"In Heaven There is No Beer"

I will look up The Exodus on Wiki this weekend, and will reserve my judgment until after I have read it. Meanwhile, I suggest that you read the Biblical account. It's not all that long, and it makes a pretty good story, even if it's not true. The book of Exodus is the second book in the Old Testament, right after Genesis. I understand your reluctance to read the whole Bible, but just reading this one book won't kill you. See if you can find some other translation than the King James Version, unless you're fond of Shakespearian English.

The River Jordan story comes from the Biblical book of Joshua, but the explanation of how it might have really happened comes from a secular source, possibly National Geographic, or possibly that Reader's Digest book I told you about previously. I believe the idea that the Jordan story might have been the inspiration for the Red Sea story came from inside my own head. I have been criticized before for not being able to properly reference my sources. I have been reading this stuff since I learned how to read, mostly for my own edification. If I knew there was going to be a test on it someday, I might have kept a better record.

According to the Bible, Jesus put Peter in charge shortly before He was crucified. He told Peter that he would "hold the keys to the Kingdom" until Jesus came back. He also said something like, "Whatever you bind on Earth will be bound in Heaven". From this evolved the story that St. Peter would be the keeper of the Pearly Gates and decide who got into Heaven and who didn't. I'm not sure where the idea of the Pearly Gates came from, but I think it is a reference to King Solomon's palace, or maybe it was the temple in Jerusalem that Solomon commissioned. I'm pretty sure that neither Jesus nor anybody else in the Bible ever said that we would walk into Heaven through the Pearly Gates.

According to the Bible, most of us good guys aren't going to Heaven anyway. There is a specific, relatively small, number of people called "The Elect", who are going to Heaven. The rest of us are going to inhabit God's Kingdom on Earth, which will be established after Jesus has returned to Earth once more. Meanwhile all the people who have ever died are, for all practical purposes, asleep. Come Judgment Day, the dead will be resurrected and judged by Jesus, along with anybody who is still alive after all the other catastrophes of the Apocalypse. Satan and all his followers will be "cast into the Lake of Fire", which is probably the origin of the popular concept of Hell. Contrary to popular belief, Satan is not in Hell now, he is on Earth, whereupon he was cast down from Heaven after his unsuccessful rebellion against the ruler ship of God. All of this was supposed to have happened within one generation, the generation that was alive when Jesus walked the Earth. Jesus never provided for a successor to Peter because He was supposed to be back before Peter died.

So your hypothetical scenario about me living forever right here on Earth is not that far off from the Biblical version of the afterlife. Of course I would accept an offer like that. Who wouldn't?