BibleAbridged

The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Genesis:

God made everything, but humans keep screwing it up; some Jews move to Egypt,
which seemed like a good idea at the time.
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Exodus:

Pharaoh tried to kill the Hebrews, but he blew it, so they left, and then
everyone accidentally worshipped a cow.
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Leviticus:

Rules: Don’t screw up your sacrifices, don’t have weird sex, be nice to your
slaves, and once a year send a goat into the desert because, hey, you haven’t
been so great.
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Numbers:

People talk smack about God and get punished, then people talk smack about
Moses and get punished, then Moses refuses to talk to a rock and gets punished;
Hebrews kill their way into the promised land.
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Deuteronomy:

Moses makes a big list of what you aren’t allowed to do, then up and dies on
everyone.
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Joshua:

Joshua and the Israelites kill, enslave, and conquer a bunch of people, at
which point Joshua gives a lecture on the importance of rule-following.
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Judges:

The Israelites keep mucking things up in the Promised land, though they had
some solid judges there for a while.
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Ruth:

Ruth’s husband dies, so she moves in with her mother-in-law. Later, she meets a
nice man in a wheat field, so it all works out.
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
1 Samuel:

The Philistines take the Ark of the Covenant, but it doesn’t work, so they send
it back. Saul becomes king and defeats them, but makes God mad. So, David takes
over as king, and you know he’s good because one time he killed a HUGE guy with
a rock.
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
2 Samuel:

David kills a bunch of people, which is great, but then he sleeps with a
married woman, and WOW is God mad about that. On the plus side, they have a kid
named Solomon.
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
1 Kings:

David is dying and his son Solomon takes over. David tells Solomon to be good
to God, which is a little insulting considering how Solomon was conceived.
Anyway, the kingdom splits in two even though Solomon built a nice temple and
everything.
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
2 Kings:

The northern chunk of the kingdom gets conquered for being bad. The southern
chunk people feel pretty self-righteous about it, but then the same thing
happens to them.
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
1 Chronicles:

Hold on, back up. Remember David from earlier? Really good king. Anyway, sorry
to interrupt. Continue.
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
2 Chronicles:

The Northern kingdom crapped out and got conquered, so let’s focus on the
Southern Kingdom, which also crapped out and got conquered. Everyone moves to
Jerusalem, which seemed like a good idea at the time.
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Ezra:

The Israelites spend 20 years building a temple, then celebrate by eating
crackers. Later, they decide some of their wives and children are a little too
pagan, so they pack them off and start looking for nice Jewish girls.
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Nehemiah:

Nehemiah builds a wall around Jerusalem for cheap by getting each guy to make
some wall behind his house. Later, Jewish men start getting with pagans again.
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Esther:

Esther marries the Persian king. Normally, this would be bad on the “no
marrying outside the faith” front, but it all works out when she can get a guy
hung for trying to kill all the Jews.
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Job:

The devil bets God that Job is only faithful because his life is good. God
makes Job sick, ruins his farm, and kills his family. Later, Job is miffed, so
God scolds him.
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Psalms:

( singing )
God is great! God is great! Super great!
Couple times he really let things go to hell, BUT
that’s probably ‘cause of something we did, SO
God is great! God is great! Super great!
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Proverbs:

DO do good stuff.
DON’T do bad stuff.
And for God’s sake,
LISTEN every now and then.
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Ecclesiastes:

The great wise man and king, Koheleth, wants you to know that he has literally
had every pleasure desireable, but he still has a lot of complaints.
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Song of Solomon:

Interlude: A sexy poem, with romantic talk, such as “Your teeth are like a
flock of uniformly shaped ewes.” No, wait WAIT. It’s not about sex, it’s about
loving God. Phew.
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Isaiah:

Things are going right to Hell in Judea. Isaiah declares that Jerusalem will
not fall, but hedges his bets a little by not attaching a time stamp to that.
Similarly, he says that at some point the Messiah will come.
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Jeremiah:

Jeremiah keeps saying Jerusalem will fall to the Babylonians. Eventually,
people get mad and throw him in a water tank, which tells you something about
the quality of sanitation back then. Later, Jerusalem falls to the Babylonians.
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Lamentations:

Interlude: Some sad songs about how God was right to let the Babylonians siege,
starve, and destroy Jerusalem. We don’t have the musical score, but hopefully
it was upbeat.
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Ezekiel:

