Proverbs

It's time for another instalment of the Eccles Bible project, in which we explain the books of the Bible to atheists, Jesuits, and others who haven't really grasped the point. Good to see you again, Richard Dawkins, Stephen Fry, Fr Thomas Rees, Fr James Martin, Tim Kaine, Donald Trump and of course dear Hillary.

Our star pupil has a thirst after righteousness.

Well, there's not much of a "plot" to the book of Proverbs: it consists of various wise sayings. Indeed, wisdom is the main theme. Rather than making a pointless analysis, I'll just give five quotations from Proverbs, interspersed with wise remarks from other sources. See if you can identify them.

Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.

If my good friend says a curse word against my mother, he can expect a punch in the nose.

Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise.

It is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine.

A ray of sunshine.

Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging.

How often do you ask for the help of the Holy Spirit, the breath, the "ruah" of God? Call on her in time of need. Count on her help.

The wicked flee where no man pursues; but the righteous are as bold as a lion.

I think on the whole mumps are better than measles.

As a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, so is a fair woman which is without discretion.

Virtue is better than no bread. Whom the gods love, butter no parsnips.

Buttered parsnips. Possibly a source of spiritual nourishment.

Right. The five non-Biblical quotes are from a computer, Pope Francis, James Martin S.J., Nigel Molesworth, and P.G. Wodehouse, in some order. They are not as full of wisdom as the authentic quotations from Proverbs, are they?

DONALD! Put that woman down! Who do you think you are, Bill Clinton? Go and sit on the naughty step!

Anyway, the next book we'll study is Ecclesiastes, commonly known as Eccles and thus universally admired.

Sex and the Psalms

The Eccles Bible project has rather stalled recently, as Eccles has been too busy taking part in "Sloth Pride" events - or rather, not bothering - so we have asked Fr Phil Barney of the Church of St Daryl the Apostate to run this week's class.

Hi, I'm Fr Phil, and I've written today's analysis after consulting the writings of great thinkers such as Hans Küng, Tina Beattie, Tony Flannery, Timothy Radcliffe and Stephen Fry. For a long time we've all realised that the main point of religion is SEX, and we see this in the Book of Psalms as well.

Of course in St Daryl's we don't "do" the responsorial psalm, preferring to chant selections from Laudato Si to the tune of some modern pop song - perhaps something catchy by Gary Glitter or Rolf Harris. Still, I'm grateful to Eccles for letting me explain the psalms in the context of our GOD IS SEX project.

St Daryl the Apostate's is PROUD.

We'll be using the Good News Bible, as it's written for people with the IQ of a mollusc, with all the theological subtleties removed. Now, most of the psalms are definitely unsuitable for worship, as they are all about praising God - a rather controversial notion these days. Look how Psalm 6 starts:

Lord, don't be angry and rebuke me!
Don't punish me in your anger!
I am worn out, O Lord; have pity on me!
Give me strength; I am completely exhausted
and my whole being is deeply troubled.
How long, O Lord, will you wait to help me?

How inappropriate in this day and age! Calling on the "Lord" to sort out problems that should be addressed to your social worker, homeopathic doctor, or sex counsellor! We've got beyond that, surely?

Give me strength; I am completely exhausted.

There's a lot of stuff in the Psalms about the Love of God. Nowadays, we only use "love" to mean "sex", so passages such as this (Psalm 13), apparently addressed to God, are clearly unsuitable for modern audiences.

I rely on your constant love;
I will be glad, because you will rescue me.

What's more, the psalmist seems to be unware that PRIDE is GOOD. Look at Psalm 59:

Sin is on their lips; all their words are sinful;
may they be caught in their pride!
Because they curse and lie,
destroy them in your anger;
destroy them completely.

Ian McKellen reminds us that PRIDE is GOOD.

In fact the psalms seem totally to misunderstand the main social issues of today - no mention of same-sex weddings (or any other), nothing about equality and diversity, climate change, etc. Still, the issue of the family is touched on in Psalm 112:

The good man's children will be powerful in the land;
his descendants will be blessed.
His family will be wealthy and rich,
and he will be prosperous forever. 

A good man enjoying prosperity.

