What's in a word

O.K., kids, back to work! We start first with homework. Your assignment is to ponder, reflect, meditate, research, and hopefully respond to this.

Recently, I got into an interesting debate with a friend of mine who happens to be an 80 year old Jewish woman. She took exception to some modern translations of the Bible. So consider the following:

• What is the difference between, “Thou shalt not kill,” and “Thou shalt not murder?”

• What is the difference between, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” and “Love thy neighbor as thyself?”

Don’t want to taint your own thinking process, so I’m just planting the seeds for thought and I will return in a few blog entries to tell you what I think, but I hope to hear from you first.

On to another subject. The start of a new year is a good time to trim many things: our waistlines, our spending, and in my case, our DVR recordings. When one is about to tape the Inauguration just to be told “You..are..out..of..recording..space,” it is time to purge. I had saved three editions of Mysteries of the Bible Revealed from the Discovery Channel for more months than I care to reveal, waiting for the right time to watch re-enactments of Exodus, etc. (You see, all things Biblical I can really procrastinate over.) Finally knocked out 2 of them last night – Exodus and Noah’s Ark.

Both explore and attempt to offer scientific, physical proof of biblical events. The first focuses on the 10 plagues of Egypt (See my September 24 blog entry to jog your memory). It was immensely fascinating as they offered sound logic how each plague led to the next. For example, when the waters of the river became toxic, that would have compelled the frogs to leap out of water, then die, breeding the gnats. And so on and so on. It all made great scientific sense. Even the parting of the Red Sea was recreated under simulated circumstances of nature.

Now, does that mean since they could be explained as simply natural events that God is not a figure in them? Or could God have understood the natural order of events (hell, he designed them, right?) and used them to send a message?

Another thing to keep in mind, these scriptures were written long, long after the “fact.” So, let’s say it is true that there was an infestation of locusts. That true story could have been used to teach a lesson, man to man. After all, man has long constructed superstition and myth to explain away inexplicable physical phenomenon.

Confession #55: All around us we are witness to extraordinary events in nature. And if God is not nature, I don’t know what is. Tying these events to “natural” occurrences does not invalidate God’s intentions by them. But neither do these events presume His intentions either.