A Reading From The Profits

A startling headline from the Journal of Imaginary Archeology and Biblical Errancy: 

First Century Parchments Explain the Moses Plagues

 Journal reporters indicate that recent findings in archeological excavations, including an abundance of parchments found in clay water jars and apparently from self-appointed scientific profits of the time (or was that prophets? Difficult to determine in hieroglyphics and Cuneiform) and writings from the disciples of an early First Century A.D. itinerant preacher from Nazareth in Galilee shed new light on biblical era plague-myths and realities.

THE PROFIT: It was the “Wuhan virus” or the “Wuhan plague” or the “China virus.” 

THE NAZAREAN: “It may have originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan, but an asymptomatic woman returning from a trip to the United States to her home in Heilongjiang province, China, on March 19, 2020 – eight days after the last reported case of any new Covid-19 cases in the city - infected 71 people – including five nurses, one doctor and one other hospital staff member – with a single use of the elevator in her apartment building. Beginning with an upstairs neighbor, the disease spread quickly from family member to family member and through the building. Genome tests of 21 patients suggested the cluster was the result of a single point of origin. Researchers in the September 2020 American Center for Disease Control journal Emerging Infectious Diseases wrote, “The viral genome sequences from the cluster were distinct from the viral genomes previously circulating in China, indicating the virus originated abroad….”

Commentators in the accompanying parchments repeatedly observed, “Perhaps it should be called the ‘American plague’ or the ‘American virus.’”

THE PROFIT: “If you are in church praying and singing the praises of the Lord, He will protect you from all harm. Oh, and don’t bother to wear masks.”

THE NAZAREAN: “There will come a moment two-thousand years from now when, on the fourteenth day of the month named for the Roman goddess Juno, a man will attend a religious service while infected with the virus and, after 91 additional people from five counties developed symptoms of the virus, the governor of the province, Mike DeWine, will acknowledge, ‘It spread like wildfire. Very Scary… Our religious faiths are at the core of our great state and country. We thank our faith-based leaders [for] all they do to serve God and His people. However, it is vital that to control the spread of the virus that any time people gather for religious services, that everyone wear masks, practice social distancing, wash hands, and also while indoors, making sure there is good ventilation and airflow.’”

THE PROFIT: “If you look at children, they are able to throw it off very easily. For whatever reason, the China virus, children handle it very well… They may get it and it doesn’t have much of an impact on them…. In terms of mortality, fatality the numbers for children under a certain age, meaning young, their immune systems are very, very strong, very powerful and they seem to be able to handle it very well.”

THE NAZAREAN (who once said, “Suffer the little children to come unto me, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.”): “In the middle of the month named in honor of the Emperor Julius Caesar, in a tiny province in a place called Body of Christ, Texas a genuine healer will report, ‘Since March until now it’s close to 167 so far from the last time I reported. I don’t remember the exact date, but we had 85 infants, 23 months or younger, and since that date the number has almost doubled and that hasn’t been a very long period.’ The healer was reporting on a doubling of infant patients in a two-week period.” 

THE PROFIT: “When I took over, we didn’t even have a test. There was no test. There was no test. We didn’t even have a test.”

THE NAZOREAN: “No matter what anyone says, you cannot develop a test or a vaccine in 2018 or 2017 or 2015 or 2010 or 2009 for a disease that will not exist in those times and places. It will be called COVID-19 because it will not exist until 2019.”  

THE PROFIT: “There will come a time when, in the face of a great pandemic, men of religion and politics (men were the ones who did all the talking in those days – even when it did not make sense) will claim that, in order to limit the spread of the plague,  requiring worshippers to wear masks in churches (a word that would not come into being for quite some time) and synagogues (they were around) and other houses of worship ‘is an issue of right and wrong. [The requirement] is wrong legally. The resolution is wrong biblically. The resolution is wrong medically. The resolution is wrong, and we do not accept it under any circumstances.’” [The pastor of a parish in Manatee County, Florida]

THE NAZOREAN: “Are kidding me? No mask would have stopped me when I sat on the dock in Capharnaum, resurrected the dead son of the widow of Nain, preached on the mountainside and from the boat on the shore, even in the synagogue of Nazareth. And, I can’t carry a tune in a parchment sack. History will never record that I sang or expected others to. So, there’s no way a mask would keep me from singing; I’ll sing when and where want to. Mask-schmask! I never knew singing and the absence of face masks in a plague are requirements for prayer. I’m sort of glad I’ll never have to deal with that foolishness and folly – especially when it’s spouted in my name.

“And the idea that the People of God have to gather in churches just to hear My word and celebrate the Resurrection. Oh, give me a break! I know something about crowds. Just look at how many folks I fed – ‘five thousand men not counting women and children’ by one account - and I did it twice! But if there were a plague, I’d be tellin’ ‘em to stay home, wear masks, wash their hands and keep social distance. After all, I am the Lord of Life!” 

THE PROFIT: “It is what it is.”

THE NAZOREAN: “If you believe that, you will never understand Me. ‘I came that all men and women might have life and that they might have it in abundance….   Love one another so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete… I am the resurrection and the life.’ I’ll never settle for ‘It is what it is’ and neither should those who love and trust in me.”