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The Bible - in Verse

by
A. V. Fenton from Empangeni, South Africa
e-mail: mwfenton@iafrica.com

 

 

 The Bible in Verse by A.V. Fenton

 Disclaimer:
This work represents a sampling of the efforts and opinions of A.V. Fenton. It is satirical in nature and may be offensive to some.
 

THE BIBLE

When JEHOVAH, in His infinite wisdom,
Created man, for some obscure reason,
He wrote, we are told, a wondrous manual
The likes of which, it's said, there's no equal.

This Holy Book has just one requirement:
That man believes but makes no judgement,
Nor use the reason in him implanted
For he may well find Its logic slanted.

At first we are told that to sacrifice
Dumb, innocent animals, would suffice
To atone for the evil that men commit
And also for the good deeds they omit.

Yet, further on, we read in terms most clear,
In the words of the prophet and the seer,
That God denies ever requiring blood
As exchange for mankind's sinful flood.

But later on He seems to change His mind
And tells His 'only begotten' to find
A suitable time to lay down his life,
Without a thought for his pain and strife.

And it's this nonsense, from cover to cover
That we are told to read over and over
So He may make us into useful tools,
Or is it rather, into mindless fools?



INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS 

This is the book of beginnings
That tells us how all came about
And in it we get an inkling
Why things have so poorly turned out.

 As both the concept and the plan
Was imperfect right from the start
It doesn't take a genius to know
Why this world is falling apart.

And who, may we ask, is to blame
For so much strife, so much conflict,
And for the pain and the suffering
That men on each other inflict?

 Ask the pious and they will say
It's man's fault and not his Maker,
But then, if the bread comes out bad
They'd blame the loaf, not the Baker.

 

CHAPTER ONE

Let's start at the very beginning,
A very good place to start!
And follow this Jewish story
So dear to the Christian heart.

It seems that many years ago,
Before the world and stars were done
God lived in infinite space
Void of anything or anyone.

Sometime, no one really knows when,
He must have had a look-around,
But that didn't help Him very much
As there was nothing to be found.

No matter how hard He looked
He wasn't able to see a thing;
For aeons He had been alone
Wond'ring what the future would bring.

Imagine then the loneliness
He must have felt at that stage!
No one 'round to sing Him praises,
To just 'exist' from age to age.

He realised, after a while,
He could change this situation
By using His mind and power
To bring about some variation.

So at some point, in that dark past,
He started to put things aright;
He made the Heavens and the Earth
And, to see better, invented Light.

He must have been tickled to bits
To now see whatever He would
That He lost no time to proclaim
This new contraption to be 'Good'.

After that first great invention
His creative spirit waxed hot
And in the space of just five days
He got down and finished the lot.

He made all the things we see today
Plus others we no longer can
And He felt confident enough
On the sixth day to create Man.

Exhausted from six days of work,
And out of ideas, He thought best
To take 'time-off' on the seventh!
And has been ever since at rest.

 

CHAPTER TWO

 This Chapter looks like the first one
But with a slight variation;
Man was created first, to till the ground,
Then came beasts and vegetation.

The material used was all the same;
From dust they came, to dust returned,
But in later years God decreed
That sinful people would be burned.

Into the first man, called Adam,
The LORD His own breath imparted,
Though the way Man turned out to be
One wonders if He 'blew' or ...

(According to BC experts
Such as Bishop Ussher and Co.,
Adam first saw the light of day
In the year four thousand and four).

In Chapter One God simply told
His male and female creation
To enjoy every fruit at hand
And engage in procreation.

Chapter Two tells us however,
That Adam had to work the ground;
There was a fruit he could not eat
And that Eve was nowhere around.

Time passed, and as Man laboured
To keep the Garden nice and neat,
God decided to provide him
With a companion, a 'help-meet'.

He gathered all the animals
And brought them to Man, one by one,
But for what the LORD had in mind
It appears it just couldn't be done.

Tired of working only with clay
God thought up a brand new plan;
Put Adam in a deep sleep and,
Make woman from the rib of man.

(Now, as a children's fairy tale
This story was well above board,
But much latter some con-artist
Declared it to be God's Word).

 

CHAPTER THREE

In this Garden, east of Eden,
Where JEHOVAH God used to walk
There lived a two footed serpent
That, somehow, had learned to talk.

This reptile was not overjoyed
With the presence of humans there
And felt it would be best for all
If this pair migrated elsewhere.

(In retrospect it vindicates
His premonition for the future
As it didn't take humans long
To begin to destroy nature).

He cornered the woman one-day
And asked her a simple question
Which triggered her nosy spirit
And started a chain reaction.

Why she couldn't partake of this fruit
Had never been to her explained!
So she ate, gave some to Adam
Who took it and never complained.

