1 Samuel

In the white corner, Brother Eccles, implementing the Eccles Bible Project. In the black corner, an atheist called Richard who is struggling to say say just one intelligent thing about religion. Today's topic: the first book of Samuel. I was going to do both together, but there's too much action.

Samuel - became a prophet at an early age.

Whereas most babies cry in the night and wake their parents, Samuel is himself woken in the night by God, and told to get prophesying. Actually, he does rather more than that, as he will soon become the last of the Judges, and when he's a bit older he leads the Israelites against the Philistines.

The Philistines have stolen the Ark of the Covenant, which is the most holy thing the Israelites have, and taken it to the Temple of Dagon, who may well have been a fish-god. A bad move, as Dagon's idol is first knocked down, and then vandalised.

Dagon - we'll agree with Richard that this is not a god to be worshipped.

The Philistines start to suffer from "emerods" which is a nice word for a most disgusting condition (piles); we never did this bit at school, as all the boys would have sniggered.

To cut a long story short, the Israelites get their Ark back, and under Samuel's leadership stay faithful to God, and prosper. We're only in Chapter 8, and Samuel's task is almost done. He is getting old, and the Israelites have had enough of judges. They want a KING.

"Had enough of judges" is a popular sentiment, even in these days.

So we get to the story of Saul, who starts off as something of a goodie, and ends up as something of a baddie - and dead. We see him first looking for his father's asses (or donkeys, as Americans would have it).

One of Saul's father's donkeys.

Being able to deal with asses is a great qualification for a monarch, even these days, and so Samuel anoints Saul as king. The Philistines are still causing a lot of trouble: nowadays "Philistines" tends to refer to those who hate culture, so it is no surprise that they don't get on with the man who now comes upon the scene - David, a skilled harpist.

David demonstrates his secret weapon against Philistines.

David, who is going to become a major figure in Jewish history, has another weapon, of course: a sling, with which he despatches the giant Goliath. After that, Saul becomes very jealous of David, especially as it becomes clearer that David is to succeed him as king. Saul wants to kill David, who goes into exile.

David wants to take flight, but there are questions over his hand-luggage.

However, Saul's son Jonathan is a great friend of David; also, in fact, his brother-in-law. At this point some silly people who have never had proper friends will tell you that it is something to do with homosexuality, but that theory doesn't make sense given all the other information we have.

The rest of the first book of Samuel contains a lot of the squabbling between Saul and David. Saul has definitely gone over to the dark side at this point, and Samuel makes a surprise comeback, when the Witch of Endor recalls him to warn Saul that there's trouble ahead.

So it all comes to a head at the end of 1 Samuel, when the Philistines defeat Saul and Jonathan in battle at Mount Gilboa, and they both die. Things have gone rather badly under King Saul. Will King David do any better?

A Philistine inscription: "When I hear the word culture, I reach for my sword!"

Eccles in New York

I is makin a visit to New York, which is where my bruvver Bosco been hidin recently - de UK aint reely welcomin to poeple wiv his unique tallents. Since my camerra got broken I has had to steel some phottos off de Internet.

I saw dis in de Musuem of Modern Art. It's a man listenin to Paul Inwood's music.

I will try and concentrate on de more spiritaully nuorishin sights dat Bosco and me has seen. New York is of course de place where Cradinal Dollan hangs out, and here is a photto of dis well-nuorished man.

"Joe Biden says he's a pious Cathlic."

Actaully de St Patrick Cathedral is all covered in scaffoldin right now, as de masonry became unsafe when Cradinal Dollan conducted a funeral there and started laughin thunderuosly. But here is a pitcher of what it looks like normally.

St Patrick's Cathedral before de Cradinal luaghed.

I went to de Holy Innocents church, West 37th Street. Bosco aint very good at countin, so we took a hymn book wiv us to help us work out where 37 is rellative to de uvver nubmers. Anyway, at dis church dey had a Tridentin Mass. Lattin Masses is very useful in a city where de local vernacooler aint easy to understand. Dere was a parallel translatoin into New Yorkan, which was all about de Lord bein a cool dud wot kicks ass: dat must be de time when He rode into Jerussalem on Plam Sunday.

For de non-Cathlics dere is plenty of uvver churches. My bruvver Bosco's spiritaul needs is very simple so we went to Times Square and participated in a Calumny Chappel service.

Eccles and Bosco sings "We is saved pussons" in Times Square.

De one disappiontment so far is de Statue of Libberty, which aint as impressive as poeple finks. It's de same probblem wiv de little mermaid in Copenhaggen, dey needs to get a big mermaid.

Statue of Libberty. Dis iddle punched Bosco when he kissed it.

Well, dat's enuogh suovenirs of New York. Wot shall I blogg on next? De world aint been doin much dat's very eddifyin, just now, has it?

Annuvver luvvly paintin from de Musuem. Is dey saved pussons?