Category Archives: People in the Bible

On Doubting Thomas Sunday, 2024 – and More?

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The Rockox Triptych” – The central panel shows the original Doubting Thomas…  

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April 14, 2024 – Last Sunday, April 7, went by the name “Second Sunday of Easter.” Or the second Sunday of the Easter Season. (Eastertide, the church season that runs the 50 days from Easter Sunday to Pentecost Sunday.) But that Second Sunday also goes by a number of other names. Like “Low Sunday,” because of the normally-low church attendance after the high attendance of Easter Day. Yet another (and more exotic) name is “Quasimodo Sunday.” But that’s not because of Quasimodo, the guy known as the “Hunchback of Notre Dame:”

Instead, the name comes from a Latin translation of the beginning of First Peter 2:2 , a traditional “introit” used in churches on this day. First Peter 2:2 begins – in English and depending on the translation – “As newborn babes, desire the rational milk without guile…” [Or, “pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation.”] In Latin the verse reads: “Quasi modo geniti infantes…” 

So an introit is – in one definition – part of the usual opening for a church service on the Second Sunday of Easter. And (to give some background), that introduction follows the call in First Peter Chapter 1 to “be holy,” since we have been “born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable.” (Through faith in Jesus.) And the first two verses of First Peter Chapter 2 read – to give an even fuller background – “Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation.” (With verse 3, “now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.”)

Latin was the language of western churches for centuries, and for Catholics some 1,900 years – until the middle of the 20th century. And in the Latin “geniti” translates as “newborn,” while the translation of “infantes” seems self-evident. Thus here “quasi modo” roughly translates, “As if in the manner” of newborn babes. Meaning in turn that just we expect babies to grow up, we should also expect baby Christians to do the same. God doesn’t want you stay an “infant in Christ,” as Paul noted in 1st Corinthians 3:2. You don’t want to stay a boot-camp Christian, a Biblical literalist who never learns anything about the Bible “beyond the fundamentals.”

Which brings us back to the Second Sunday of Easter, also called Doubting Thomas Sunday. That’s because the Gospel reading is always John 20:19-31, which “recounts the story of Christ appearing to the Apostle Thomas in order to dispel the latter’s doubt about the Resurrection.” But we shouldn’t be too hard on Thomas for his doubting. In a sense most if not all Christians face their own “doubting moments” in their lives. But as I said last year on the same subject, “there’s something to be said for having doubts and then overcoming them.”

You could think of it as a form of resistance training. A Blind Faith Christian doesn’t like “resistance,” doesn’t like the uncertainty that comes with doubting, or asking questions. But to me a healthy Christian welcomes such resistance, because that’s how we grow spiritually. Asking deep and probing questions can lead to doubt, but in the process your faith grows stronger.

One of my past posts had a link, If you doubt and question … answers.yahoo.com. It asked, “If you doubt and question your faith will it become stronger?” Unfortunately that link won’t take you there now, but back then the “Best Answer” to the Yahoo question included this:

Remember Thomas, the disciple, who wouldn’t believe in Christ’s resurrection until he put his hand into Jesus’s wounds. He went on to die spreading the gospel in Persia and India. God gave us free choice, He doesn’t want us to be robots, He could have made us like that, but wanted us to choose for ourselves. You learn and grow by questioning. 

In other words, there seem to be Christians who see The Faith of the Bible as a spiritual strait-jacket, a pre-shaped form into which “we” have to mold ourselves. This type of Christian also seems to believe that St. Peter will have some kind of checklist at the Pearly Gates, so that if you don’t answer every litmus test question exactly right you won’t get in. But aside from Jesus’s promise in John 6:37 – that He will never turn away anyone who comes to Him – there’s also Romans 10:9. That’s where Paul said that if you “declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” 

So much for litmus tests, so go out and experience life in all its fullness, like Thomas. And keep reading the Bible with an open mind. “The Bible was designed, to expand your mind…”

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Which brings us finally to a quirk in this year’s Bible readings. Normally the Annunciation is celebrated on March 25, which is back when I did the Daily Office reading for that Feast day. But strangely enough, the online Lectionary Page has that feast day listed for Monday, April 8, the day after the Second Sunday of Easter. It had been “transferred.”