The breaking of this petty clause,
Of which they knew little about,
Was the excuse that God would give
For kicking our first parents out.

To cloak their new found nakedness
Some animal skins would suffice;
And it was God who carried out
The very first 'blood sacrifice'.

The serpent's wishes had come true
When our parents left in disgrace
But he knew he had told the truth
When he spoke to Eve face to face.

For the LORD's threat of instant death
Didn't happen as He said it would,
And Man did become just like God
Discerning the bad and the good.


INTRODUCTION TO EXODUS

This book is called Shemohth
Which means 'Names' in Hebrew
And tells the story of a Pharaoh
Who got himself into a stew.

Mind you, not all of it his fault
As we shall see from the story,
His misfortunes were the result
Of JEHOVAH's quest for glory.

Authorship is attributed
To Moses, just by tradition,
And you can believe it or not!
It's entirely your decision.

If and when all this took place
It is just pure speculation,
As is the belief that it was
Penned under God's inspiration.

 

CHAPTER ONE

A good many years had gone by,
Joseph and brothers were long dead,
From the time they took refuge
In the land that gave them bread.

There arose in Egypt a Pharaoh
With his people's welfare at heart
Who felt that all these Hebrews
Were slowing the economic cart.

They were shepherds and as such
Didn't help much in agriculture
And were also not all that keen
To promote Egyptian culture.

As labour was at a premium
For his architectural plans
He put them to work, making bricks,
Which displeased the Hebrew clans.

Unaccustomed to any work
Involving physical exertion
They felt that their 'chosen' status
Had been given to perversion.

And as the Hebrew birth rate
Continued on an upward roll
Pharaoh sought to introduce
A new program of birth control.

According to Jewish records,
Which are of very little worth,
Midwives were commanded to kill
Every Hebrew man-child at birth.

But the midwives disobeyed
For fear of God's retribution
And so the people increased
Thanks to their contribution.

 

CHAPTER TWO

 A Levite, who didn't know God's Law,
Took his father's sister to bed
And so a baby boy was born
To Amram and aunt Jochebed.

She managed to hide the child
Three months, God only knows where,
But then leaves him in a basket
By the river, at kismet care.

 Pharaoh's daughter came for a swim
And saw this ark among the reeds
Which contained, when she opened it
One of the Hebrews' many seeds.

Miriam, the child's elder sister,
Ensured, for a goodly sum,
That Pharaoh's daughter would take
As the boy's nurse his own mum.

The youngster grew to manhood,
His life was a bed of roses,
Pampered by Pharaoh's daughter
Who'd given him the name - Moses.

But our hero's racial traits
Were difficult to shake away,
And he murdered an Egyptian
At the construction site one day.

He thought that no one had seen him
But was as wrong as he could be
And when challenged on the issue
To Midiam he had to flee.

There, he struck an acquaintance
With Reuel and all his daughters,
Whom he had helped when he drove
Shepherds away from their waters.

Sometime later he was given
One of the daughters to marry,
And with the birth of his first son
He decided there to tarry.

 

CHAPTER THREE

 Moses' father in law, Jethro,
Was known previously as Reuel
For unless he had two names
This tale is confusing as hell.

At mount Horeb, tending the flock
Of Reuel, it is presumed,
Moses saw a bush on fire
But the bush was not consumed.

He didn't seem at all perturbed
By the great wonder of it all!
Of a fire that did not burn
Or hearing a plant to him call.

'Moses, Moses', the bush had said,
To which he gave a quick reply,
And did not sound too concerned
When he answered back, 'Here am I'.

So the bush continued to speak,
For there was no one else around,
And told him to take off his shoes
As the place was 'holy ground'.

The voice then revealed itself
As coming from God, not from weeds,
And Moses suddenly learned
That speech does not grow from seeds.

He had been talking to this plant
For quite some time in that place,
But now that God reveals Himself
Moses hides away his face.

(Comparing verses two and four
One discerns a note of discord:
Was it God almighty speaking,
Or just an Angel of the LORD?).

God told him that He had come down
To send him on a rescue mission:
He was to bring Israel out
From the land of their oppression.

But Moses was not all that keen
To meet with Pharaoh, who he knew
Had ordered that he should die
For the Egyptian that he slew.

The LORD said he should not worry,
He with be with him all the way,
And as for being 'slow of speech'
He would coax him on what to say.

Yet Moses was still unhappy!
'What would people's reaction be
If I should come to them and say,
The God of our fathers sent me?'

As they might want further details
He asked if God had a name
And was given to understand
That God wasn't always the same.

'Eh - yeh' Asher 'Eh - yeh', said God,
'I will be what I want to be'
But then reveals His full name
In Chapter Six and verse three.

The LORD then gives instructions
On what Moses should say and do
And ends by commanding the Jews
To plunder the Egyptians too.

 

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