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The Jesus Christ Story

by Eduardo Caroccio

Jesus’ potential was discovered at a very early age by his future agent Hiram. After hearing the young Shecaniah Katzenbaum teaching the elders in the temple, Hiram was quoted as saying “This is it — my ticket to the top…” Hiram soon befriended the young “Sheq” and took him under his wing, seeing as his father was just a carpenter and his younger brother Timmy’s only claim to fame was creating the first gutbucket.

Sheq’s first taste of unconditional infatuation was a small one at that. His debut gathering was attended by less than twenty, half of whom were bedridden on account of some rancid fish. While he was not booed or haggled at any point in the evening, one middle-aged man did ask him why he didn’t become a carpenter like his father. “You think you can go off on your own and get famous on some get-rich-quick scheme, don’t you? What kind of sensible Jew are you, anyway?” The same man was trampled by a camel two hours later and died the next day.

As a result, Hiram decided to change Sheq’s name. “How many parthenons do you think you can sell out with a name like Shecaniah Katzenbaum?” Hiram was quoted as saying in the apocryphal Book of Shaphat. “You need something catchy, yet meaningful.” After several rejected options such as Tha Holy 1, they finally agreed on Jesus, a popular name in the Hebrew youth counterculture, along with the catchy surname “Christ” meaning messiah, a bold move which shocked conservatives but “drove the young girls crazy.”

Jesus soon made a name for himself with his controversial lyrics, which was more Hiram’s doing than anything else. Hiram, if nothing else, knew how to turn some heads. Despite being discredited by Caesar himself, Jesus got offers to play throughout the Roman Empire.

An uncanonized text shows the lengths to which his followers would go to watch him perform: “In fact, Jesus’ most dedicated fans go to all his sermons, in hopes that he does their favorite parables, and perhaps even unreleased material.” One young Christian was overhead saying “I hope he smites the wicked tonight!” However, as we all know, the crowds became overwhelming, and it seemed like every fashionable Jew was wearing his very own Jesus Christ® brand tunic. This engendered a great deal of cynicism in the original followers. “Ah, come on, it used to be about the message, man. He used to play all the small huts, and now they fill up the temple to see him. He’s gone mainstream, man. This shit’ll never last.”

Hiram didn’t realize what it meant to be agent to the son of God, and he eventually got more trouble than he bargained for. The most publicized event was the lawsuit filed within the Roman Senate by the Sangha monks of the Buddhism-practicing Ayodhya region of India. These ambassadors to the west argued that Gautama Buddha was the original Supreme Being, and any claims otherwise were a serious infringement on copyright. The suit was pending at the time the book was written.

Civil suits, however, were only part of Jesus’ downfall. In addition to infighting among the apostles and allegation of skimming off the top of profits were his alleged “liaisons” with several groupies who regularly attended his sermons. The most damaging case was the so-called Sermon on the “Mount,” where Jesus allegedly serviced a crowd of over 5000 sex-starved young women. “Now that was a miracle!” cried out one satisfied fan.

Even Jesus’ oldest supporters began to be disappointed by the incoherent myrrh-induced sermons where he told parables about “gettin’ it on” with lost sheep. In addition to his ongoing struggle with myrrh, he had a much-publicized falling-out with Hiram, escaping his original contract by rewriting the “Laws of the Kingdom of God.” “I’m bigger than Yahweh now,” claimed the victorious Christ after winning his case against Hiram, who later went onto work as an agent for the “Screaming Lyres.”

The end was in sight during the trouble-plagued Assyria Tour, when five of the twelve Apostles left the group, citing “artistic differences”. The group continued the tour, but the magic was lost. Even Jesus’ trademark miracles lost their luster, as his typical show was reduced to a brief appearance where he waved to the audience and forgave everyone’s sins. “I paid 35 shekels for this? He could have at least healed my cleft palate!” complained one disappointed sermon-goer after the sold-out Babylon Arena show.

Finally even his best friend Peter was ready to turn him over to the Romans. “What a schmuck — I’ve been writing his sermons for the past four months and he takes the credit,” Peter said. You all know what happened afterwards: they crucified him. However, his gospels continued to be popular, eventually becoming the best-selling religious philosophy of the whole Roman Empire. The wily Peter was able to take these profits and organize Christianity, a brilliant career move which kept the name of Jesus alive for centuries. Even today he occasionally resurfaces on the charts.