So why the transfer? “Liturgically the solemnity of the Annunciation was moved to April 8 this year, as March 25 was during Holy Week and the focus was on Jesus’ Passion instead.” (See Why the Annunciation was moved to April 8 this year – Aleteia.) But I have some good excuses. Like noting beforehand March 25 as the day I should do those readings. Also, this year I got back from a canoe trip five miles off the coast of Mississippi on March 23, the day before Palm Sunday. Then came Holy Week, which is always a busy time.

But you could say it worked out for the best. I was so busy getting ready for the canoe trip that I didn’t have time to do my usual post on the Annunciation. Since this year it came the day after “Second Sunday,” I now have a good excuse for doing that missed post next time.

Which I will do next time, so stay tuned!

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El Greco’s view of the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary

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The upper image is courtesy of The Rockox Triptych – Wikipedia. I used it in my second-ever post, in 2014, First musings – The readings for “Doubting Thomas” Sunday. I’m leaving it in its original form and format, which had no separate section for notes. The full caption I put in: ‘The Incredulity of St Thomas, or The Rockox Triptych, after the name of the donors, by Peter Paul Rubens (circa 1614),’as it relates to the Gospel reading for 4/27/14.I’ve also listed the following posts about Doubting Thomas Sunday, also known as Low Sunday and/or the Sunday after Easter Sunday: From 2015, Doubting Thomas’ “passage to India” from 2016, Doubting Thomas – and Peter Restored, On “Saint Doubting Thomas” – 2017, and On “Doubting Thomas Sunday” – 2017, from 2019, On Easter, Doubting Thomas Sunday – and a Metaphor, and from last year, On Doubting Thomas Sunday – 2023. My first-ever post – on the same subject and posted the same day as “First musings” – was The Bible – Lectionary Musings and Color Commentary. (Interesting reading for me.)

The Book of Common Prayer reference: The “corporate-mystical” prayer is on page 339, the post-communion prayer for Holy Eucharist, Rite I.

A note: This “Second Sunday” is also called – aside from names noted above – the Octave of Easter, the eight-day period starting on Easter Sunday and running to the Sunday following Easter.

On the Western Church and Latin, see The Evolution of Catholic Mass: From Latin to Vernacular.

Re: “Hunchback.” Incidentally, the character in the book Hunchback of Notre-Dame was named after those opening words of First Peter 2:2. (In the New International Version it reads, “Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation.”)

The lower image is courtesy of Annunciation Mary El Greco Painting – Image Results. It came with a page saying that in this painting…

…the interior of the room is filled with clouds and flashing lights, in a way that the objects surrounding the Virgin – the simple prie-dieu, the book opening like a fan, the sewing-basket and the vase – are removed from real space and saturated with mystic significance. The wide, emphatic arc of the drapery covering the Virgin’s knees seems only to make her small head and narrow, transfigured face appear as distant from us and as close to the heavenly messenger as possible.

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Paul gets his sight back, Peter confesses – 2024

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St. Paul’s sight being restored – after his Damascus road experience

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In “Happy Epiphany, 2024” I wrote about January 6 as the Feast of Epiphany. That feast officially ends the Twelve Days of Christmas. It also marks the start of the Season of Epiphany, a church season running up to Ash Wednesday. Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, a solemn observance recalling the “40 days Jesus Christ spent fasting in the desert and enduring temptation by Satan.” And irony of ironies, this year – 2024 – Ash Wednesday comes on February 14, the same day we celebrate Valentine’s Day. But first comes two other Feast Days, the Confession of St Peter, on January 18, and the Conversion of St Paul, on January 25.

Taking the “confession” first, on January 18 we celebrate Peter “confessing” that Jesus is the Christ (the Jewish Messiah): “Thou art the Christ, Son of the Living God.” In other words we recall how Peter was “led by God’s grace to acknowledge Jesus as the Christ” And we join with him – and with all other Christians – in “hailing Jesus as our Lord, God, and Savior.”

