1001 Errors in the Christian Bible

Matthew -- Higher Plane Drifter

Higher Plane Drifter
(The first of the "Kugel Westerns")

Directed by:

Sergio Leone

Adapted for the Screen by:

Maimonides

Based on the book, "The Torah", by G-d

Starring:
Clint Eastwood as Abraham
Eli Wallach as the Baaltender
Saddam Hussein as Bart
Yassir Arafat as Maddog
King Hussein as Charles
And
Donald Sutherland as "Shades"

Setting:

(The Desert Inn, deep in the heart of the Negev Desert. Bart and Maddog are playing a game of darts with knives. Charles is sitting at a table, with a puzzled look on his face, reading the story of Creation. The Baaltender is behind the altar, polishing several idols on top of the altar. )

(Background Music: Waah waah waaah, wah wah waah.
Yaah yaah yaaah, yah yah yaah.
Waah waah waaah, wah Yahweh.)

(Abraham enters the Inn.)

Baaltender :

Howdy stranger. C'mon in and idol on up to the altar.

Abraham :

I have been wandering in the desert. I have not worshiped in
forty days.

Baaltender:

How bout an ice cold Baal?

Abraham :

I do not worship Baal.

Baaltender :

No problem. We've also got Baal lite, Iced Baal, Malt Baal,
and genuine draft Baal.

Abraham :

I do not worship any idols.

(The Baaltender takes a step backwards with a shocked look on his face.
Bart and Maddog swing around to take a look at the stranger. Charles
raises a monkey skull in one hand and mentally compares it to Maddog's
face.)

Bart :

What's yer name stranger?

Abraham:

Abram. My friend's call me Abraham.

Bart :

Well, Abram, folks round here don't take too kindly to
strangers who don't worship Baal. We're just going to have to
fight it out to see whose G-d is stronger. Now, on the count of
three, draw yer G-d. One, two, three, draw!

Abraham :

Done!

Maddog :

How can you be done, you ain't drawn nuthin?

Abraham :

The G-d I worship is incorporeal.

Bart :

Okay Abie, that's it. You and me is going to settle this once and
fer all. Choose your weapon.

Abraham :

Very well.
"They have put their trust in abundance of chariots,
In vast numbers of riders,
They have not sought the LORD.
For the Egyptians are man, not G-d,
And their horses are flesh, not spirit;
The righteous man perishes,
And no one considers;
Yet he shall come to peace,
He shall have rest on his couch
Who walked straightforward."

(Bart and Maddog stand silently with their mouths open as Abraham walks
out of the Inn.)

Baaltender :

What the heck did he just say?

Charles : (studying map)

What he is saying is that G-d is pure spirit
while man consists of the physical and spiritual. When man
dies, the physical part of him dies but the higher spiritual part
of him lives on through the values that he carried and how
they influenced his work and the people he knew.

Bart :

So the teaching of G-d's incorporeality by means of
authoritative exegesis, i.e., the most public teaching of G-d's
incorporeality, is indispensable for destroying the last relics
of paganism.

Maddog :

And the immediate source of paganism is less the ignorance
of G-d's unity than the ignorance of His radical
incorporeality.

Baaltender :

So while the belief in unity leads immediately to the rejection
of the worship of other gods but not to the rejection of the
worship of images of the one G-d, the belief in incorporeality
leads immediately only to the rejection of the worship of
images or of other bodies but not to the rejection of the
worship of other gods, all G-ds may be incorporeal.

Charles :

Exactly. So only if the belief in G-d's incorporeality is based
on the belief in His unity does the belief in G-d's
incorporeality appear to be the necessary and sufficient
ground for rejecting forbidden worship in every form, i.e.
the worship of other gods as well as the worship of both
natural and artificial things. Now, can anyone tell me how
to get to the Galapagos Islands from here?

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