Apocryphal of ...

Apocryphal of ... posies? Apocryphal of ...crap? You decide.

I have always loved apocryphal stories. This stems from when I was six and the Queen Mother dropped me off to stay with her mother (the Dowager Queen). Mom would pull Grandciel aside (for that was her name, the Grandma Lucille, and that is how it was spelled by those who didn't really know how to spell yet because they were six) and whisper:

"Seriously, Mother, don't let Ellen read any of your National Enquirers. I don't want her thinking that stuff is true."
"Of course not, honey," Granceil would say, and wave Mom goodbye, and then dump a big stack of National Enquirers in my lap. "Don't believe any of this stuff" she would say, very very seriously, and I would agree and spend the evening studying up on spontaneous human combustion and aliens.

I still love that stuff. Gary and I were just at the Barnes and Noble Industrial Complex and the checkout girl complimented our purchases as viewed from the top of the stack. Nine Stories. A Man in Full. The Lovely Bones. "These are great choices" she cooed. Gary said "Just wait," because he knew what was at the bottom of the pile.

I think that was why I was so delighted to turn Southern Baptist in Jr. high and find that my childhood Catholic Bible had the Apocrypha, a special section in the middle that the Baptists didn't have (plus an entirely different division of the 10 commandments that got around the Baptist commandment against worshiping the graven images). Only I had the Apocrypha! The National Enquirer of the Bible! Not true enough to make it into the "real Bible" but who knows?  And of course, a big stumbling block to Baptists and the "Inspired Literal Word of God." Can't have a "Partially Inspired Semi-Literal Word of God."

I read the Apocrypha then, looking for spontaneous combustion and excitement but it was pretty much like the rest of the Bible, just like the Book of Mormon was when I read that in High School. Ho hum.

But back then I was a child, and I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a woman, I watched the History Channel and yea, they turned me on to the motherlode: The Gnostic Bible. Way freakier than the Apocrypha.

Imagine the beginning of the book of John: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (Okay, for fun, imagine literal Southern Baptists wrapping their heads around that.) Now imagine the Gnostic Bible's reprinting of the second century Secret Book of John. Secret! Book! of! John! Cool! Written at the same time as the rest of the New Testament, it's all like that first verse of the Gospel of John, except Jesus explains to John what "The Word" is, and he re-explains creation, and there's the Good God who creates a female God and they have a lesser Bad Ruler and He creates the Earth - oh, and there's a lot of stuff between the Real Bible's John first and second verses: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" and "And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness [was] upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." (Come on, that second verse is just a big subtitle that says: "Baptists! Don't take this literally. Poetry, people, poetry!")

And Jesus explains all the Big Secrets to John. First big shocker: dozens of angels were each assigned a body part of Adam to create. (Thank the angel Ikiban for man's molars, and Eilo for the testicles. Penis? Uncertain. They dug the Secret Books up in some cave somewhere. Of course, that would be the verse that rotted.) Jesus also rolls his eyes at the idea that Eve came from a rib. "It is not like Moses said, that she came from his rib." He cops to Eve coming from Adam's flesh, though, just not the rib, for God's sake. And Jesus takes care of the "Ignorant Savages" who have not heard of him. Baptists? Hell. Secret Book of John? Reincarnation.

Oh, and there's one verse in Genesis that always got my hand up in church.  Genesis 6:4 - "There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare [children] to them, the same [became] mighty men which [were] of old, men of renown." Oh, that always got the literal Baptists to become mad poets. "Ellen, 'sons of God' is figurative in this context." Well, you get the background story on those nasty sons of God. Very illuminating.

I'm just SO excited. Screw the DaVinci Code! If I find out any really big stuff (i.e Jesus was a girl, he had 15 kids who became the American Indians) I'll pass it on.

Comments

[Kelly]

My Dad is totally into the Gnostic Bible. That is all he can talk about now. : ) Did you really eat books up until you were 12?

[TheQueen]

1)The Gnostic Bible is pretty freaky. It's making me want to re-read the Approved Bible. That's freaky right there.
2)Why would I make up book-eating? I didn't eat all books, just the WWII ones they made before there was acid-free paper. And just the corners. And I just stuck my nose in "Bat Boy Lives" and smelled. You are right. That's a pretty good smell.