[The] Apostle Peter proclaims Jesus to be Christ – the Messiah. The proclamation is described in the three Synoptic GospelsMatthew 16:13-20Mark 8:27–30 and Luke 9:18–20. The proclamation of Jesus as Christ is fundamental to Christology … and Jesus’ acceptance of the title is a definitive statement for it in the New Testament narrative.

But while January 18 recalls Peter as first apostle to confess Jesus as Messiah, on January 25 we recall how “Saul (or Paul) of Tarsus, formerly an enemy and persecutor of the early Christian Church, was led by God’s grace to become one of its chief spokesmen.” In other words, Peter came to his position of authority from “inside the church.” Paul on the other hand was pretty much dragged kicking and screaming into his position of authority.

Another note: Each June 25 we have a feast day for both Apostles together. But in January each year we remember both men separately. “Or more precisely, we remember how these two ‘Pillars of the Church‘ took two completely different paths to the same destination.” 

Which is another way of saying these two Church Fathers didn’t always see eye to eye. (As shown in the painting, “Two scholars disputing” below.) The Bible tells of one such dispute in Galatians 2:11-14, especially including verse 11, where Paul said, “When Peter came to Antioch, I told him face to face that he was wrong.” On the flip side is 2d Peter 3:16, where Peter commented on Paul’s style of writing: “He writes this way in all his letters… Some parts of his letters are hard to understand.” But in the end, and as noted above, “these two ‘Pillars of the Church‘ took two completely different paths to the same destination.” That “destination” was the task of bringing people to Jesus. (The same task all “good Christians” are charged with.)

Which brings us back to the Conversion of St. Paul. That special day – January 25 – recalls “an event in the life of Paul the Apostle that led him to cease persecuting early Christians and to become a follower of Jesus.” He wrote about his former life – as a devout and zealous enemy of the budding Christian church – in Galatians 1:13-14.  There he wrote about his being “extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers.”  Accordingly, he intensely “persecuted the church of God” – that is, the newly-formed Christian Church –  “and tried to destroy it.”  

For example, at the time of the stoning of Stephen (Acts 7:57-8:3), “Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison.” And as Stephen was being stoned by the crowd, “the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.” (He later changed that to “Paul.”) But then he had his Damascus Road Experience (illustrated at the top of the post).

In other words – and as we view the term today – Paul had a “profound life-changing experience, that turned [him] from skepticism to belief.” Moving on, Paul himself was literally struck blind, for three days. And of that episode, Wikipedia notes three different accounts:

[The] third discussion of Paul’s conversion occurs when Paul addresses King Agrippa, defending himself against the accusations of antinomianism that have been made against him. This account is briefer than the others. The speech here is again tailored for its audience, emphasizing what a Roman ruler would understand: the need to obey a heavenly vision, and reassuring Agrippa that Christians were not a secret society.

So as I said, Paul was “dragged kicking and screaming into his position of authority.” And from there he became “the most important person after Jesus in the history of Christianity.” From that position of authority, Paul noted that above all we as good Christians are called on to be “ministers of reconciliation.” In plain words, we Americans should not be as polarized as we are now. Because, as Paul said in Galatians 3:28, in Christ “there is no Jew or Greek, no male or female, no liberal or conservative.” (Well, that’s what he would write if he was here today.)

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Some disputes, yes, but they “mostly worked together.” (A reminder….) 

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The upper image is courtesy of Conversion of Paul the Apostle – Wikipedia. The full caption:  “‘Ananias Restoring the Sight of St. Paul’ (c.1631) by Pietro da Cortona.” See also Ananias of Damascus – Wikipedia, which noted his name means “favored of the LORD.”  The actual restoration of Saul-Paul’s sight was described in Acts 9:17-19 NIV:

Placing his hands on Saul, he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord – Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here – has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again.  He got up and was baptized,and after taking some food, he regained his strength.

The Book of Common Prayer reference. The “corporate-mystical” prayer is on page 339, the post-communion prayer for Holy Eucharist, Rite I.

For this post I borrowed from 2016’s Peter confesses, Paul converts, 2017’s “Wouldn’t it be nice if WE could be ‘restored,” and On Saints Peter and Paul, January ’23.

On Paul as second only to Jesus: What influences did St. Paul have on Christianity? | Britannica. Paul is often considered to be the most important person after Jesus in the history of Christianity.” Emphasis added in the main text. On “ministers of reconciliation” see 2d Corinthians 5:18.