Well, those lines are a bit more in keeping with modern values! Of course, if the children were produced by IVF, ideally with a "borrowed" mother helping out a male couple, then that would be even better. But we mustn't be heterophobic here: let's recognise that some male/female relationships can be tolerated, even if we don't think they're natural!

Anyway, you see now why we don't use the psalms at St Daryl's - they really aren't relevant to contemporary issues, such as SEX. However, the last psalm, Psalm 150, makes a good point:

Praise the Lord!
Praise God in his Temple!
Praise his strength in heaven!
Praise him for the mighty things he has done.
Praise his supreme greatness.
Praise him with trumpets.
Praise him with harps and lyres.
Praise him with drums and dancing.
Praise him with harps and flutes.
Praise him with cymbals.
Praise him with loud cymbals.
Praise the Lord, all living creatures!
Praise the Lord!

A few outmoded concepts there - God, temple, Heaven, Praise, etc. but the main idea - that we should play our guitars and show off our liturgical dancing - is clear!

"Come right in!"

Job

Welcome back, class, to the Eccles Bible project, in which we explain Holy Scripture to atheists and any others who require spiritual nourishment. And it's a big welcome to one or two scholars that we don't remember seeing before. We have Russell Brand (put that phoney-woney away, boy - no nuisance calls in class, please), and a contingent of cardinals fresh from the Extraordinary Synod in Rome, sent here by Cardinal Burke for a refresher course: so hello to Walter Kasper, Reinhard Marx ("Rhino" of the famous Marx Brothers), and of course our dear friend Vincent Nichols!

Cheer up, Job! It could be worse!

Well, the basic idea of the book of Job is that s*** happens. Job is rich and prosperous, and a truly religious person. Satan asks, "What would he be like if we took everything from him?" God says "Let's find out." So Job loses his oxen, asses, camels, sheep, servants, sons and daughters - this is called down-sizing - and gets afflicted with boils. At this stage, he is not really enjoying life. "Let the day perish wherein I was born," he says.

So what do you do if things go wrong? Well, it's good to have friends - in Job's case Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite* and Zophar the Naamathite - who can come along and console you by saying. "You know, Job, it's your own fault really. You must be a dreadful sinner."

"Who was the shortest person in the Bible? Bildad, as he was only shoe-height."

It's all YOUR fault, Job.

Anyway, Job keeps moaning, with catchy lines such as "Man born of a woman, living for a short time, is filled with many miseries," so you can see that he is not looking on the bright side at this point. His friends continue to tell him "Serve you right. You're a great sinner. ROFL," and thus they get the somewhat exasperated response "You are all troublesome comforters."

Job sticks to his faith, in particular the idea that in the end God will make all things right. He gradually gets round to giving a little homily about wisdom - for one with a very grievous ulcer, from the sole of the foot even to the top of his head, he is still remarkably chatty - and he says some very sound things such as "Behold the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom: and to depart from evil, is understanding."

I can see that I'm losing my audience here: some of you don't believe in God, and others are quite happy to compromise with evil, eh, cardinals? Still, Job doesn't quite see it your way.

And after more of the same, God comes back.

Do you think there's someone outside?

God is not going to explain what's been going on, nor defend Himself. He makes the (if I may say so) very valid point that He (God) is infinitely wise and powerful, and Job is a mere human. "Canst thou draw out the leviathan with a hook, or canst thou tie his tongue with a cord?" asks God, and Job is fairly sure that he cannot.

The book has a happy ending, as God ticks off the three comforters and restores to Job his wealth, more than previously: namely, fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she-asses. He also has seven sons, and three daughters. Phew!

Job and his (apparently, rather musical) family.

It's a good book to read if you're feeling depressed. Class dismissed.

Esther

Welcome back to the Eccles Bible Project, where we present the books of the Bible to atheists and other backsliders. Following on from Judith we now have, according to the Catholic and Orthodox listing, the book of Esther.

Richard Dawkins, you've read this book as part of your homework. Would you like to stand up and tell the class what it's all about?

Well, I've only read the first chapter and the last chapter, as that's enough for a clever man like me to work out what's going on. Indeed, if you look on my website you can read the first and last chapters of The God Delusion for free, and they hardly even mention God because I was thinking of something else at the time.

