“The principal function of Biblical exegesisâ€, wrote Dobson in jaunty mood one morning, “is for me to look with disdain upon the minnows who have trod these paths before me.â€
The finest of Dobson’s exercises in Biblical scholarship is his pamphlet The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse… Or Were They? (out of print). The title is a tad puzzling, but not for long, for in the very first sentence Dobson states his case. “I avow,†he wrote “that there were no horsemen of the Apocalypse, nor, if there had been, were they four in number.†In the sixty pages that follow, he argued that a combination of mistranslation, forgery, and carelessness had altered the original text, so that “four†was correctly “twoâ€, and “horsemen†was properly Englished as “cowsâ€, or possibly “beesâ€.
Challenged by the local papal nuncio after publication as to how two cows or two bees could symbolise famine, war, pestilence and death, Dobson countered with a theological sally, probably the greatest of his sallies, theological or otherwise. Sadly, there is no record of what he said, for Marigold Chew’s recently-purchased Boswellite tape recorder was out of order, having been placed too close to the toaster that morning, and consequently smothered in a particularly toothsome marmalade.