The Importance of being a Mountain.
Cleaning out the attic today I came across an old bible that used to belong to the wife’s mother.
I’m not very religious but I think the bible is an excellent reference book on the history of some of the oldest parts of the world, we would all be less well informed about those times and places had it not been for the writings contained in the bible. Some great stories there too.
The old testament is far more interesting than the new one in my opinion, packed with adventure and action, disasters, drunken orgies, sex, scandal, human sacrifices, stoning to death and what have you, my kind of read on a wet Sunday afternoon. 
Few people ever read it now, pity for it’s a grand read for anyone, believer or non believer (I once went into a bookshop on the quays and asked the new girl assistant for a copy of the new testament, she asked me would I settle for a copy of the old testament instead as she wasn’t sure whether the new one had come out yet).
Seems everyone’s an atheist these days.
I was particularly interested in the behaviour all the prophets/holy men in the old testament.
One thing I noticed was that all the religious men always got their ‘messages’ from the almighty whilst atop a mountain, and any holy man worth his salt had to have his own special mountain to mount, by the way hills don’t count, hence no mention of them in the bible.
Nobody else knew what these holy men got up to once they climbed out of sight, but they had to be careful up there, as the law at the time clearly stated “One cannot keep mountin’ goats and call himself holy”:shock:
Mountain climbing was the “in” thing for prophets to do back then, they usually went up alone but the wealthier ones took a staff with them, they normally stayed up there for five to ten days depending on the weather, the amount of special requests they had to cover, and the kind of messages they were to give the unwashed when they descended, although some of the more fitter macho type prophets liked to do the “Mountain Marathon” (sponsored by “Ben’s Great Goat Cheese”) once a year which lasted 40 days and 40 nights.
In order to finance the holy mans mountaineering holidays the multitude donated to have prayers said for special intentions, hoping that the holy man would receive divine intervention to cure Uncle Isaac’s leprosy, brother Simon’s boils or to make barren wives bear them a son, incidentally if you suffered from the palsy you could use “Paypalsy” for quicker results. but in short it boils down to whatever ails you you paid a holy man to go tell it on a mountain.
As you can imagine, with all these holy men around mountains were becoming as scarce as hen’s teeth as more and more holy men claimed their own, huge rows broke out amongst them over mountains and indeed some stubborn old holy lads who would not pass on their mountain to their offspring were physically flung off mountains. ;-)
Finally peace was restored when they appointed a minister for mountains who introduced a rent-a- mountain system which worked quite well, yes indeed, holy men and mountains played a huge part in the bible.
Had the Rolling Stones been around at the time they would have had a huge hit singing “Hey you!, get off of my mountain”
Well I suppose living on the 99th floor of an apartment block is almost the same as being on a mountain, that right Mick?.
