Despite the death sentence imposed on him in a fatwa issued by the Pope, our fearless Religion Editor, Paxton Quigley, continues his exposés of the contradictions and stupidities of blind faith. In this occasional series he explains some typographical errors, omissions and mistranslations from the bible.
"Get thee behind me, Satan." It is well-known that there are gospels missing from the bible, and that these were excluded for convenience when the bible was compiled. Apart from the gospel of Mary Magdalene, one notable missing gospel is that of St. Stanley who is never mentioned anywhere in the so-called good book. It seems that other disciples were jealous of Jesus and Stanley's intense personal relationship, considering it unworthy of their calling as "fishers of men", which, in itself, smacks of homoerotic hypocrisy.
The bible claims that the Nazarene conman uttered the words to St. Peter during an argument about his plans for a future journey to Jerusalem, and to suffer, die and be raised to life. However, according to the omitted gospel of St. Stanley, the words were spoken to Stanley during an alcohol- and drug-fuelled disciples' party, where Jesus' repressed desire for Stanley finally got the better of him, causing the Lamb of God to whisper lustfully "Get thee behind me, Stan...and do as you will". The rest is left unspoken...
The number of The Beast. 666 is supposedly Satan's number, but if you call it he doesn't answer. This mistake stems from the early days of printing in England when William Caxton secretly printed bibles in English in 1480 AD. Even at that early point in history, the emergency services number for police, fire or ambulance was 999 and the Rastafarian community of Brixton referred to the police as "Babylon" i.e. oppressors. It didn't take much imagination to transmogrify them into devils and thus it was the proof reader's fault when he missed the inverted positioning of the 999, transforming the devil's number into 666.
Who wrote the bible? Popular belief is that it was Jesus' disciples. Really? Could a fisherman in Galilee even read and write 2,000 years ago? Jesus' earthly father was a carpenter so hardly able to afford an education for his son. There were one or two exceptions: John's family might have been wealthy, Bartholomew was of noble birth, and Matthew was a tax collector, so they could, or should, have been educated, although they were still dupes.
So, did the disciples write the bible? Don't be so bloody stupid.
The Jesus and Mary Chain. Contrary to common belief, there is no mention of The Jesus and Mary Chain in the bible, probably because this Scottish indie rock band once attempted and failed to get released a song entitled "Jesus Fuck". Pity.
