And Jehovah did hear of the machinations of Lucifer and was sore wroth with him. There was plenty to be sore and wroth about, as the humans in his charge began to engage in all sorts of perversion out of sheer boredom. There being only eight of them on the ark, and all those animals, well, you know what humans can get up to after the fiftieth day with no beer and no TV.
So Jehovah resolved that day to dry the earth up and set about doing so, syphoning water off to form a new comet dubbed Haley’s that the Lord himself set in orbit as a warning that he could easily flood the earth again every seventy-five years or so.
He beached the Ark on a cleft in a mountain, angry as he was with the humans, and made them walk down the mountainside. Arrarat was the most treacherous mountain he could find that would not actually kill his humans, and he had to send angels to make sure they were safe, but it made him feel better. The animals faired worse, and he had to recreate some species, which made him angry again.
So annoyed was he with the whole thing that he told Noah he’d probably never destroy the earth with water again, which the scribes took down as a promise from the most high god that he would never flood the earth with a total flood again.
I’m glossing over the whole sending of the birds substory and the discussion of the number of animals, either two or seven, that absorb theologians with too much time on their hands, as these discussions will never be resolved and are completely irrelevant anyway, as the majority of animals saved were in limbo and most of the other ones had to be recreated as their carcasses lay broken in some crevasse on Mount Arrarat. In other words, whether god told Noah to take in animals by sevens, twos, sixty-fours or whatever, the precious few that survived the trip were unable to sit down for weeks anyway.
As for the birds Noah supposedly released to find land, that was Noah’s wife’s idea. She was tired of being in the stupid boat and kept pestering Noah to try to find out from god how long the trip would last. Noah figured, correctly, that god would take that about as well as a parent does on the fifteenth hour of a car trip, so refused. As a compromise, he periodically threw birds out of the ark, most of which never came back at all, not meaning there was land, but rather that birds are pretty dumb and will often end up dead trying to figure out how to get back to the only dry spot in the whole world.
Well, one bird came back with an olive branch, and much has been made of this. The problem is, of course, that no olive tree could have grown in such a short time to where it was in bloom, which has led scholars of a less than righteous bent to suggest that just maybe the flood was local rather than global, but the truth is that the olive branch came from some flotsam still floating about, and it only looked like it was blooming.
Anyway, let's place those pointless digressions behind us and pick up the story again. God knew nothing of the nature of the trip the devil had made to Valhalla, only that he had gone away for a while and now Odin had opened up shop on a far continent on earth. Odin was not aligned with the council of the most high so god had no way to force him to leave. The council expressed its regret to him about that. God feared his title of most high god was in jeopardy on this planet.
God called his personal posse together; Jesus and Gabriel and his most trusted angels showed up. Even though they were his most trusted angels, they kind of hung back, worried about what god was going to do now. Jesus muttered under his breath that he’d rather be washing his hair. Gabriel licked Jesus' hand.
“Ok, I called you here to tell you my grand plan for earth. Each of you has a part to play in this plan. The plan I have made allows for redemption of mankind and return to the good graces of the hosts of heaven. Oh, yeah, that’s what man will refer to our little council here. You are in on the ground level on this project. We will go far.
“Man has sinned by disobeying my law. We have to convince mankind to not befriend the devil again. This world must not get out of our control. We have to plan firmly for a future where man feels the need to follow us.
“I have spent a lot of time thinking on this and I think I have the answer. We had the germ of the idea when we had man up in the mountains, but we didn’t give them the things they wanted, steady meals and wealth. We need to give them these things with the condition that if they wish to keep getting them they need to obey god’s law. We’ll explain that it is in their best interest to stay close to us in order to achieve rebirth in the heavenly host.
“Any questions? No? Very well. I’ve printed out some talking points. Mainly, we’d like to punch up the idea that this is a covenant between god and man, to get the contract angle. We think the humans will agree to hold up their side when we convince them they wouldn’t be here were it not for our beneficence. Also, of course, they have to follow the covenant in order to make it to heaven. We need to weigh in heavily on the three points of the covenant angle.
“One, that the human has violated god’s law through Adam and their tendency will be to violate god’s law continually.
“Two, that the human owes his existence entirely to us through the miracle of creation and that divine law is the best way, as we would know best.
“Three, that the covenant keepers will be the only ones allowed into heaven. We want to stress that you have to keep the whole covenant as established.
“To this end, we will be establishing a priesthood and recruiting prophets. We don’t want to create a system where intelligent people run things because they are in the habit of engaging in blasphemy. We need to make sure they get marginalized, so we need to create a culture of faith, simple belief. We make it a positive moral attribute to have simple faith, showing the man of faith as a strong man of deeply rooted beliefs.
“So, unless there are any questions, I want each of us to come back here with some new ideas about how to elaborate this and what parts of the project you want to shepherd personally. I guess that’s it.”
As the others filed out, god took Jesus aside and said unto him, “I’m really trying to make this work. You know every battle the devil wins reflects badly on both of us. I think this meeting went well and is just the start of something great.”
Jesus answered and said unto him, “I don’t think the devil thinks he’s battling you. I think he’s just trying to have fun and you’re being a bit of an asshole.”
And god was wroth, but he needed the help of Jesus, so he held his temper, only saying, “You shall see. The devil truly is evil and his ways are wily. He shows you a good time, but the end thereof is destruction.”
And Jesus, shaking his head, did say, “The only destruction at the end is rained down by you, not a natural thing. There is no magic in your law.”
And god, sensing trouble, said unto Jesus, “It’s not just our law, it’s the law of the council of the most high. Do you dare to challenge them? These wise ancients have lived far longer than us.”
At that, Jesus did drop it and walked out, although he knew for a certainty that the council of the most high had never ratified god's law.
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