A MisreadBible Christmas

By J. R. Eldridge

THE NATIVITY
During the reign of King Herod of Judaea, an unwed teenage virgin called Mary is impregnated with a magical baby by the Holy Spirit. This doesn’t sit well with her fiancé Joseph so naturally he dumps her. When the couple reconcile, they have to travel to Bethlehem for a preposterous census, and Mary ends up giving birth in a stable. Meanwhile, a group of stargazing magi, who come traipsing hundreds of miles after a star, inadvertently inform the king of Judaea of the Messiah’s birth.

HEROD’S CHRISTMAS CAROL
King Herod, the infamous baby massacring tyrant of the nativity, is recast as Scrooge. On the day that would come to be known as Christmas Eve, he is haunted by the ghost of his dead wife Mariamne who has come to deliver a warning. He is visited by three further spirits who take him on a journey to his past, present, and future. Will the king heed the spirits’ message and mend his ways, or will he forever be the villain that the Bible portrays him to be?

BONUS
Parodies of A Visit from St. Nicholas and a selection of Christmas carols, and some nativity themed tweets.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J. R. Eldridge
• Release date: Mar 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005163501

J. R. Eldridge

J. R. Eldridge is a British satirical fiction author with a fascination for religion and the absurd mythology that surrounds it. He especially enjoys poking fun at it. He began writing joke Bible verses on Twitter, and eventually moved on to writing parodies of Bible stories. He collected some of these in his MisreadBible book series.

Book preview

Copyright © 2019 by J. R. Eldridge

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

ISBN 978-1-005-16350-1

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination, first century myths, or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead or incorporeal, or actual events is purely coincidental.

First Printing: 2019

www.misreadbible.com

Cover art and design by Richard R. Moore, graphic designer.

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

The Nativity

The Dumbfounding of a Religion

Holy Mother of Christ!

Prepare Ye the Way

Plot Interrupting Genealogy

What a Load of Non-census

Jesus Christ!

While Shepherds Got a Shock by Night

Wise Guys, Eh?

There Can Be Only One

Herod’s Christmas Carol

Stave 1: Humbug!

Stave 2: The Ghost of Herod’s Past

Stave 3:Horn of Plenty

Stave 4: What in the Fuck are You Pointing at?

The Final Stave: And this Time, It’s Stavier!

A Visit from St Anger

Carols

Away in a Saucepan

Frosty the Snowman

Hark! Harold the Angel Sings

I Saw Mommy Riding Santa Claus

Jesus Christ is Coming to Town

Jingle Bells (I'm going to Hell)

King Herod was a Mental Man

O Cum, Got a Faceful

Randolph the Brown-nosed Reindeer

Soylent Night

A Christmas Tweet

For

Fuck’s sake!

Preface

Christmas is that special time of year when we celebrate the birth of Krampus. That evil bastard has been the source of many a bowel movement in my house, let me tell you. Christmas is also associated with the birth of Jesus, for some reason…

Nowadays, the festival has little to do with Jesus, aside from the occasional nativity scene or angel on top of a Christmas tree, and has more to do with spending time with family, giving presents, hoping some fat bloke will break into your house, and eating enough food to feed an army in the space of a single meal.

I could think of no better way to celebrate the festive season than by engaging in the wanton blasphemous spoofing of its most time-honoured tales and songs.

Only two of the gospel authors, Matthew and Luke, provide nativity narratives, but their stories differ significantly. In fact, it’s almost as though they were just making shit up as they went along in order to make Jesus fit some vague messianic prophecies. So, I’ve had to piece their tales together by alternating between the two gospels in order to (hopefully) make the cohesive story that the divinely inspired men of God couldn’t be arsed to.

And what’s Christmas without a bit of Dickens? A Christmas Carol has always been a favourite of mine, so I decided to cast King Herod, the infamous baby massacring tyrant of the nativity, as Ebenezer Scrooge and see where it took me. The result is a twisted tale in five staves.

There are also some distasteful carols at the back of the book to annoy your religious relatives with. Imagine their faces when you belt out O Cum, Got a Faceful at the dinner table!

No matter what time of year you’re reading this, I wish you a merry Christmas.

Addendum

When I first submitted this book to Kindle Direct Publishing, they sent me a message saying that I couldn’t have writing on the book’s spine unless I had at least one hundred pages; at the time, I had 92. I racked my brain to figure out how to fill the eight pages and, at one point, I jokingly said I was going to just write the words ‘screw Flanders’ repeatedly. I’d never dream of doing that, so I’ve written a few more Christmas carols and used what was going to be the audiobook script for Plot Interrupting Genealogy alongside the family tree images. Take that, Amazon!

Acknowledgements

Well, another book, another load of people to thank. First and foremost, I’d like to thank the people who bought my first book, The MisreadBible: Genesis. I hope both of you enjoyed it. I’m kidding, there were more than two sales and some awesome reviewers.

I’d like to thank my supportive friends and family whom I tortured for hours by reading my stories to them; my mother, Mel, Michelle, and Amy especially. Special thanks to Travis and Chris, the hosts of the Church of Atheism podcast, for interviewing me. It was a fun experience, and I hope you continue to do the podcast for years to come.

Thanks to Joshua Saxon with whom I’ve been working to produce the audiobook of The MisreadBible: Genesis. Well, I say I’ve been working with him, but he’s the one who recorded it, mastered the audio, and did everything. It’s great to know such a talented voice artist and hear him bring your work to life. Even if you’ve read the book, listen to the audiobook, it’s amazing.

Thank you to Richard R. Moore for another outstanding cover. It’s a real joy to have such a professional, hilarious, and eye-catching cover for the book. It sets the stage for the stories inside.

I’d like to thank the authors of Matthew and Luke (whatever their names may be) for adding their nativity narratives to the stories they plagiarised from Mark. Way to go, guys!

And once again, thanks to all my Twitter, and now Facebook, followers for your encouragement. I even appreciate the religious hecklers because