Submission Rejection Letter

Dear "Inspired,"

Thanks for your interest. We regret your writing style, while compelling, might seem a bit archaic for the average reader.

Typically we'd just say "It isn't a good fit," but it's so unsettling that we feel compelled to elucidate.

Your book's just too long, with considerable confusion as to whether it's even fiction or non-fiction. We feel that's a fatal flaw. The plot line is too convoluted; someone would have to be a "scholar" to even attempt to render any continuity or perspective.

Also, we find the transition from Old Testament to New a challenging segue. It's like all the stories were written by different people. It's a bit of a mess.

This "Old" Testament is disturbing. For example, "Genesis" seems to rationalize incest:

"Come, let us ply our father with wine and then lie with him, that we may ensure posterity by our father.” So that night they plied their father with wine, and the firstborn went in and lay with her father; but he was not aware of her lying down...

Then, that whole fascination with foreskin! While we respect religious rites, filling a bag with the foreskins of your vanquished enemies seems a bit much, don't you think? In "Samuel" is written:

David and his men went out and killed 200 Philistines. He brought their foreskins and presented the full number to the king so that he might become his son-in-law. Then Saul gave him his daughter Michal in marriage.

At the risk of being crude, that's just fucked up.

There's that schizophrenic hearing voices telling him to commit filicide:

God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. After he had bound his son and drawn his knife to kill him, at the last moment God prevented Abraham from proceeding.

God told him? Really!? Pass the Haldol.

We just didn't know what answering your query would get us into.

Look, we haven't even begun with your New Testament. Maybe that'll read better, by some miracle. The bottom line is that in its present form, this just won't sell. It'll never catch on. That's reality.

Perhaps enlist the help of an editor? Good luck with that. :)

Sincerely,

Thomas Douting, Publisher, AAP