ACTUALLY, I'M NOT A DELUSION, RICHARD.

What? Stop plugging my book? Oh, all right. Esther it is, then. Incidentally, this book doesn't mention God either, so obviously it supports my atheist pericope that we're just a mass of little cells, and that God is a delusion. Now, the book of Esther starts off with a King Assuerus, who is said to have reigned from India to Ethiopia over a hundred and twenty-seven provinces: he holds a great feast, and after seven days of eating and drinking he calls for his wife Queen Vashti, but she refuses to come in.

King Assuerus / Ahasuerus / Xerxes / Artaxerxes enjoys a feast.

Actually, that sort of thing happens to me a lot too. After the seventh day of a feast at New College, Oxford, many a learned professor might ask his wife to come along and drive him home, but she might equally well have gone off in the Tardis in disgust. By the way, may I point out that Assuerus, or whatever you call him, almost certainly didn't exist? I'm a trained biologist and I know these things. Esther didn't exist, either. Or India. Or Ethiopia.

Now, the other chapter I've read, Esther 16, contains a letter sent out by Artaxerxes. It does mention Esther, but only briefly. He seems to be going on about some chap called Aman being disobedient, and the Jews being well-behaved. Basically nothing much happens in this book, and they're too ashamed even to mention Jesus or Mohammed. End of.

An 'appy ending: Aman is 'anged.

Thanks, Richard. I'll give you 2 out of 10 for effort there. You did miss a few details, in fact. There's a Jew called Mardochai / Mordecai who saves the king's life, there's a man called Aman / Haman who wants M. killed, and there's a Jewish woman called Esther who becomes a friend of the king and invites him to several dinners; in the end she contrives for Aman to be 'anged, er, hanged, on the gallows he built for Mardochai.

By the way the ``expanded" version of Esther's book does mention God, but this is not the version accepted by most Protestants. My brother Bosco, who thinks that God wrote the King James Bible and that all other versions are mistranslations of the KJV, would certainly not approve of it.

That's Life! Esther, Mordecai and Haman offer an oddly-shaped parsnip to King Assuerus.

So next time we'll discuss Job. He was a bundle of laughs and no mistake...

Judith

After a short break, we resume the Eccles Bible Class today with the deutero-canonical book of Judith. Dawkins! Good to see you in class today, although I hear that your pals are very cross that you didn't sign their letter about Britain being an atheist country. Would you like to tell the class what "deutero-canonical" means? Come on, boy, you must know, you're supposed to be a learned theologian, remember?

All right, I'll explain. This is an Old Testament book that wasn't in the Hebrew Bible, and so it's not really accepted by most Protestants. We can probably get through it quite quickly, as there is only one thing you need to know about Judith: she cut off the head of Holofernes.

I'm sorry, Madam, but you can't take this as hand-luggage.

What's that noise outside? Oh, some new arrivals! Pratchett! Tatchell! Nick Ross! Steve Jones! Singh! You felt that, Britain being a Christian country, you ought to brush up on some of the theory? Well, you're all very welcome to join in, but today's book of the Bible isn't really a great introduction to Christianity. There won't be very many deep spiritual insights today, and indeed not very many in general until we reach Job.

Professor Steve Jones denies that his pets are malnourished.

Actually, there is one another reason to remember Judith, which is that the Tallis motet Spem in alium is based on words from this book. Just in case your Latin's a bit rusty, here's an English rendering of it:

I have never put my hope in any other
but in You, O God of Israel,
who can show both anger and graciousness,
and who absolves all the sins
of suffering man.
Lord God,
Creator of Heaven and Earth
be mindful of our lowliness.

My colleague, Fr John Hunwicke, teaches Latin to atheists.

Right, let's get to the point. The book of Judith is agreed to be non-historical, rather than an accurate account of events. Those who have been paying attention will remember that we said that the books of the Bible aren't all alike. Some are solid accounts of events, some are poetry, some (such as this one) are more like parables.

Don't worry, we're only part of a parable. Trust me, I'm a Samaritan.

Judith is a Jewish woman, known for her great virtue, and Holofernes is a general in the service of Nebuchadnezzar - here described as king of the Assyrians. Holofernes is charged with the job of making himself a nuisance to the rebels against Nebuchadnezzar, which basically includes all those who serve God. Just as you atheists like making yourselves a nuisance towards Christians, eh?

