'And The Lord spake unto Moses face-to-face as a man speaketh unto his
friend' Exodus XXXIII: 11 JKV
It wasn’t the cool wind on top of Mount Sinai that caused Moses to shiver, it
was panic. As the smoke that engulfed the summit briefly cleared, Moses had
anxiously looked at the stone tablets. They were blank, just as he’d left them.
He'd had to make all sorts of promises to the stiff-necked multitude, who were
pitched below in the wilderness, pining for the fleshpots of Egypt. They’d
started getting more and more attracted by Aaron’s Open-source Golden Calf
project, and so he He'd countered by committing to the publication of a
definitive prestige guide to the true religion, Mosaic Law in a
Nutshell. With great rapidity, Aaron was able to outmanoeuvre him with
the announcement of the imminent release of the rival GravenImagesTM
Visual Quickstart.
When Moses, in some desperation, had first mooted the idea for a Dummies
Guide to Monotheism, God had been so enthusiastic. "Yes!" he said, "I've
always fancied myself as an author. I've had several ideas floating around for a
while. I'm sure I could bash out a book in no time.” But then there was delay
after delay, with several different plausible excuses. When reality kicks in,
the art of instructional writing doesn’t look quite so easy.
"So" shouted Moses, clapping his hands nervously, "What hast thou got for me?";
"Aaaaah, well, sorry, but the new chapters aren't going to be ready in time,
they're going to slip. I've got all sorts of pressing commitments right now;
fallen angels causing me hassle; also, for some reason, the creation just
didn’t happen in Utah. Helluva mess. We’ve had to sort of evolve a solution
there as we went along. Still, we all felt better once we'd established that it
was the developers' fault."
“But….though hast made some progress, right? Listen, God, if thou canst at least
give us the Mosaic code, then we can ghostwrite the commentary. If we don't
respond quickly, we'll have lost the initiative".
"Tell you what…I'm giving a couple of presentations over the next few weeks to
the Hosts of Midian, so I've got to work on the material anyway. Based on the
feedback I get, I can pull it all together into a couple of really top notch
chapters, say next week?"
Moses sighed. "I knowest not, God. I promised the multitudes a book that wouldst
cover all of the big issues. They'll feel short-changed. Baal hath already got a
publication list as long as thine arm.“
They lapsed into a ruminating silence.
"Mo! Let’s turn it into a Crib-sheet! You know, one of those hyper-condensed
'Top ten Tips for this, that and the other. We could turn that out in no
time.'?”
As Moses started shaking his head, largely out of habit, God’s suggestion began
to sink in. "Sort of 'Top Ten Reasons to smite Jericho?” he mused
out loud, “or 'Ten False Idols and How to Destroy them’ verily?"
His voice was rising in pitch now.
“Yeah, or perhaps we could put it a bit stronger than that even. What about
'Ten Best Practices for the Children of Israel?' Nice, short, easy to
do."
"Great idea, that. I liketh the 'Best Practices' phrase. It soundeth keen and
efficient."
"Maybe it’s not quite prescriptive enough. You know how the Children of Israel
are, you have to put it straight or they'll be looking for loopholes. Could we
make it ‘Ten things you’re not allowed to do’ ?"
"Hmm. Great, but it isn't snappy enough. It has certainly got to be ‘The Ten
Something’. What about…." There was a thoughtful pause. "Oh hang it, let's have
a quick omer of manna and maybe inspiration will strike."