Some things one might expect to find in the Bible aren’t there at all; while sometimes what we do find is downright surprising. Take Hanukkah, for instance — not there! Ironically, not in the Jewish bible, but it is in the Orthodox Christian bible (in part — 1 Maccabees, if you’re looking). Meanwhile, the Christian Christmas stories don’t all jibe, and they include some surprises of their own.
I had a great time yesterday sharing thoughts on the Bible, Babylon, Bible Babel, and babbling about the Bible with people at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities’ lunchtime talk series. (If you don’t catch it on our local public television this week, I’ll post a link to the video later.) One of the things that occurred to me as I was preparing that talk was the Bible’s capacity to surprise.
In the spirit of the holidays, I noted this fact about Hanukkah — how it’s not in the Bible —
and also recalled the story of victory and miraculous light that lies at its heart. And I reexamined the beginnings of each of the four gospels. So different! My favorite, about which I said next to nothing, is Luke’s story, partly I suppose because my dad would read it aloud each Christmas eve. After stuffing ourselves with traditional Swedish fare (to include much more than lutefisk, though it did include that, if you must know), and then singing carols, and before getting started on the gifts, we sat in the stillness of that story. Imagine my surprise (and disappointment) when I went looking for that story, assuming that it was in every gospel, but could find it only in that one.
On the other hand, each of the the other three proffers its own surprising gifts, there for the unwrapping. For example, have you seen how Matthew begins with a geneaology that goes back through male members of (er) Joseph’s line all the way to Abraham yet includes four women? and each of those four women is not only a foreigner but has a questionable sexual history? And so it is that both the greatest Israelite king, the “man after [God’s] own heart” (David), and this new “anointed one,” the messiah Jesus couldn’t have been at all without the life and blood of wildly imperfect women.
Hmmm, just something to think about…