Judith uses her feminine wiles - probably, she's even prettier than Toynbee here - and this is what happened to Holofernes:

Her sandals ravished his eyes, her beauty made his soul her captive, with a sword she cut off his head.

Warning: these sandals may ravish your eyes.

She also takes the head home to her people as a souvenir (see above). As a result of these actions, the Assyrians flee, so it's a happy ending for the good guys. Look, you really don't need to worry too much about this book, folks. Just try and stay saved.

Tobit

Today we have a new recruit to the Eccles Bible Class, namely Graham Norton, a TV "celebrity", who described Catholics defending traditional marriage as "rats trapped in the corner of a barn". In order to help the poor man learn some manners, it was decided that he should come along to this month's lesson, which covers the book of Tobit. Hello, Graham!

Tobit (also called Tebbit).

Now, Graham, we don't have any rats for you in the book of Tobit, although there is a fish that attempts to devour the foot of Tobit's son, Tobias. Some good comes of this, as after overcoming the fish, Tobias is told: If thou put a little piece of its heart upon coals, the smoke thereof driveth away all kind of devils, either from man or from woman, so that they come no more to them. We'll try that one on you later, Graham!

Tobias (also called Toby).

Still, let's start at the beginning. It's a bit of a tangled story, as both T senior and T junior are referred to as Tobias. To avoid confusion, we'll call them Tebbit and Toby (or young Toby). Now they are both righteous chaps, living in exile in the Telegraph blogs Nineveh. Two problems are dealt with in this book:

1. Tebbit goes to sleep under a swallow's nest, gets hot dung in his eyes, and goes blind. I suppose the modern equivalent is watching Graham Norton on television. Only joking, Graham!

2. In faraway Rages, a city of the Medes, a lady called Sara has got problems with demons. Indeed, her seven husbands have been killed by Asmodeus "at their first going in unto her". Don't snigger at the back, there, Fry.

Asmodeus, the demon of lust (from his Facebook page).

So off goes Toby ("On your bike!" says his father, in some translations), and he meets the fish. Fortunately, he is under the protection of the angel Raphael, which means that he is going to win through in the end. He marries Sara, his kinswoman, and drives away the demon by burning the fish's liver in his bedroom. Of course, the bedroom smells of burnt fish for a long time afterwards, but this is a small price to pay for married bliss. Raphael binds the devil, and we hear no more of him. Do spare a thought for Raguel, Sarah's father, who digs a grave for Toby only to find that it isn't needed.

Toby goes back to see Tebbit, and uses the fish's gall to cure his father's blindness. Many years later, Tebbit dies, and Toby leaves Nineveh - which is doomed, as we'll see later when we reach Jonah - to return to the land of the Medes.

Toby and the fish.

Now, this is a great book of fish recipes, but that's not really the point. One of the themes - sorry, Graham, it really isn't your day - is marriage. And when the third night is past, thou shalt take the virgin with the fear of the Lord, moved rather for love of children than for lust, ... that sort of thing. Chapter 4, old Tebbit's advice to young Toby, is also hot on charity, wisdom, avoiding pride, praying, voting Conservative, etc.

Ah, Dawkins, I see your hand is up. I think I know what you're going to say: "Fish gall doesn't cure blindness, there are no such things as demons, or angels. Giving alms isn't going to benefit you personally. There's nothing wrong with a bit of lust." Shall we make it easy for you, as you're a beginner? Look at some of the instructive moral teaching, don't worry too much about the supernatural elements for now - I know they give you a headache - and leave it at that. Oh, and here's your guardian angel to escort you home.

John Cornwell? Doesn't he write rubbish books about popes called Pius?

Nehemiah

So it's welcome back to our class of atheists and other beginners, as we resume the Eccles Bible project after the break. I hope you all had a Merry Christmas (er, just Mas in your case!), and wish you a Happy Nehemiah.

Anyway, to recap, here we are in the 5th century BC, and the Jews have been in exile in Babylon. As we saw last time, Ezra (Esdras) has brought some of them back to Jerusalem.

