You Might Be a Zombie and Other Bad News - Writers of Cracked dot Com [25]
—Infancy Gospel of Thomas, chapter 3, verses 2-3
And, like the Nazi archaeologist in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the boy started aging rapidly and withered away. Sure, it would’ve been easier just to kill the kid, but this is Jesus Christ we’re talking about here. He’s not just gonna up and waste some kid.
3. JESUS CHRIST UP AND WASTES SOME KID
In Thomas’s version of events, later that same day, as he was casually strolling around town, running divine errands, another boy accidentally bumped into Jesus on the street. So what would Jesus do? He’d probably use his divine presence to heal the boy of being friggin’ clumsy, right? Let’s see:
Jesus was provoked and said unto him “Thou shalt not finish thy course.” And immediately he fell down and died.
—Infancy Gospel of Thomas, chapter 4, verse 1
We . . . He probably . . . No. Wait. He just murdered a kid for brushing against him? Was Jesus a Crip? Far be it from us to question the judgment of the Son of God, but being sentenced to death for scuffing Christ’s sandals seems excessive. Maybe if the kid had been walking exceedingly slow right in the center of the sidewalk so he couldn’t get past him and was just obliviously yakking away on his cell phone while, like, eight people stuck behind him were trying to get somewhere and seriously if you would just move four inches to one side we could get past and GODDAMN IT DON’T STOP SO THAT WE ALMOST RUN INTO YOU. OH, AND JUST TO STARE SLACK-JAWED AT A TABLOID ON THE NEWSPAPER KIOSK, YOU SON OF A BITCH—maybe that’s a walking crime worthy of divine capital punishment. But wasting a kid because he touches your arm? Jesus was like a bully in an eighties high school movie, if they had been able to murder people with words.
2. JESUS CHRIST: SNAKE EXPLODER
By now Jesus is dominating Nazareth like Lord Humungus dominates The Road Warrior’s wasteland. The local children feared him so intensely, they adopted him as their king and acted as his bodyguards—forcing everyone who passed through town to come and worship him. One day a group of men came by carrying a small child, and they refused to follow a group of terrified children just for the honor of worshipping their bully king. Jesus catches wind of this and asks exactly what it is they’re doing that’s so important they can’t reserve some time for random child worship. They explain that the boy they’re carrying was bitten by a snake and is near death, and would he mind it terribly if he took his boot off of their necks because they’re so, so sorry? Jesus Christ (more sci-fi war-lord than beacon of forgiveness in this version of the Bible), says simply, “Let us go and kill that serpent,” and storms off into the woods to do what he does best: extravagant murder.
Then the Lord Jesus calling the serpent, it presently came forth and submitted to him; to whom he said, “Go and suck out all the poison which thou hast infused into that boy”; so the serpent crept to the boy, and took away all its poison again. Then the Lord Jesus cursed the serpent so that it immediately burst asunder, and died.
—First Gospel of Infancy, chapter 18, verses 13-16
Even after he acquiesces to Jesus’s demands, the snake is still blown to crap by the power of God for doing what’s in its nature? Holy shit!
1. AND THEN JESUS SAID UNTO THEM: SNITCHES GET STITCHES
By now the parents of Nazareth were understandably upset: Jesus was walking around town ruining little kids like a bad divorce. So they gave Joseph an ultimatum: Either Jesus learns to use his powers for good, or the family has to leave town. Considering that, by this point, Jesus has killed more kids than a Willy Wonka tour group, that sounded pretty reasonable. But Christ ain’t tolerating no narcs up in yore:
Jesus said, “I know that these thy words are not thine: nevertheless for thy sake I will hold my peace: but they shall bear their punishment.” And straightway they that accused him were smitten with blindness.
—Infancy Gospel of Thomas, chapter