Burdened with a staff that wouldn’t crumble, an erect King David sat in his palace and masturbated vigorously while longing for Bathsheba. Thus saith the Bible.

OK, not that Bible. I’m talking about Jonathan Goldstein’s latest book, Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bible!, his imaginative retelling of 10 classic Bible stories. A “punching up” of the ancient religious text, as the back of the book puts it. Goldstein, who hosts the CBC show WireTap, reveals juicy details the bearded old guys left out of their accounts — the story behind the story, if you will. Noah’s abusiveness toward his artist son, Ham. David’s odd obsession with comedy, an obsession that made him kill Goliath because of the Philistine giant’s lame attempts at humour. The strange penis incident that occurred between Jonah and his brother when they were boys.

Like the real Bible, Goldstein’s Bible is populated by a bunch of depraved weirdos. Noah’s an asshole. Samson’s a meat-headed oaf. David is horny as hell, unable to even walk around his palace without hunching over and carrying a harp to hide his uprightness. Jacob is a trickster and a hog of blessings — and the fight scene between him and the angel is laugh-out-loud hilarious. Where the King James Version says, simply, “there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day,” Goldstein gives us all kinds of head-locking, pile-driving, wing-biting and skull-stomping between the two.

Laced with wit and irreverent affection for these ancient stories, Goldstein’s Bible is wickedly funny. Read it. Laugh. And then go ye into all the world and share the good news of these stories with your friends.