The lower image is courtesy of Albert Bierstadt Museum: Two Scholars Disputing REMBRANDT.

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On Easter, Doubting Thomas Sunday – and a Metaphor

Peter, the one Disciple who actually left the boat and walked on water – for awhile anyway…

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We’re now in the “Week of the Second Sunday of Easter (April 28 – May 4).”  Which makes this a good time to review Easter – the Sunday and the 50-day Season – along with “Doubting Thomas Sunday.”  That’s the Sunday that always follows Easter Sunday itself.

I’ll write more on those topics below, but first let’s get to that “MET-a-phor.”  (Alluding to a line from the musical “The Book Of Mormon.*”)  This metaphor is about Peter, walking on water – and thus taking the “Spiritual Path” rather than the safer, easier but less-rewarding Literal Christian Path.

As noted in If I Forget Thee, Oh Jerusalem:  One frequent, ongoing theme of this post is that the Spiritual path has more to offer than the Literal path.  (After noting a quote on “spirituality and mysticism,” and how it explains why devout people of many religions are drawn to Jerusalem.)

In the notes of that post I added some explanation.  For one thing I cited John 4:24:  “God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”  And I noted Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers, which in turn noted of God, that “His will has been expressed in the seeking.  But His very nature and essence is spirit, and it follows from this that all true worship must be spiritual.”  And finally, I cited 2d Corinthians 3:6, which says that following only the letter of the law kills, but following the Spirit of God’s law “gives life.”

Which leads to the original title of this post, “On Literal versus Spiritual Christians.”

To make a long story short, it seems to me that Peter walking on the water is a prime example of one Christian – out of ten – taking the more-difficult “spiritual path.”  The other nine or so “conservatives” took the safer, the easier, the more literalist path of following Jesus.  (The image at right shows the beach of the Sea of Galilee, near where Jesus – and Peter – “walked.”)

The gist of the story comes from Matthew 14, and the high point comes at Matthew 14:29.  Beginning back at verse 25, Jesus told the Disciples to go on ahead in a boat, while He went up to a mountain to pray.  The He – Jesus – “went out to them, walking on the lake,” which terrified them; they thought Jesus was a ghost.  Jesus told them not to worry, leading Peter to say that if it was Jesus, “tell me to come to you on the water.”

Jesus did.  Then Peter got out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus:  “Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus.”  But then he started having second thoughts, and started to sink.  He panicked and asked Jesus to save him.

That led Jesus to say, “You of little faith … why did you doubt?”  But it seems to me that Peter was pretty brave in just getting out of the boat in the first place.  It is true that he eventually started to sink, but for “one brief shining moment” he – Peter – actually walked on water.  And as far as we know, he – along with Jesus – was the only person in history to do so.

Which points out a big difference between the Spiritual Path of Christianity, compared with the Literal path followed by some 90% or more of Christians.  Again, it’s true that Peter “fell flat on his face” – at least metaphorically – but at least he took the chance.  And as a result of taking that chance – of exploring his full potential – Peter’s faith grew in ways that the other disciples – who followed the safe path and stayed in the boat – could never experience.

Saint Peter A33446.jpgIn fact his faith grew so much that he became Primus inter pares(“First among equals.”)  Note also the following from Wikipedia, where Jesus advised those who followed Him from Capernaum, “not to seek earthly gains, but aim for a life based on higher spiritual values.”

Which is pretty much the path advocated by this blog.  That is, not being bound by the only-literalist path of following Jesus, but trying to go beyond the merely literal and on to the “higher spiritual values.”

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I’ll be writing more on this “metaphor,” but in the meantime let’s review the past week or so.  I’ve done past posts on Easter – listed in the notes – but for this post I’ll focus on “Doubting Thomas Sunday” – 2017.  That post noted that this “Second Sunday of Easter” could be called the “Sunday of Many Names.”  Among those names are Low Sunday, the Octave of Easter, and “Quasimodo Sunday.”  (But not because of Quasimodo, aka the “Hunchback of Notre Dame.”  See the notes.)  But the main question raised by “Doubting Thomas Sunday” is – in plain words – “How do we as Christians deal with our doubts?”

