No. 4. God
For a giggle, the Lord makes a little wager with his bessy mate the devil which involves systematically destroying the life of his obedient servant Job (not unlike what happened to Dan Akroyd in the 1985 smash Trading Places) on the slender pretext of seeing if he is really a worthy man. So God allows Satan to wreck Job's home, his crops, his family and then afflict him with a pustulent skin disorder.
It turns out that Job is all right and God collects his crisp dollar bill.
No. 3. Lot
Great man; a friend to the stranger. One night a couple of fellas turn up a the gates of Sodom and Lot invites them for a bit of foot-washing back at his place. Big mistake, it turns out these lads are a couple of angels and no doubt a bit easy on the eye.
This being Sodom (a place not unlike Brighton), it's not long there are ravening hoards of men pounding at his door, demanding he hand the pretty boys over.
Naturally horrified, Lot has to think fast. In a flash of inspiration it comes to him.Why let two complete strangers face the lustful fury of the crowd, when he's got a couple of his own flesh and blood daughters sleeping upstairs.
'Friends, I beg you don't do such a wicked thing! Look, I have two daughters who are still virgins. Let me bring them out and you can do whatever you want to them'. But there's no talking to these Sodom crowds when there caught in the grip of priapic frenzy, and they try to bust the door down.
Fortunately, thanks to a little angelic intervention, the populace are struck blind and lose some of their lustful fervour. Phew, that was a close one!
No. 2. Lot's daughters
After seeing his home town of Sodom destroyed for its sinful ways, not to mention having his wife turned into a pillar of salt for the heinous crime of 'looking back' (-that prankster God again!). Lot goes to live in a cave in the mountains with his two daughters.
Undoubtedly traumatised by earlier events in their harrowing lives, these young women are assuaged by a paranoid fear that they are destined to die as childless maidens. So they hatch a cunning little ruse to ensure the continuity of the bloodline; they get their father stinking drunk then seduce him. That must be some strong ol' hooch they brew up in those mountains because their plan is an astounding success and these two pragmatic young ladies go on to become the not-so-proud matriarchs of the Moabites and Ammonites. (No chins, big Adams-apples - not a looker in the bunch.)
No. 1. Samson
Without doubt though, the all time supreme biblical fruit-loop is none other than that original Charles Atlas himself, Samson. I'm not talking about his dumb-ass seduction and scalping at the hands of 'My My My' Delilah. It's the run up to his troubled first marriage that marks Samson out as one of the greats.
After getting the glad eye off one of those heathen Philistine girls, Samson is all set on marriage. His parents don't like it but he's the blue-eyed Nazrite and he and his folks head off to Philistia to do the necessary, only stopping on the way for Samson to rip up a lion.
A couple of days later, Samson gets curious to see how his dismembered lion is getting on. To his surprise, he finds it all full of bees and honey. Our hirsute hero decides to chow down on some of that sweet, sweet honey then goes about his business.
A couple of days later, thirty roving young bucks from the Philistine wedding party arrive at Samson's place for a bit of a knees up. Samson, in a ploy worthy of Ted Rogers, decides to riddle them this 'Out of the eater came something to eat, out of the strong came something sweet'. Ah, clever, do you get it? Samson is so confident (and not without some justification) that no one will guess the answer to his little riddle that he wagers them all a fine linen and change of clothes that they'll be stumped.
You get a very poor quality of houseguest in ancient Philistia and this lot decided to threaten to burn out Samson's wife-to-be's parents if she doesn't make good with the answer.
She nags and whines for a few days and eventually the big man relents. Ah, foolish fellow, for women whose parents lives are on the line are not be trusted. So, she blabs. The wedding Party Stroll up to Samson and ask him 'what could be stronger than a lion or sweeter than honey'. To which Samson gives the deranged and cryptic reply of 'If you hadn't been ploughing with my cow, you wouldn't know the answer now'. Suddenly, with the power of ten tigers, Samson the Wonder Groom sets about wreaking a ferocious revenge on a bunch of innocent bystanders in Ashkelon. In the slaughter that ensues, Samson butchers thirty men, then hands out their blood soaked togs to a wedding party who probably wished they'd just said 'Nah, we give up mate, what is it?'
Thats not the end of the line for Samson, before he'd finished his religious duties 300 foxes, a couple of olive groves and a few corn fields - not to mention 3000 men of Judah - were going to wish they'd never run across this live-wires path.
At the end, Samson, in one last (foolish) display of his strength, knocks down a temple - with himself trapped inside.
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