Adopt a Pope!

A saved pusson writes:

My adopted pop. All will be explaned later.

You may remember dat in March, when dey was electin a new pop, we was invited to adopt a cradinal, and by de luck of de draw I got Cradinal Marc Ouellet, wot is a good man but did not become pop. He is de prefect of de congregation for bishops instead. I knows wot prefects does cos I read about it in de grate classics of literature like Moleswort, Billy Butner and Tom Brown's Scholdays.

Cripes! A nuaughty Etonian wot is gonna be dicsiplined by de school prefect.

If de prefect catches de junior bishops bein nuaghty den he has got to discipline em. For example, if a bishop starts doin silly dances durin prep, he can be told to write out I must not be a silly bishop 200 times. Now dey tells me dat Bishop Keiran Corny may be in danger of havin to bend down and take six of de best cos he said silly fings about Islam bein pretty much as good as Christainity.

A mountian dat wuld not go to Mohammed (but proper faith can move mountians).

After adoptin a cradinal, I den tried to adopt a deacon. Well dat's a very sad story, as some poeple just aint got de quallities of kindness needed to be saved like me. Let's move on.

De new initaitive is Adopt a Pop! In de times of de early church, de career path of a pop wot wanted to become a saint was simple:

age 0: born in humble circumstances;
age 12: elected bishop, cos de previous bishop had been martryed;
age 14: become pop;
age 16: die horribly for de faith;
age 500: become a siant.

Nowadays it is a little different:

age 0: born;
age 25: become a priest;
age 40: bishop;
age 50: archbishop;
age 60: cradinal;
age 75: pop;
age 90: die wiv diggnity, muorned by all except Richard Dakwins;
age 95: become a siant.

So we gotta press de cases of all de pops wot aint yet saints, or else poeple is gonna say dey werent as good as John XXIII, John-Paul II, etc. My first idea was to choose a random pop, and de luck of de draw gave me Pop Nubmer 88, Constantine (708-715).

Pope Constantine; but maybe it is too early to cannonize him.

Constantine was a worthy man, and apparently a great opponent of monothelitism, a heresay promoted by de Tablet in those days. But it is too soon to consider him for cannonization.

No, we must go back to Pop Nubmer 9, Hyginus (138-142). Dis is de first pop never to be cannonized, and it seems very unfair, does it not? Wikipedia says: Tradition holds that during his papacy he determined the various prerogatives of the clergy and defined the grades of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. You got it, we has him to thank for havin deacons, priests, monsingors, bishops, etc. How lucky we is.

Not sure if Hyginus invented baths, hygeine, etc.

We don't know how Hyginus died, but it seems dat he didnt manage to become a matryr, which may explane his failure to get cannonized. Still, it's never too late, so please remember him, and if you experience any miracles which may be due to him, then let us know. Or you could just choose a pop of your own.

2 Samuel

Time for more spiritual nourishment in the form of the next instalment of the Eccles Bible project, where we explain the Bible to atheists.

Now here we come to one powerful argument for atheism: the 2nd book of Samuel is not by Samuel, and doesn't even mention him. In the eyes of Richard Dawkins this proves that the Bible is false. But then The Selfish Gene doesn't mention Gene Kelly, so maybe it's not such a clincher after all.

The Prophet Gene, singing in the rain.

In fact the 2nd book of Samuel starts with David singing, or at least reciting, a lament over the deaths of Saul and Jonathan: How are the mighty fallen! Tell it not in Gath (or Geth).* Well, it's too late to tell it in Gath (or Geth) now, as the place has fallen into ruin.

It's not all bad news for David, as he is then anointed king. However, General Abner sets up Saul's remaining son Ish-bosheth as a rival king, although eventually they both get murdered.

* It's terrible how many clichés you find in the Bible. Shakespeare too, wrote little apart from clichés.

The comic strip Li'l Ish-bosheth never really took off.

At this stage, David is very much the good guy, and is really furious at the murders of Abner and Ish-whatsit. "David reigned over all Israel, doing what was just and right for all his people," as it says in Chapter 8, and God backs him. Indeed, God enters into an eternal covenant with him. I'm rather losing count of these Old Testament covenants, but each one was slightly more sophisticated that its predecessor. There'll be something much better on offer in the New Testament.

By the time we get to Chapter 9, David asks "Is there anyone still left of the house of Saul to whom I can show kindness for Jonathan’s sake?" There is, in fact; namely J's son Mephibosheth. But things are about to go horribly wrong, and it's all David's fault...

Bathsheba, she bare in a bath.

Yes, the lovely Bathsheba comes on the scene and David falls for her. Problem: she is married to Uriah the Hittite. David's conduct is rather poor here: he has an affair with her, and he arranges for Uriah to be killed in battle. From now on, David's life is going to consist of a succession of troubles, and it is hard to present it in a cheerful light.

Tamar, David's daughter, is raped by Amnon, his son. Then Absolom, another son, rebels against David. Although Absolom gets killed, he does at least try to die in a comic fashion: he's riding a mule under a tree, and is caught by the branches and left hanging in mid-air.

A brave attempt to inject some comedy into a depressing book.

It's no wonder that Samuel decided to stay dead during this book. Let's skip through to Chapter 22, without listing the wars and famine en route; here we have one of David's hit songs (he composed it earlier, it seems). This time he manages to be a bit more upbeat.

Are you all ready to join in the song, lads?

The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer;
the God of my rock, in Him will I trust. 
He is my shield, and the horn of my salvation, 
my high tower, and my refuge, my saviour...

This is good stuff, much better than "Follow me, follow me..." David later bundles a whole lot of these into a book of Psalms (this one turns up again as number 18).

Well, we're coming to the end of David's reign, although he hangs on a little longer in order to qualify for the book of 1 Kings. A deeply flawed character, but aren't we all, Richard? Yes, even you... look, admit that at least, and we may start getting somewhere...