The Children's Bible in a Nutshell
 

A child was asked to write a book report on the entire Bible.

In the beginning, which occurred near the start, there was nothing but God, darkness, and some gas. The Bible says, 'The Lord thy God is one, but I think He must be a lot older than that.

Anyway, God said, 'Give me a light!' and someone did. Then God made the world.

He split the Adam and made Eve. Adam and Eve were naked, but they weren't embarrassed because mirrors hadn't been invented yet. Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating one bad apple, so they were driven from the Garden of Eden. Not sure what they were driven in though, because they didn't have cars.

Adam and Eve had a son, Cain, who hated his brother as long as he was Abel.

Pretty soon all of the early people died off, except for Methuselah, who lived to be like a million or something. One of the next important people was Noah, who was a good guy, but one of his kids was kind of a Ham. Noah built a large boat and put his family and some animals on it. He asked some other people to join him, but they said they would have to take a rain check.

After Noah came Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jacob was more famous than his brother, Esau, because Esau sold Jacob his birthmark in exchange for some pot roast. Jacob had a son named Joseph who wore a really loud sports coat.

Another important Bible guy is Moses, whose real name was Charlton Heston. Moses led the Israel Lights out of Egypt and away from the evil Pharaoh after God sent ten plagues on Pharaoh's people. These plagues included frogs, mice, lice, bowels, and no cable.

God fed the Israel Lights every day with manicotti. Then he gave them His Top Ten Commandments. These include: don't lie, cheat, smoke, dance, or covet your neighbor's stuff. Oh, yeah, I just thought of one more: Humor thy father and thy mother.

One of Moses' best helpers was Joshua who was the first Bible guy to use spies. Joshua fought the battle of Geritol and the fence fell over on the town.

After Joshua came David. He got to be king by killing a giant with a slingshot. He had a son named Solomon who had about 300 wives and 500
porcupines. My teacher says he was wise, but that doesn't sound very wise to me.

After Solomon there were a bunch of major league prophets.

One of these was Jonah, who was swallowed by a big whale and then barfed up on the shore. There were also some minor league prophets, but I guess we don't have to worry about them.

After the Old Testament came the New Testament. Jesus is the star of The New. He was born in Bethlehem in a barn. (I wish I had been born in a barn too, because my mom is always saying to me, 'Close the door! Were you born in a barn?' It would be nice to say, 'As a matter ! Of fact, I was.')

During His life, Jesus had many arguments with sinners like the Pharisees and the Democrats.

Jesus also had twelve opossums. The worst one was Judas Asparagus. Judas was so evil that they named a terrible vegetable after him.

Jesus was a great man. He healed many leopards and even preached to
some Germans on the Mount.

But the Democrats and all those guys put Jesus on trial before Pontius the Pilot. Pilot didn't stick up for Jesus. He just washed his hands instead.

Anyways, Jesus died for our sins, then came back to life again. He went up to Heaven but will be back at the end of the Aluminum. His return is foretold in the book of Revolution.

ya know, that's probably as good of a translation as any of the others. At least that kid didn't have the agendas behind most versions.

That's great! Thanks.

A very funny read.....but it really shows the problem with Sunday School Christianity.

The trouble is, THAT was exactly what the kid heard in his/her years in Sunday School. Adults need to be more careful what they teach. ( The intended lesson vs the ACTUAL lesson.) I am not the least surprised by the mixture of anti-democrat politics in the Bible stories. Some of the confusion obviously came from hearing unknown words that sounded like a familiar word, and the teachers were not aware of what a child might hear.
It is no wonder that teenagers leave church when this is what they have been taught--and they think they know something of Christianity and the Bible.

It's been my experience that many, many converts from Christianity to atheism have read the entire bible, a proportion that stands in great contrast with those who remain in the fold.

When I was in graduate school at the University of Toronto, the college at which I was registered forbad anyone from taking Biblical Studies course in the original languages (the courses were required) until the student proved they knew the Bible in English. They administered the dreaded English Bible Exam. It was about a 3 hour exam with approximately 300 or so questions. The year I took it, only 3 people passed. Two of us were Pentecostals and the third Salvation Army. Most of the students who took the exam were candidates for the Episcopal priesthood. All the students who failed faced a semester of repeatedly reading the Bible in English while taking their other courses and falling behind in their Biblical Studies requirement. I've never seen Cliff Notes for the Bible.

Kerry,

One of the things that the Bible Colleges did well was "English Bible". No way you could graduate and not retain at least some of that knowledge.
Back when I was an Assistant to the Pastor in the Reformed Presbyterian deomonination, I considered ordination. It would have required additional schooling because I had an MRE; not the required MDiv. However, I sat in some of the ordiantion exams and was surprised at how well I would have done in anything "English Bible". Of course, I was not under the stress of the actual candidates, but I readily knew all the answers.

The kid left out the part about how Santa and Jesus are BFF.