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!

No gossip please!

Galilee, AD 32. The Man known as "Our Lord" has spoken out against the temptations to gossip: it is believed that He was referring particularly to recent work by those well-known religious bloggers Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

St Matthew the blogger, with another scoop.

Several news items first revealed in religious blogs are known to have irritated Our Lord. For example, St Matthew posted an in-depth investigation of His ancestry, tracing it back to King David - his blog post "Jesus the Toff" is considered to be in bad taste, challenging as it does Our Lord's claims to be born of quite humble origins, and certainly not as well-off as, say, Owen Jones.

Another gossipy post "What happened to the gold?" reveals that Our Lord's father accepted gifts from three wise men on His behalf, and promptly decamped to Egypt in order to avoid having to declare them on his tax return - ironically, he was only in Bethlehem for tax reasons in the first place.

The Magi Circle - is their loot now in an Egyptian bank vault?

St Luke the blogger is also known to have offended Our Lord, by tactlessly revealing details of the famous "Jerusalem" incident, when He was 12 years old and played truant. It was claimed that He was found three days later, asking questions of some mysterious "doctors" in the temple.

Even St John the blogger, who is generally regarded as being particularly close to Our Lord, has not scrupled to spread gossip about Him. Most recently, Our Lord has been accused of stealing a donkey and riding it into Jerusalem. Some people have also been shocked to learn that He washed His associates' feet. (It seems that He did not wash any women's feet, because it is generally considered unchivalrous to suggest that a woman's feet are dirty...)

Is this linked with the vandalism of a row of palm trees?

Other church leaders have repeated Our Lord's criticism of gossip. Most recently, Archbishop Judas Iscariot has preached a sermon condemning religious blogs. Some malicious bloggers have retaliated by suggesting that ++Judas has something to hide - for example, there are persistent rumours of dodgy financial transactions involving a sum of as much as 30 pieces of silver.

Two wealthy Arabs, in traditional costume, watch events with interest.

As St Mark, another leading blogger, put it, "Writing blogs is generally thought to be a sure way to get on the fast track to sainthood. But if it is going to be condemned at the highest level, then I may give it up, and take to travelling. I've always wanted to see Alexandria."

Alexandria: disillusioned bloggers visit the lighthouse.

Thought for the Day

Ah, hello, Mr Christ, and welcome to the Today studio. May I call you "JC?" Now, our producer is very pleased that you have agreed to drop in and do a Thought for the Day broadcast today, as it is one in the eye for that Telegraph journalist (Thompson was it?) who said you would never be invited on the programme.

So, when we found out from Twitter that you were here for some sort of "Second Coming" event, our producer said, "Let's invite him, whoever he is." I guess you've got a busy schedule ahead, eh, JC? According to the briefing notes, you'll be judging the quick and the dead later on, then? A sort of World's Got Talent, I suppose.

He will come to judge the slow and the brain-dead

Still, you've got a nice day for this "Second Coming" of yours. You know, it was wise of you to wait until the Jubilee and the launch of The Fix were over - you wouldn't have wanted your event to be overshadowed by those, would you?

So, JC, I gather that you're not originally from these shores, but that you have been here before. Indeed, according to my notes, your feet in ancient time walked upon England's mountains green. Well, walking is good healthy exercise, and very important in our struggle against climate change, as I'm sure you'll agree.

Probably NOT the Messiah, out for a walk

Now, one of our regular contributors to Thought for the Day, the great Giles Fraser, says that he's very pleased you'll be doing the broadcast. He's something of an admirer of yours, even if he doesn't share very many of your opinions. So if you meet him in the hospitality room, try not to be overawed by his magnificence - he's only human!

"Of course Jesus's views need updating for 21st century audiences"

So let's look at the script now. Well, there are one or two problems, as I'm sure you'll appreciate. Could we put in a little work on those "Beatitudes" of yours? I'd suggest something like:

Blessed are ye, if ye struggle for equality and diversity; for ye shall receive large government grants.
Blessed are ye, if ye campaign against global warming; for ye shall receive large research council grants.
Blessed are ye, if ye sing the praises of Europe; for ye shall receive large European grants.
Blessed are ye, if ye renounce God and attack His churches; for the government will make laws to support you.

Perhaps also you could affirm your support for women bishops, abortion, euthanasia, and gay marriage? JC, sweetie, that sort of thing does go down terribly well with the sort of audience we're trying to attract.

VADE RETRO ME, SATANA !

Eh? What does that mean? It sounds wonderfully ethnically diverse, but I can't place it. Spanish, is it? And please don't shout, I've got a terrible headache...

It's a pity the Event clashes with Euro 2012 and Wimbledon