Have you tried Eccles's Blogg? Aw, go on! Go on!

A special article in the Daily Telegraph from Damian Thompson.

Eccles has taught me all I know about custard.

Here’s some advice for Kieran Conry, Richard Dawkins, Iain Dale, and Stephen Fry. If you didn’t catch up with Eccles's blogg this week, don’t bother now. You’ll spoil your weekend. On the other hand, everyone else is in for a treat. Forget those tedious Telegraph blogs and read something with genuine spiritual nourishment. As Arthur Conan Doyle would say: Go on. Go on. Go on, go on, GO ON!!!!

Mary Riddell - a poor imitation of Eccles's Anti Moly.

Eccles is at the forefront of modern blogging - and opinion forming. He adopted Cardinal Ouellet as a papal candidate, and soon afterwards Cardinal Belgrano was elected Pope. He criticised Arthur Roche, and this led directly to his promotion to archbishop, with responsibility for closing churches in Rome. He praised Paul Inwood's innovative approach to "Vogon" music, and the old man was sent packing by Bishop Egan.

Star Wars, bagpipes, unicycles - back in fashion since Eccles posted this on Twitter.

Eccles has an ear for music that Van Gogh (and our own bloggers Stephen Hough and James MacMillan) could only envy. Who else would dare to help Christina Rossetti rewrite In the bleak midwinter?

It was quite a nice day,
Not too hot or cold,
They had lovely weather
In the days of old.

Tom Chivers - I gave him a job thinking that he'd write about jelly.

Of course, there are some Telegraph bloggers who are not overshadowed by Eccles. Young Michael "Mi" Wright, is our Tech blogger, who tweets as @brokenteacuplad, and so far Eccles has not yet turned his hand to technology. Also, we've got Gerald Warner, Ed West, Peter Mullen and David Lindsay. Oh, did we lose them? Well, never mind.

Moly (now retired) was a troll that I employed to drive up the hits on my blog.

Eccles is also relatively silent on environmental issues, whereas we have our great double act of Geoffrey Fat and James Upthepole, to tell us (a) the world will burst into flames next week unless we ban all motor cars (b) we're heading for a new Ice Age.

But in general the Telegraph blogs cannot compete with Eccles. His best line of the week? Out go Humanae Vitae and the other fuddy-duddy documents! In comes your own Episcopal Encyclical Fac Rem Tuam (or, since Latin is obviously not "cool", you may just say Do your own thing).

A fan of Eccles wonders why his Oyster card has stopped working.

Which isn't to say that Eccles is always being rude about people. His Eccles Bible Project has now reached the book of 1 Chronicles, and throws new light on the subject of Jizreel, Jishma, Jidbash, and their sister Hazlelponi. Scholars have said that it includes the definitive study of Hazlelponi.

If only Eccles would agree to write for the Telegraph blogs! But he already writes, under various pseudonyms, for the Tablet, Beano, Luton Budgie-Fanciers Gazette, Babes in Custard, and other scholarly publications, so he simply hasn't got the time!

The budgie-fanciers of Luton do not know how lucky they are!

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.