If Cable News Had Covered the Biblical Period

In my retirement I've sometimes become a couch potato watching too much TV.  I'm intrigued by the incessant coverage of both important and frivolous events and the inevitable analysis by ubiquitous "experts."  It's made me wonder what would have happened had there been cable TV during the Old Testament period.

(Canaan News Network Nisan 22 1842 B.C.E.)  Hebron District Attorney Melvin Ben Schlepp announced today that he had filed child endangerment charges against Lot, a nephew of Abraham, the latter having escaped Schlepp's prosecution for the attempted murder of Isaac through the last-minute intervention of an angel several years ago.  Lot is accused of offering his daughters' sexual favors to citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah. 

"It's one thing to stone fancy boys, but it's quite another to offer to let an entire city gangbang your daughters, and I am not going to tolerate it," said Schlepp.   

Lot, reportedly on a mission from God, was dispatched by his Uncle Abraham to warn the twin cities about God's intention to use Weapons of Mass Destruction against them if they failed to stop their unholy ways.  Upon entering the outskirts of the cities, a mob descended on Lot's camp when their gaydar detected persons with an alternative lifestyle in the Lot delegation.   

At an early morning press conference Schlepp claimed he had a parchment supposedly written by a member of Lot's Tribe, which was a contemporaneous report of the incident:  

"Where are the men who came to you tonight?  Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.  Lot then went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him and said, 'No, my friends.  Don't do this wicked thing.  Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man.  Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them.'"  

When pressed by reporters from the Canaan Inquirer, Schlepp admitted they had not found the actual parchment, but were relying on the testimony of an ear witness.  "We suspect that Lot had advance warning of the search warrant and hid the parchment in a cave near Qumran in the Dead Sea area.  We intend to find it if it takes four thousand years."  

In a separate press conference, child advocate and temple harlot Gloria Allred said she would petition the Negev Supreme Court to remove Lot's daughters from his custody.  "If this keeps up they may be defiled by Lot himself" said Allred, who was also plugging her new scroll, "Using Dead Sea Mud as Makeup."  

Lot's attorney Mark Garegos said that he intended to prove his client's innocence at the preliminary hearing scheduled for the next new moon.  Garegos hinted that he intended to blame the entire incident on Lot's wife, who was last seen fleeing the outskirts of Sodom on the way to the new regional mall near the northern coast of the Dead Sea in Samaria and then disappeared into the terrain.  Courthouse observers were surprised that Lot had retained Garegos because his father had obtained a poor result for Noah in a previous trial.   

Meanwhile Herzelya attorney Johnnie Cochran has been hired by Sodom to pursue a class action against Lot who is being blamed for the destruction of the twin cities in a freak hail and brimstone fire.  Lot denied the accusation, blaming it once again on God, and asked, "Don't you think I would have insured my tent if I was going to burn down the city?" 

When a reporter suggested to Schlepp that the prosecution of Lot stemmed from his failure to obtain a conviction against Abraham in the earlier incident, he said, "I didn't even know that Lot and Abraham were related.  They don't even have the same last name."  

Nevertheless, sources have reported that Schelpp was incensed when he found out that after the angel stopped Abraham from killing Isaac in the earlier incident, Abraham had changed his name from Abram.  The district attorney is calling this change the new crime of "identity theft."  At the same time Abraham f/k/a Abram started a custom of chopping the foreskin off male infants of his tribe.  Schelpp has condemned that practice as "Neolithic."

Lot was released on 2000 shekel bail and forced to surrender his racing camels so he cannot leave the country.  Also, his herd of sheep was put into protective custody to prevent any abuse.  An autumn 1840 B.C.E. trial is expected, but Attorney Garegos has filed a Change of Venue Motion to get the trial moved to Beer Sheva.  "How can we get a fair jury pool in Sodom if half the city thinks Lot burned it down?"