1Now behold, it did come to pass that in the city of Los Angeles, the writers of science fiction and fantasy did begin to wax exceedingly fat off of the labors of their hands.
2Yea, they did profit exceedingly from their craft, insomuch that they did pen all manners of diverse scripts and movie treatments.
3And behold, many of their stories did deal with Chosen One protagonists, insomuch that these writers did spend much labor crafting phony-baloney scriptural prophecies to flesh out the protagonists' back-stories.
4Now it came to pass that these prophecies were contained in sacred texts, which the writers did toil exceedingly to invent.
5And behold, the writers did send forth a law, yea even an exceedingly strict law, by which these texts would be known.
6And the law did read thusly:
7Behold, the text that thou shalt write shall be exceedingly ancient and obscure, insomuch that thy audience might have no expertise on the culture of origin, and will just have to take thy word for it.
8Ancient shall be thy text, and ancient and exotic shall be the language in which it first appears.
9Behold, thy text shall be written in Aramaic, or in Chaldean, or in proto-Mongolian, or in Sanskrit, or in Mayan or Sumerian or some demonic language that thou hast invented on the spot.
10Though the potential origins of thy text shall be many and diverse, thou shalt always generate an English version of thy text, which thy protagonist or his lackeys shall translate from the original in an unrealistically brief amount of time.
11And it shall come to pass that when thy text is translated to English, it shall be written in Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe.
12Yea, thy verb conjugations shalt be incorrect, even to the point of meaninglessness.
13Thy sentence structure and writing style shall be based on the King James translation of the Bible, regardless of the culture and language of origin.
14Thou shalt not use all the styles of the King James Bible, which are diverse and many. Instead, thou shalt focus on those bits for which thou hast read the Cliff's Notes.
15Thou shalt begin as many sentences as possible with the words, "Thou Shalt" or "Behold".
16For behold, if it is good enough for the Ten Commandments, it shall be good enough for thee.
17Thou shalt frame all of thy prophecies in the language of the Book of Revelation, particularly the parts about rivers turning to blood, seven headed dragons, and women riding monsters or wearing crowns of stars.
18Thy prophecy shall sound exceedingly cool, and shall mirror events transpiring in the plot thus far.
19Thy prophecy shall not be so specific as to preclude a Prophecy Twist.
20Thou mayest include a Nostradamus-style cryptic timetable.
21Insomuch as thou includest this time-table, it shall always work out to the prophecy being fulfilled within three weeks of its being read on-screen (or at least no later than the season finale).
22The location for the fulfilling of thy prophecy shall invariably be within four score furlongs[1] of the protagonist's house. Thus endeth the law.
23And behold, it came to pass that the writers did name this law "Hollywood Apocrypha," and did use it to generate diverse sacred texts and fake scriptures.
24And they did look upon their labors, and see that they were good. Well, no, not really good. But they did look upon their labors and see that they were not so horrible that people stopped watching their shows.
25And they did go shopping.
—The Gospel according to Hollywood, chapter 42, verses 1-25