tree was poisonous and you would die if you ate from it?’

And Adam said, ‘But we didn’t die and it wasn’t poisonous. You lied to us and told us we would die, but we didn’t. Instead, we are become as gods, knowing good from evil.’ And the lord said, ‘That wasn’t the point, Adam. You should have trusted me. Man wasn’t created to know good from evil; he was created as a companion to god himself.’

And Adam was wroth with god and called him a self-centered idiot and left, saying, ‘Come, Eve, let’s go talk with that serpent again. Maybe he knows something god doesn’t.’

And god became even more angry, so angry he had to lie down for a bit. Then he did yell at Jesus and say unto him, ‘This is all your fault. If you were not so passive-aggressive around me, I’d have a clearer head to deal with these creatures.’

And god took counsel with the most high to determine what it was that should be done, and many of the most high listened earnestly and responded almost as one, to wit that Adam and Eve had, indeed, become as gods, knowing good from evil, and, unfortunately, this ability left them open to temptation from the devil, so they must be thrown out of the devil’s little garden as punishment and to keep them from eating further of the trees, both of knowledge and of life, so that the knowledge might be lost with the death of Adam. In this way, they hoped to fulfill god’s threat that Adam would die poisoned, metaphorically, in the mind such that he could not be suffered at the table of righteousness anymore.

As god was explaining this to Adam, Adam did cry ‘bullshit’ loudly, so god, in a fit of anger had his strongest angel drive Adam out of the garden, and Eve with him, and that angel stood at the entrance to the garden with his lightsaber lit in case Adam tried to enter again.

And the devil took pity on Adam and did sneak out of the garden to show Adam how to make fire and how to till the ground. And the devil said that the curse of god was that Adam would gain his sustenance by the sweat of his brow and that Eve would be in pain in childbirth, which was going to happen anyway because god made her hips way too narrow, but not to worry because something like it had happened already to the devil, and, with work, Adam could defy the curse and make mankind have a decent life. The day would come, the devil said, when mankind would have no more need of god.

And god was sore wroth with the devil when he heard of it, for at every move the devil insisted on out thinking him, who was the almighty god, ruler of the universe. And Jesus was in a bit of a mood, having been yelled at far too often. God was annoyed with everyone, including Adam, but he felt he must convince Adam of his rightness or all was lost.

So, he hatched a plan. He sent Gabriel to tell Adam the plan. If Adam followed everything god said, Adam could be saved, after death, to enter into god's heaven to replace the host of angels who had followed Lucifer out of heaven. Adam, for his part wondered if heaven really was so wonderful if Lucifer and nearly a third of god's angels thought it better to subsist on earth than live in glory in heaven.

And God, listening through Gabriel, his familiar, called down from heaven to Adam and said unto him, ‘shut up, just shut up!’

Part 1: The Creation

On the first day, God created the open faced sandwich and did eat of it and it was good. Then he created the closed-face sandwich and did eat of it and it, too, was good. Then God was all tuckered out and slept. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

On the second day, God awoke at noon having slept poorly and said unto Jesus, ‘fetch my slippers’, to which Jesus did reply ‘fetch yer own holy slippers’, to which God said, ‘verily, shalt thy attitude bite thee in the butt one day.”

And God was so angry he poured himself a drink and partook of the grumbling and complaining about kids these days until the wee hours of the morning, when the devil did say, ‘seriously, god, I gotta go to bed’, to which God said ‘I am the lord god almighty, you will sleep when I tell you to’, after which the devil was in open rebellion against god, for, verily, that night did he go to sleep rather than listen to this stuff any more. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

God was so angry he threw the devil out to this little horrid planet god was creating as a project to occupy his time, and to prove a new creature could completely follow his law, and, in following it, live a better life. The devil was very upset and rallied unto him all those who thought god was annoying and they did decide to set up a new, happy life on the planet onto which god had thrown the devil.

This displeased god, and he sat brooding by the fire with his drink. ‘Serves you right,’ Jesus said. God threw a shoe at Jesus who ducked it and so god cursed his name to be hung upon a tree and went to bed. And the evening and the morning were the third day.

And god woke up with a terrible hangover. Jesus came in unto him and said, ‘you are supposed to be creating a planet, aren’t you?’ And god said, ‘shut the blinds, turn off the light and go away, for the world can go fornicate itself,’ and it was so, for Jesus shut the blinds, turned off the lights, muttered something about a lazy, good for nothing wastrel and how maybe the devil was right, and god was sore wroth with Jesus but could do nothing because Jesus was his son, and, yea, verily, popular with the ladies. God wished there was something he could do about it, and fell asleep again dreaming of the ways he could rid himself of Jesus. And the scribes did render his words about the world as ‘be fruitful and multiply,’ a command unto all the denizens of the world he was supposed to be creating, a command he would come to regret. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

And god awoke on the fifth day in a panic, for the world was not created yet, not even half, yet the devil had already created a beautiful garden in the center of the world (that’s what the devil said, which was silly because the world was round and therefore had no center) and he and his friends were living it up there.

So god, filled with wrath, did create the fish and the birds, to drive the devil and his friends from the water and the air and into their caves, there to think about what they had done. Also, god, worried about what the scribes would write, told everyone the first few days were about creating light, separating water, making dry ground, and hanging the stars in the firmament or something like that. He hoped that by the time they finished looking up ‘firmament’ in the dictionary they’d forget to question his story. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

And the devil, concerned that god was trying to ice his groove, did ornament the caves with drawings of a comedic nature about how god looked, which further enraged Jehovah, such that he determined to drive the devil relentlessly on the earth, and created the animals, particularly the bats and bears, and every living creature that dwelleth in a cave created he him.

And the devil was saddened, but not surprised, and he left the cave to be as an animal and thus hide from his new tormentors. And he chose the form of a snake because all the other animals were afraid of the snake.

And god was wroth with the devil once again, and went down to the garden where the devil dwelt as a snake, eating of the tree of life the devil and his friends had erected there, and formed out of the dust of the ground, man. And he breathed the breath of life into man, hoping the pageantry would impress the devil and his friends, how much more important this new man was then they were, but they just mocked him and said that a real god could just speak to create man.

And god had had enough, so he stomped off up to heaven, where he kicked his dog Gabriel and said unto Jesus ‘I have had quite enough from that devil, and now, verily, more and more people are going down there to be with the devil. What are you packing?’

And Jesus said unto god, ‘nothing,’ though he was clearly holding a ham sandwich and a bottle of champaign, which he did lovingly but hurriedly place into a wicker basket.

And god was sore wroth with everything and went to sleep. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.