Steam pouring from the bonnet (trans. hood) of the Mercedes and water gathering on the road beneath told its own story. The driver sat on a nearby rock, playing with his worry beads, muttering Arabic curses to himself. The Westerner was pacing up and down, trying to get a signal for his cell phone. The Sage stood where the road crested the hill, peering through some ancient opera glasses into the distance.

"Magnificent!" muttered the Sage to himself, and turning round, beckoned the Westerner, who had finished his attempts to summon a vehicle rescue service. Ahead, the border of Lebanon gave way to a splendid panorama: fertile fields, small settlements with well-tended gardens, and clusters of palms and fig trees. It was as biblical as the illustrations on boxes of yuletide dates.

The Sage’s forehead then contracted, and a frown spread across his countenance. The encampments of hostile forces could already be seen amidst the idyllic setting. He began to quote from memory: "When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations - the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Hivites, Jebusites and Preterists - - -"

"Hyper or moderate?" questioned the young man, now at the Sage’s side, and taking the eyepieces from him.

"Comprehensive, thorough-going and radical," replied the Sage. "We have our work cut out. The anachronism will have to be explained, of course. The Abrahamic narrative seems to have collided with the Joshuan narrative. But we’ll get round that."

The Westerner was consulting his blackberry. "The take-over appears to be thorough-going. We have decisions to make: to follow in the foosteps of Abraham towards the new creation, or enlist with Joshua in a cleansing of the land - which would also be a controversial precursor to the new creation."

Looking behind them, the pair saw a battered pick-up truck in the distance, signalling the approach of back-up for the vehicle overheating problem. The narrative could continue.