What’s all this, then?

Begat: According to Matt is a severely redacted edit of the Gospel of Matthew, from the New Testament of the Christian Bible – the King James Version (1611 A.D.)  – the one I was forced to read as a defenseless child.

The Bible is edited every second of every day by those who decide which chapters, paragraphs, verses, or sentences to quote that endorse their preferred lifestyle, while blatantly ignoring the multitude that do not. By doing so, according to 80% of believers in the U.S., readers are, by definition, editing the word of God, or at the very least, words that were inspired by God.

If Christian hypocrites can pick and choose which parts of the Bible they endorse, why can’t I do the same? I wanted to demonstrate - to an absurd extreme - that you can manipulate the Bible to say whatever you want to believe. Personally, I want to believe in elves, talking fruit, cannibalism, and ghosts. I also wanted to make myself want to laugh like hell.

As I began deconstructing Matthew, memories of my Christian upbringing started to resurface, which was revealing. I became obsessed with the history of the Bible and how it was cut and pasted together over many centuries. I immersed myself into the world of “biblical form criticism” by consuming as much information I could find. I am still consuming. There is so much to learn about the one book that has caused so much suffering and death over three millennia – all in the name of the same god. The same book. The same problems.

Hypocrites have always boiled my blood. But the Religious Right’s loving embrace of Trump and Trumpism has taken hypocrisy to unconscionable levels. My goal is not to criticize people of genuine faith, just the hypocrites distorting the Bible to condemn everyone with opposing beliefs, or for hiding criminal activity behind it. Fun examples: a millionaire megachurch preacher that asks for more money from his congregation because God told him to buy a second private jet; miracle healers; evangelists convicted of defrauding their congregants – including selling fake coronavirus cures; politicking from the pulpit; self-righteous politicians trying to turn the US into a religious state; and a “God-anointed president” using the Bible as a political prop. Where is the Christian outrage?

(Don’t worry. It gets hilarious from this point forward.)