According to its book jacket, "The Last Testament," written by God (with the help of Emmy award-winning comedy writer David Javerbaum), came about as the supreme being chose now, "as the earth he godded so magnificently draws to a Mayan-induced close," to "break his 1,400-year literary silence with his final master piece."
The memoir tackles everything from from setting the record "(un)straight" about the real first couple, Adam and Steve to "shedding light on a father-son relationship [with Jesus] as heartwarming as Will and Jaden Smith's."
Over the last few weeks several sites like Gawker have debuted excerpts of the memoir, and now Gay Voices is featuring Chapter 14, which examines what God really meant when he wrote those verses about homosexuality in Leviticus.
Today God also rolled out his very own "It Getteth Better" video (above), which is highly appropriate (not to mention hilarious) as it's Spirit Day.
CHAPTER 14
The Bible's verses on homosexuality have been the focus of more debate and rancor than any others; a fact I confess I did not foresee.
For when I transcribed the Torah to Moses, I anticipated the most controversy would surround the verses in Leviticus 27 mandating that those dedicating part of their family estate to me must value it according to the amount of seed required for its planting, at the rate of fifty shekels of silver per bushel of barley seed.
I remember dictating these lines to Moses; and afterward looking up to find him staring at me in wide-eyed astonishment, and saying, "Thou do knowest that when the Israelites read this, they're going to lose their fucking shit, right?"
But we were wrong; it is the lines on homosexuality that proved most contentious; so let me first express my appreciation for the fact that, more than 3,000 years after the writing of the Old Testament, so many of you still regard its words as the final arbiter of morality.
Thou art right to do so; for my injunctions on sexual intercourse, and dietary laws, and menstruation, and the need to sacrifice bulls with grain offerings of three-tenths of an ephah of the finest flour mixed with half a hin of olive oil, and the right and wrong ways to sell thine own daughters into sexual slavery, are not the product of a particular group of people in a particular place at a particular time;
They are timeless.
The last thing thou shouldst ever do, is create thine own set of moral values based on the realities of the world in which thou actually livest.
But there has been a fundamental misinterpretation regarding the specific verses thought to condemn homosexuality in Leviticus: "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind; it [is] abomination." and "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death."
In retrospect, I understand how "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind" could be seen as a proscription against homosexuality, among those of a predisposition to find it so; yet that is not what was meant.
No, what was meant is this: If thou art a man, and thou seest another man that thou desirest, do not cut off his genitals, use a knife to carve a slit where they were, and insert thyself into it, that thou mayest 'lie' with him as thou wouldst a woman.
Surely even the gayest among you would agree that that is detestable.
I have already shown how I created Adam and Steve; and to those who say, "If God wanted us all to be gay, he would have created us with both male and female sex organs," I say, "Yea; but if I did not want any of you to be gay, I would not have made the male anus so accommodating to the erect penis."
And to those who say, "Homosexuality is a sin, because it goes against God's directive to be fruitful and multiply," I have already conceded the point biologically; but I would note that creatively speaking gays have it all over straight people, fruitfulness-wise;
And as for multiplying, though it is true they cannot reproduce by themselves, nowhere do I forbid them from receiving help in bearing young from other members of their communities;
16 Such as donors, or surrogates, or a female best friend who neareth 40 and hath not yet found her perfect breeding partner, and whineth continually of the slow beshadowing of her biological sundial.
Besides, it is an undeniable fact that those clergymen harshest in their condemnation of gays and lesbians are often those struggling hardest against their own hidden urges; which is why they cannot even preach straight.
It was certainly true in regard to the serpent in the Garden; and it has certainly been true of many other "men of God" in all three of my great religions who have spoken out against homosexuality.
Joel Osteen, for instance; he is gay.
(Note that I do not say he has committed homosexual acts, for that could be shown to be demonstrably true or false; I simply say, that in the secret recesses of his heart, Joel Osteen yearns for the tender touch of another man.
This is subjective, and intangible, and lies beyond the bounds of libel laws.)
Verily, I hope I have made myself clear on this issue.
I have been accused of many things in my day, and of some rightly; but I am in no way homophobic.
Gay, straight, bisexual, transgendered; ye are all equally smiteable in my eyes.
Copyright 2011 by Bizzu LLC
"The Last Testament" is on sale Nov. 1 but can be pre-ordered at Amazon.com. For God (and David Javerbaum) on Twitter.