Thursday, January 15, 2009

I Wander While I Wonder

Being sick at the beginning of the week gave me a lot of time to think - not necessarily a good thing after not sleeping and popping tylenol and aleve in an effort to regain the ability to speak without crying.

There are so many things about the Bible that I'd love to know and among those things, there are some so riduculous I'd be embarrassed to ask. I can remember asking a Sunday school teacher some of them as a child, but alas, she had no answer for me. So, in the interest of disclosing just how disfunctional my thought process can be at times, here are my yet-unanswered theological questions:
  • Did people in the Bible have nick-names? Did Methuselah really spend all nine-hundred sixty nine years being called by his given name? Really? I have a hard time picturing his mother calling for him to come in for dinner, or his wife scolding him for driving the camel too fast while using his entire name. Those poor women must have been exhausted.
  • Along that same line, Isaiah had two sons. One was named Shear-jashub and the other Maher-shalal-hash-baz, translating to "Only a remnant will return" and "Pillage hastens, looting speeds" respectively. Mothers everywhere can testify that no matter how hard you try not to mix up the names of your kids, there is just no way to prevent it. So, picture if you will - Mrs. Isaiah enters the room to find that her precious angels have been making mud pies indoors, she screams, "Only! -Pillage! - Looting! - Remnant!" How long do you think it would take until she passed out from exhaustion?
  • Okay, last one. This is one that I've wondered a lot about for a very long time. It's a short one too. How many mothers in Nazareth asked their children, "Why can't you be more like Joseph and Mary's boy, Jesus?"

So there it is, years and years and years of Sunday school, Vacation Bible School, tent meetings, youth group and church services and those are the deep theological questions burning in my mind.

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