Generally speaking a doubting Thomas is “a skeptic who refuses to believe without direct personal experience.”  Or it can refer to a mere “habitually doubtful person.”  But being such a “doubting person” can actually strengthen your faith.

On the one hand those boot-camp Christians – who take the conservative, literal path – say the answer is simple:  You shouldn’t have any doubts.  In other words, you must “blindly believe.” But for the rest of us there’s another answer, ultimately providing a stronger Christian faith:

Remember Thomas, the disciple, who wouldn’t believe in Christ’s resurrection until he put his hand into Jesus’s wounds.  He went on to die spreading the gospel in Persia and India.  God gave us free choice, He doesn’t want us to be robots, He could have made us like that, but wanted us to choose for ourselves.  You learn and grow by questioning. (E.A.)

And by doing that you’ll probably end up – spiritually anyway – more like the kindly, gentle, learned disciple shown in the painting below.  (A view of St. Thomas by Peter Paul Rubens.)  And that’s the kind of disciple who could convert people to Christianity – like Thomas went on to do – even in a continent made up of Hindus and Muslims.  (India, where Thomas went to proselytize.)  So Thomas went to India – an otherwise unfertile continent for conversion – yet which to this day “still boasts a large native population calling themselves ‘Christians of St. Thomas.’”

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Peter Paul Rubens: St Thomas

St. Thomas by Peter Paul Rubens

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The upper image is courtesy of Jesus walking on water – Wikipedia.  The caption: “‘Jesus walks on water,’ by Ivan Aivazovsky (1888).”

The Easter egg image is courtesy of Wikipedia.  The  caption:  “Easter eggs, a symbol of the empty tomb, are a popular cultural symbol of Easter.”

Re:  The musical “The Book Of Mormon.”  Which I saw in person on July 1, 2018, at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre, 230 W. 49th Street, NYC.

Re:  The “Week of the Second Sunday of Easter (April 28 – May 4).”  For the Daily Office readings, click on NRSV or RSV, for the “New Revised” or the “Revised” translations of the Bible.  

Again, some text and images were gleaned from Jesus walking on water – Wikipedia.  As to “how many,” we don’t know for sure how many disciples were in the boat with Peter.  (See How many disciples were in the boat when Jesus walked on water.)  Whatever the number, the ratio of “spiritual versus literal” was very small.  Of the seven, or nine, or 12 disciples, only one – Peter – took the chance, the risk that is part and parcel of the Spiritual Path.  That “other” path is often more frustrating and involves more risk, but it can be far more rewarding than the Literal Path of the vast majority.

The “first among equals” image is courtesy of the Saint Peter link in the Primus inter pares article.  The caption: “‘Saint Peter’ (c. 1468) by Marco Zoppo depicts Peter as an old man holding the Keys of Heaven and a book representing the gospel.”  The article noted that aside from Peter, the term is “typically used as an honorary title for someone who is formally equal to other members of their group but is accorded unofficial respect, traditionally owing to their seniority in office.”

Past posts on Easter include On Easter Season – AND BEYONDOn Eastertide – and “artistic license,” and Frohliche Ostern – “Happy Easter!”

Re:  Where the name “Quasimodo Sunday” came from:

[T]he name comes from a Latin translation of the beginning of First Peter 2:2 , a traditional “introit” used in churches on this day.  First Peter 2:2 begins – in English and depending on the translation – “As newborn babes, desire the rational milk without guile…”  [Or, “pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation.”]  In Latin the verse reads:  “Quasi modo geniti infantes…”    Literally, “quasi modo means ‘as if in [this] manner.’”

thus – since “geniti” translates as “newborn” and the translation of “infantes” seems self-evident – the “quasi modo” in question roughly translates, “As if in the manner” (of newborn babes).

The lower image is courtesy of Peter Paul Rubens: St Thomas – Art and the Bible

On Jesus “cracking wise”

 The “Laughing Jesus…”

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https://mediamythalert.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/braburning_atlcty_1968.jpgFirst a note:  I originally posted this on January 23, 2015.  But yesterday, reading over some old posts, I noticed the bottom picture in this one was missing.  Or more precisely there was a box with some information written inside, probably “URL” information or the like.  So I decided to re-post this one, and may do the same with others, like Jonah and the bra-burners, first posted on January 19, 2015.  (And leading with the picture at left.)