God tells Ezekiel to tell the Israelites that it’s their fault Jerusalem got
destroyed, but he’ll get them a nicer town later, okay?
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Daniel:

Daniel is touched by God with the gift of prophecy, which means he gets a
pretty solid gig working for the new king. It goes pretty well except for the
time he gets thrown in a furnace and the time he gets thrown in a lion pit, but
jobs were tougher back then.
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Hosea:

God orders Hosea to marry an unfaithful harlot, so he does. She cheats on him.
He decides the whole thing is an elaborate metaphor for Israel’s faithless
relationship with God. Hey, whatever gets you through the night.
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Joel:

During a plague of locusts, Joel prophesies that the locusts are the army of
God. And, if the people of Israel will repent, they will receive great rewards,
like an end to the locusts.
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Amos:

Amos becomes, like, the 14,000th prophet to note that Israel is making God mad
and when you make God mad things go bad.
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Obadiah:

Edom is ruled as a vassal state of Israel for many years. Later, when the
Babylonians attacks Jerusalem, the Edomites don’t help fight them off. For
this, prophecies Obadiah, they will be punished.
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Jonah:

Jonah doesn’t want to be a prophet, so God has him eaten by a whale. At this
point, Jonah changes his mind and God has the whale puke him up. Jonah
cooperates, but remains irritated.
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Micah:

Having enjoyed that story about a whale, we return to another book about a
prophet who says doom is coming to Israel.
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Nahum:

For variety’s sake, Nahum prophesies the doom of Nineveh.
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Habakkuk:

Habakkuk, in a stroke of wild creative genius, prophesies doom for the
faithless.
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Zephaniah:

Zephaniah - presumably giving in to peer pressure among the prophet crowd -
prophesies doom for the faithless.
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Haggai:

Haggai prophesies that everyone better hurry up and build the temple, or bad
stuff will happen in Israel. Change that “or” to “and,” and he was 100%
correct.
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Zechariah:

Fast forward a few years. Israel got conquered, then unconquered. Zechariah
tells people to clean up the place so a Messiah can come by. The Messiah will
apparently come riding on a donkey, so, they probably don’t need to clean too
hard.
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Malachi:

Malachi decries the Israelites for horrible practices, such as sacrificing
animals that are not top quality. He prophesies that the Messiah will be
courteous and send word before he shows up.
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Matthew:

Hey, the Messiah’s here! He’s got a heck of a pedigree, gives a great speech,
and this one time they killed him BUT HE CAME RIGHT BACK.
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Mark:

Basically Matthew’s Gospel, but with less boring, more ACTION, and your choice
of two endings!
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Luke:

NO, NO, WAIT, JESUS IS EVEN A BIGGER BADASS THAN IN MARK. This one time they
crucified him, and he didn’t even NOTICE.
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
John:

Not only are those other three gospels ALL TRUE, but Jesus did so much awesome
stuff, John doesn’t even have time to list it. Amen!
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Acts:

Finding the market for Jewish converts to be quite limited, the apostles branch
out to gentiles. In the process, Steve gets killed, but it’s okay because it
gets Paul to convert. Paul does a great job, until the Romans get mad.
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Romans:

Dear Romans,

Hey, it’s me Paul. Taking a trip to Spain, but I’m planning to drop by. Make
sure to be good, don’t be bad, present your body as a living holy sacrifice,
etc. Also, wouldn’t mind a little funding for the Spain trip.

Very Sincerely,
Paul
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
1 Corinthians:

Dear Corinthians,

CUT IT OUT. CUT IT OUT with the drinking and sex and false gods. Okay? It says
right there in the book, Jesus died and came back to life, and THAT GUY says to
CUT IT OUT.

With Irritation,
Paul

PS: No chicks talking in church.
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
2 Corinthians:

Dear Corinthians,

Yes, I am the real deal. If you hear someone else talking about some other
Jesus, it’s not the genuine article. OKAY? You think I would put up with this
crap if God didn’t make me do it? Check yourself, Corinth.

Yours,
Paul
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Galatians:

Dear Galatians,

I am the only one who talks for God. That’s our arrangement, OKAY? If someone
else says he’s talking for God, he’s full of it.

