"The Gospel of Nachash"

In the beginning God made the world, and on the sixth day he made creatures in his image. Male and female he created them, and they were the bekhorim, to whom God gave dominion over every herb bearing seed, and every tree bearing fruit, to be in their care. Mankind he formed from dust, but the bekhorim were made from air, and their spirits were more subtle than that of man.

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It's a bit of an exaggeration to call this one a retelling; it's really more of an apocryphal (and, depending on your sensitivity, rather blasphemous) fake book of the Old Testament. It also explains certain gaps in Genesis by means of a Secret Ingredient, though, and explains certain aspects of the Secret Ingredient by means of the Book of Genesis, though, which is why it goes in this category.

The initial blame belongs to Rev. Devin McLachlan, the Episcopal priest who put the idea in my head; then it passes to my husband Kyle and my friend Jessica Hammer, who between the two of them helped me work out the linkages between the Secret Ingredient and Jewish lore. Yonatan Zunger checked over the result for me. But I suppose I do bear the blame for turning the idea into an actual story.

And Mike Allen bears the blame for publishing it. "The Gospel of Nachash" will be in the third volume of the Clockwork Phoenix anthology series, due out in 2010.

Music for this story was Passion, the soundtrack to The Last Temptation of Christ, by Peter Gabriel.