Emails from Hell, part twelve.

Hell just gets curioser and curiouser, according to our informant from Hell. Read his twelfth dispatch here.

{beginning of email}

            “Let me show you something,” Andrew said to me. “It is a Bible.”

            I took the book from his hand. It was a little thinner than I remember Bibles being back when I was on Earth. Matter of fact, back on Earth I studied the Bible pretty closely, hoping to maybe get some better insight into the world. Some parts of the Bible were more useful in this regard than others. I found the book of Ecclesiastes very enlightening—in fact, one of the best pieces of literature I had ever read. I opened the Bible Andrew handed to me, and was surprised not only that Ecclesiastes was missing, but the books that remained there were quite different from what I remembered. I glanced over passages I thought I knew well—especially the parts of Amos and Isaiah in which the prophets cried out against the way the rich people oppressed the poor, and how rich people always made the decisions in government. Getting a little alarmed, I turned to the book of Exodus and found that the commandments for the Year of Jubilee and the Sabbath of the Fields were missing. (I wrote about these in an earlier dispatch.) I looked up at Moses. He nodded at me, fully aware of what I had just discovered. My alarm reached its fullness when I turned to the book of Matthew and discovered that some of Jesus’ most beautiful words were missing: “Consider the lilies of the field…Even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed as one of these.”

            “What,” I said, even more dudgeonly than I had spoken previously, “is this?”

            “It is the official Heavenly version of the Bible,” said Andrew.

            “You mean, the fundamentalists rewrote the Bible?” I exclaimed.

            “They wouldn’t dare do it on Earth. Even the brainwashed Sheeple in their churches would not have put up with that. But up here, they finally had their chance,” quoth Andrew.

            “What did they change?” I asked.

            “First,” said Andrew, “turn to the Book of Abrasions.”

            “I don’t remember that one…Oh, here it is.” I glanced through it. “The whole book seems to be about how evil Muslims are.”

            “That is one of the foundational beliefs in Christian fundamentalism,” explained Andrew. “Of course, the original Bible (original, that is, after it reached its final form about 367 CE) did not mention Islam, since it did not even exist until the eighth century. But without scripture telling them to hate Muslims, the fundamentalists felt sort of lost. Now, turn to the Book of Contusions.”

            I did. It was a long prophecy, written by a man named Johnny who was in the spirit, or perhaps high on THC, on the Isle of Patmos. In his vision, Johnny predicted the discovery of a large continent on the other side of the vasty ocean to the west, a continent inhabited by dusky people, and which the Chosen People of God would conquer and create a Light Unto the World.”

            “This sounds like Johnny was predicting the United States of America,” I said. “This is ridiculous. The original Bible did not have any prophecies that could remotely refer to the United States.”

            “Well,” said Andrew, “even here it is not referred to by name. That would be too much even for them. America was named after Amerigo Vespucci.”

            “Which means,” said Karl, “that there was a fifty-fifty chance that your country might have ended up being named the United States of Vespucci.”

            “And you will notice,” said John, “that everything I wrote about love has been left out. On Earth, they gave lip service to love, but when the fundamentalists got to Heaven, they could quit pretending. Turn now to the book of Concussions.”

            I did. It was all about how glorious it is to shed one’s blood for the fatherland, and how true Believers were not to show any mercy to the enemies of The Nation.

            “I was not a great admirer of the Bible while I was alive,” said Karl. “But compared to this swill, the original Bible was a real gem.”

            Everybody said Amen.

            “And furthermore,” continued Karl, “at least it is a book. I like to sit and read books. You know, outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.”

            “Wrong Marx!” we all yelled.

{end of email}