What ho, Nehemiah! Any chance of one of your pick-me-ups?

This is the tale of Nehemiah, the cup-bearer of King Artaxerxes of Persia, who retrains as a builder (or maybe architect) in order to get Jerusalem rebuilt. Ezra turns up again later in the Book of Nehemiah, and he is now billed as a priest and scribe,

Our hero rebuilds the walls of Jerusalem.

In the above picture Nehemiah is presumably the one reading the plans, rather than the ones doing the actual building, but one can never be sure. Perhaps the other chaps are the sons of Hassenaah, who built the Fish Gate (see Chapter 3); or possibly Malchiah the son of Rechab who was told to repair the Dung Gate. It was a true poet who named these gates.

This is what Nehemiah has on his scroll.

Actually, talking of Gates, we have Bill and Melinda here today in our Bible class for the first time. Welcome, guys! No mention of Windows in this book, I'm afraid, but I suppose you'll enjoy Jeremiah when we get to it, with its For death is come up through our Windows. I wonder whether Jerry was thinking of you there?

Half way through the book, Ezra attends to the spiritual needs of the people (now that their deliveries of fish and dung have been sorted out), and after a bit of prayer and penance they once again promise to keep the Law.

A delivery of fish.

Nehemiah actually becomes the effective governor of Jerusalem; he later pops off back to Persia to do some more cup-bearing, before returning to find that the Jews have gone off the rails yet again. So he fixes that.

In next month's instalment we have a choice: we can follow the Protestant Bible and jump straight onto Esther (so to speak), or take the Catholic and Orthodox line, and include Tobit and Judith.

Tobit or not Tobit? That is the question.

We'll discuss Tobit next. Class dismissed.

Ezra

We continue with the Eccles Bible Project, explaining the Bible to atheists and other unsaved persons, in the hope that they may finally see the point.

Good to see you're all here, class, so pay attention. Dawkins, put that honey away, or I shall have to confiscate it.

Ezra Meeker - probably the wrong Ezra, but a fine-looking chap anyway.

Our Ezra was operating in the 5th century BC, and like Ezra Meeker he was a bit of a pioneer - he made the trip back from Babylon to Jerusalem. The books of the Bible seem to have got a little out of chronological order here, but Babylon had fallen to Cyrus of Persia some years earlier, as we'll see later when we get to the very exciting book of Daniel.

So some of the Jews head back to Jerusalem. If you want to know more, read Chapter 2. Apparently, there were 42,360 of them, with 736 horses, 435 camels, etc. The exact figures aren't very important, so I won't include them in the test you're going to have.

One of the 435 camels.

Jeshua (Josue) and Zorobabel set to work building a new temple. Now this is where you come in, dear atheists, as in Chapter 4 the enemies of Judah and Benjamin (that's you lot) write to King Artaxerxes and get the rebuilding stopped. Actually, they probably weren't atheists - such a strange idea hadn't been invented in those days - just Muslims - er, no, that hadn't been invented either - well, some sort of other religion. Troublemakers, anyway - I'm sure you'll easily identify with them. But Haggai (Aggeus) and Zechariah get things restarted and eventually King Darius lets them get on with it.

I'm trying to get the chronology right here, but for some reason they insisted on counting years backwards in those days, as positive numbers hadn't yet been invented. So the temple is rebuilt in 515 BC, which is BEFORE Ezra gets into action (458 BC). Our hero arrives in Chapter 7 and we only have 4 more chapters to go.

Waiting for Ezra - He'll be along in another 50 years or so.

Ezra (Esdras) himself leads another great expedition from Babylon to Jerusalem, although he omits to mention any camels this time. This is about the first thing he does when he gets there:

And when I had heard this word, I rent my mantle and my coat, and plucked off the hairs of my head and my beard, and I sat down mourning.

Ezra (R), with torn mantle, reproaches Sechenias.

So what has upset Ezra? It is that the Jews in Jerusalem have taken strange wives. Well, of course many people have got strange wives - and strange husbands - and many of us are reduced to tears on seeing what our friends and relations have chosen to spend their lives with; but that is not what's meant here.

Darling, you're not at all a strange wife.

