“The Bible is, of course, full of excitement: fighting and feasts and sex and weird food rules and weird sex rules. It’s a real page- turner, no doubt. But amid those rollicking good times, every now and then there’s a pause. A moment of reflection, or a meditation on core values—or, in this case, the logistical procedure for a regional census, followed by detailed results of said census and also some discussion of campground zoning.”

Eli Horowitz is the co-creator of Homecoming, both the podcast and television series; The Silent History, a digital novel; The Clock Without a Face, a treasure-hunt mystery; and Everything You Know Is Pong, an illustrated cultural history of table tennis. He was the managing editor and then publisher of McSweeney’s; his design work has been honored by I.D., Print and the American Institute of Graphic Arts