THE HEAVENS—Under pressure from scholars, who for centuries have pointed out strong similarities between certain aspects of the two religions, God finally admitted Tuesday that He had stolen the idea for the Messiah from Zoroastrianism and used it as a major feature of the Judeo-Christian tradition. “Look, maybe they came up with the thing about the Messiah being conceived by virgin birth, but c’mon—that’s just one minor detail. I added plenty of new stuff in there,” said God Almighty, Our Lord and Heavenly Father, adding that the concept of Saoshyant, the savior of Zoroastrianism, was “barely fleshed out” and that He had “really put [His] own spin on it and humanized [His] Messiah” by having Jesus Christ physically walk the earth and interact with other people. “I mean, how many ideas are truly original when you think about it? And anyway, I made my guy a carpenter—gave him a nice real-world job. That’s so much more relatable than their mysterious, magical man who lives for decades without eating anything. Okay, okay, I may have also taken the part about him raising the dead and being the judge of all humankind, too, but that’s it. The rest is all me.” God attempted to silence further criticism by announcing that there were some “big surprises” in store for the upcoming Apocalypse, assuring reporters it would be “totally different” than Frashokereti, the Zoroastrian description of the final battle between good and evil.