The point is that the Jews have promised not to intermarry with our people - it's all part of the "chosen people" deal, although they won't find out exactly what that means until they read all about it in the New Testament. So Ezra stops the "strange wife" business, and that's the end of his book. We come next to Nehemiah: the two books were originally combined, and our hero will reappear next time. Class dismissed: off to the playground with you!

2 Chronicles

Welcome back, class. I hope you are enjoying the Eccles Bible Project, as we work our way through the Bible, explaining it to beginners. Now today's book of the Bible contains more Jewish history, and duplicates a lot of what we've seen already, so last week I set you all some homework - read 2 Chronicles and write an essay on it.

Gervais! Put your feet down. And where's your essay, boy?

Ah, Dawkins, our star pupil. What's your essay about? Why Solomon wasn't as wise or as rich as what I am. Yes, that's just about on-topic. In 2 Chronicles we do get nine chapters about Solomon, building a temple, running a fleet of chariots bearing the message "THERE'S DEFINITELY A GOD. NOW STOP WORRYING - UNLESS YOU'RE AN ATHEIST," and getting rich from the royalties on his father's psalms. But your essay seems to be mostly about you, and why you should be King too. Could do better, lad.

Not really a useful guide to the 10th century BC.

Now, Fry, I know you once wrote a book called Moab is my washpot, which is a line taken from the psalms. However, when I read it, it seemed to be all about you rather than any of the people we're looking at today. So what is your essay entitled? Rehoboam or Jeroboam - which had the cutest boam? I've got a nasty feeling about this one. Let's move on.

Hari? You have an exclusive interview with King Asa of Judah, in which he tells you that he did that which was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God? Splendid. We'll read that later.

The chaplin demonstrates a liturgical dance.

Oh yes, Marvin the paranoid deacon. You were sent here on a refresher course, I gather. Do stop spitting at your neighbours. So you've written something for us, explaining how the entire Bible was written by a sockpuppet of Eccles? And you have invented some characters in the style of your favourite newspaper, Viz? That's like the Tablet but a little more Catholic, right? Brilliant idea! Let's see what's on offer.

King Silly Man the not-so-wise. Who is it based on? A boy at school who borrowed your pencil 35 years ago and forgot to give it back? Crumbs, that's biting satire, well done. He'll be seeking counselling, I'm sure.

J. Whosa Fatty, the overweight king of Judah. Ha ha ha, brilliantly witty. Yes, it's true that a certain priest is a little overweight; I'm sure he'll recognise himself there. Yes, I know, isn't it terrible how priests look down on deacons? Well, on some deacons. Well, on you.

Neighbourhood-nurser and Baby Lon. Oh, you're killing me. A woman with a baby, whom you hate intensely because she has got more friends than you? That'll teach her to humiliate you!

Neighbourhood-nurser and Baby Lon (ho ho!)

Well, we'd better stop there. Next time we'll look at the book of Ezra, which may be a bit more spiritually nourishing.

1 Chronicles

The holidays are over, and term has restarted, so we welcome back our audience of theological novices to the Eccles Bible class.

Some of our more promising students, ready to learn!

I'd better start with the register, then.
Dawkins? Here. Hope you had a good holiday, my boy, and didn't get into too many Twitter fights. New pot-boiler selling OK? Splendid.
Grayling? Here. Get a haircut, boy.
Fry? Whoop! That will do, child.
Toynbee? Here.
De Botton? Stop sniggering, Fry, I didn't say "bottom". An adequate evolution of morality from superstition to reason should mean recognizing ourselves as the authors of our own moral commandments. All right, that will do, de Botton. You've not been paying attention, have you?
Sanderson, Hari, ... stop fighting, Kamm, ...
Conry, what are you doing here? You want the Orthodox Catholicism for Beginners class next door. All right, we're quorate. Let's get started.

Adam, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Malaleel, Jared, Henoc, Mathusale, Lamech. All right, who said "Here!"?

Possibly Cainan, Malaleel or Jared.

Well, class, you're going to have a very easy ride today. It's another of those books about Jewish history with a rather low "spiritual nourishment" rating. Also, a lot of it is plagiarised from other books. Ah, I thought you'd be interested, Hari.

