Apocrypha

W. would be impressed by my studies in the Bible – you say studies in the Bible, not of the Bible, W. says – if I wasn't so drawn to the apocrypha. And not just the official apocrypha, but the apocryphal apocrypha.

I have a taste for the spurious, W. says, for dubious angelology and extravagant miracles. I like the Gnostic gospels where Jesus kills dragons with death-rays from his eyes. I like the vignettes of the beasts of the desert kneeling to the divine child, and of the palm-trees bowing down so the holy family can pick their fruit.

And haven't I spoken to him of hoping to find a caped Jesus, a flying Jesus, a kind of gospel of the superman? I must take my Biblical studies more seriously, W. says.