Very Sincerely,
Paul
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Ephesians:

Dear Ephesians,

It’s me, Paul. I’m writing from jail to give you some life advice. Be good, be
unified, and husbands... love your wives the same way Jesus loved his
followers. Only, maybe stick around longer.

Very Sincerely,
Paul
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Philippians:

Dear Philippians,

Thank you for your continued support. I can only hope that you too are lucky
enough to suffer as much torment as I have, in service of The Lord.

Christianly,
Paul
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Colossians:

Dear Colossians,

No, NO, NO. Jesus is the real God. No other Gods. GOT IT? JEEZ. Please find the
attached notes on living properly, which I also sent to the Ephesians.

Very Sincerely,
Paul
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
1 Thessalonians:

Dear Thessalonians,

I apologize for the confusion in this important matter: If you die prior to the
coming of God’s Kingdom, you are still eligible to enter. With this in mind,
anyone caught mourning shall be considered lacking in faith.

Very Sincerely,
Paul
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
2 Thessalonians:

Dear Thessalonians,

I know, we’re all hoping Jesus comes back soon. But, the fact of the matter is
that we haven’t even seen the anti-Christ yet. So, sit tight, OKAY?

Very Sincerely,
Paul
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
1 Timothy:

Dear Timothy,

Some rules for your church: There is exactly one God. Not one, or two, or
three. Okay? Also, don’t start one of those hippie vegetarian deals. We get
mocked enough as it is.

Yours,
Paul
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
2 Timothy:

Dear Timothy,

Listen, I got out of jail, but then Nero picked me up, and man, the
accommodations here are a lot more dungeon-y. Be good and do good and all that
stuff, and would it kill you to visit?

Yours,
Paul
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Titus:

Dear Titus,

The main thing with picking leaders for your church is that they’re not stupid
jerks. This is harder than you’d think.
As for your flock: have them be good, and don’t let the old ladies hit the
liquor too hard.

Very Sincerely,
Paul
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Philemon:

Dear Philemon,

I’m sending back your slave Onesimus with this letter. Please cut him some
slack for running away. Of course, it’s your choice how to handle that.

Thanks for the funding, and have a great day!
Timothy and Paul
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Hebrews:

Dear Hebrews,

JESUS IS THE BEST! JESUS IS IMMUTABLE! BETTER THAN MOSES! BETTER THAN A REALLY
SWEET SWORD!

-Anonymous
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
James:

To Whom It May Concern,

I don’t care what any other letters say! For God’s sake, get off your ass and
help people!

Sincerely,
James
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
1 Peter:

To Whom It May Concern,

You know what? People talk smack about Christians all day. I don’t even care.
That’s just the Christian life, I guess. Whatever. But, let’s not rile up the
Romans too much. Okay, guys?

Sincerely,
Peter
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
2 Peter:

To Whom It May Concern,

I know the Second Coming hasn’t happened yet. Look, all I can tell you is the
date is TBD, but if God shows up and you’re worshipping the wrong guy, you’re
gonna have it pretty rough.

Sincerely,
Peter
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
1 John:

To Whom It May Concern,

YES, God REALLY came down and was REALLY made of meat the entire time, and I
don’t want to catch anyone saying otherwise.

- JOHN
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
2 John:

Dear Lady,

Can you believe these people who think God was never in the flesh? They are
anti-Christ, so don’t have any of them over for dinner, all right?

TTYL,
John
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
3 John:

Dear Gaius,

I wrote a letter to Diotrephes about how he’s preaching everything wrong, and
he wouldn’t even open the damn thing. What’s with these people?

Talk soon,
John
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Jude:

To Everyone Doing it Right,

Can you believe these people doing it wrong? You know, there were people in the
Old Testament who did it wrong, and we all saw what happened to them.

Yeah.
Sincerely,
Jude
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The Holy Bible: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness
Revelation:

Dear Everyone,

GUYS. I was on the Island of Patmos, when (WHOA!) an Angel started talking.
Then the Angel said, “Write all this down!” And he said God’s gonna play some
trumpets so loud it’ll kill a bunch of people. Then angels are gonna drop some
big bowls of plague on Earth and kill a bunch more. Then hail and dragons and
so forth, BUT THEN we get a new Jerusalem and sin is abolished. Should be any
minute now.

Sincerely,
John
Island of Patmos, Spring Break, AD 96
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