The first 9 chapters are mostly lists of names, as I've just indicated. Something like the Tel Aviv telephone directory, but without the numbers of course. Then we get on to history, most of which is covered in earlier books. We get the stories of Saul and David once more. Since you all know about this, we won't go into it again. However, we come to deep questions such as this one:

Is there a contradiction between 2 Samuel 24:9 and 1 Chronicles 21:5, when the number of soldiers Joab counts comes up different?

Well, not really. You know how people never stand still when you're counting them. And anyway, the wording is slightly different. So, Dawkins, I'm afraid that you can't use this as a stick to condemn the Bible as nonsense. Although you probably will, anyway.

Who wrote Chronicles? Quite possibly, Ezra, who turns up later in a book with his own name on. Experts decided this by comparing styles. It's what you might call a sockpuppet for Ezra, anyway.

Ezra tells a fascinated audience about Jizreel, Jishma, Jidbash, and their sister Hazlelponi.

Well, one commentary I have read (don't think I make all this stuff up myself) explains that Kings gives us man's viewpoint, while Chronicles gives us God's viewpoint. You'll have to sort that one out yourselves.

There are some rather strange passages, even in the narrative parts; for example, And Satan rose up against Israel: and moved David to number Israel (Chapter 21). Who would have thought that censuses could be evil?

Hazlelponi? There's nobody of that name here.

Ezra is on safer ground when he's copying out lists of names, so let's finish with one of his more sparkling passages, which, nonetheless, no priest is likely to take as a text for his sermon: Now the first lot came forth to Joiarib, the second to Jedei, The third to Harim, the fourth to Seorim, [a few lots deleted here], The three and twentieth to Dalaiau, the four and twentieth to Maaziau (Chapter 24).

O.K., class dismissed. 2 Chronicles next time, then we'll get Ezra's own story.

Oh, and Hollande, don't wear that silly hat next time.

2 Kings

Well, it may be the height of summer, but my class of atheists still has a long way to go - especially you, Richard - so we'll continue with the Eccles Bible Project, looking at 2 Kings. And Caitlin, if I hear any more name-calling from you, I'll make you stand in the corner.

All right, it's also known as "4 Kings".

Elijah the prophet goes out with a bang. He sends fire from Heaven to consume supporters of Baal-zebub the god of Ekron (everyone happy that we don't believe in Baal-zebub? Splendid.) Soon after that he is taken up to Heaven by a whirlwind, and hands over to Elisha.

Go up, thou bald head!

Elisha, who might more properly have been called Alopecia, is known for summoning two she-bears from a wood; these eat up forty-two children who mocked his baldness. Times have changed a bit since then, and nowadays it is OK, but rude, to comment on a prophet's hair. Sorry, Giles!

Elisha does many more useful miracles, including making rain, multiplying a widow's oil and raising a child from the dead. Richard, there's no need to go ROFL at this point: it's undignified for a 72-year-old retired zoologist to be rolling around on the floor. If you accept the existence of God, then miracles are possible, boy.

Elisha also heals the deadly pottage.

Elisha operates in Israel, in the time of kings Jehoram (evil), Jehu (good), Jehoahaz (evil), and Jehoash (good); if I've got that right - it's not really important. At half time in this book, Elisha dies. Time for a tea break.

Caitlin! We said "tea break".

So we come to the second half of 2 Kings. The political situation is complicated, with Israel and Judah being at odds, and Assyria, Samaria and Egypt (and others) all joining in the fun. We meet Isaiah for the first time - he's in Judah and not really one for spectacular miracles, although he is going to do some great prophesying. Isaiah's got his own book so we'll come to him later.

Homework: Azariah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah were kings in Judah while Isaiah was operating. For each one say whether he was (a) good or evil; (b) successful or unsuccessful. Do you notice a pattern?

Do you find Hezekiah guilty or not guilty?

The book ends badly for our heroes, as Jerusalem is sacked by Nebuchadnezzar, the temple of Solomon is destroyed and many (most?) of the people taken away to Babylon. This will set the scene for later adventures.

Having a lovely time. Wish you were here!

Now, look on the bright side: Babylon is a great place to visit if you are interested in gardening - specifically, hanging gardens. However, at the end of 2 Kings nobody seems to appreciate this.