So here’s a “new improved version” of Jesus “cracking wise.”

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The Gospel reading for January 18[, 2015] was John 1:43-51.  It told of Jesus meeting Philip and Nathanael.  An earlier post (Bible readings for January 18) told of a commentator saying Nathanael  was a bit of a “wiseacre.”  Commentator also suggested that Jesus greeted Nathanael with a sarcastic joke, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom [there] is no guile!”   This was after Nathanael was reluctant to “come and see” the man Philip thought was the Messiah.

The idea of this “sarcastic joke to Nathanael” came from a Sacred Story article.  The article said the Israel Jesus referred to “was the new name of Jacob, who was well-known as a deceitful trickster who fooled both his father and brother.’  I also noted some contrary, “more traditional” interpretations, such as John 1:47 When Jesus saw Nathanael:

[Jesus] is described as knowing what was in man…  He makes use of his Divine prerogative [and] penetrated the surface to [Nathanael’s] inner motive and heart.  Behold, an Israelite indeed; one who fulfils the true idea of Israel, a prince with God, a conqueror of God by prayer, and conqueror of man by submission, penitence, and restitution…  In whom is no guile; i.e. no self-deception, and no disposition to deceive others.

So the Pulpit Commentary on John 1:47 had Jesus saying Nathanael was not a deceitful trickster.   Rather Jesus was saying Nathanael was a true “prince with God,” a penitent man with “no disposition to deceive others.”  And Gill’s Exposition of John 1:47 interpreted the phrase “behold an Israelite indeed” as meaning “a true son of Jacob’s; an honest, plain hearted man.”

So which was it?   Was Jesus saying Nathanael was an “honest, plain-hearted man,” without guile or deceit, “just like Jacob?”  Or was Jesus being sarcastic, “cracking wise?”

File:Leloir - Jacob Wrestling with the Angel.jpgWe can start with the fact that the name “Israel” referred to a man who literally wrestled with God.  (See On arguing with God, with the image at right.)  That’s how Jacob got his name changed to Israel.

(That post also said maybe we too should wrestle with God:  “that’s how we get spiritually stronger, by ‘resistance training,’” not “passively accepting” everything in the Bible.)

But we also know that Jacob was shrewd, starting from the moment of his birth.  Jacob and twin brother Esau literally “wrestled in the womb.”  And while Esau was born a few seconds before his brother, “his heel was grasped by the hand of Jacob.”  The name Jacob – Ya`aqovin Hebrew – literally translates to “heel-catcher,” “leg-puller,” or “supplanter.”  See Jacob – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, and also Genesis 25:19-28.   (Verse 28 also notes that while the father Isaac loved Esau – his first-born son – Rebekah the mother loved Jacob more.)

Isaac Asimov added that since Esau was born first, he was entitled to inherit the first-born’s “main portion of his father’s property.”  (Such a blessing had “great legalistic value in the society of that time.”)  But Jacob outmaneuvered his older brother, getting his birthright in exchange for some “pottage,” when Esau was starving.  See Genesis 25:27-34, “Thus Esau despised his birthright.”  So this was when Jacob “fooled his brother,” as noted in Sacred Story.

Then – as Asimov noted – came a “second successful deceit on the part of Jacob.”

Years later, as Isaac lay “blind and awaiting death,” he wanted to give Esau his final blessing. (That also had “great legalistic value”).  But Jacob fooled his father by dressing up in Esau’s clothes and putting goatskins on his arms “to imitate Esau’s hairiness.”  (This all happened as Esau was out hunting, at his father’s request, to prepare one last time the “savory food” his father Isaac loved so much.)  The story in Genesis 27:1-45 goes on to tell of Esau hating and planning to kill Jacob, because of his trickery.  (The blind and “tricked” Isaac gave Jacob his final blessing, not Esau.)  Genesis 27 also told of his mother’s scheme to save him.  So here we’ve seen the story of Jacob fooling “both his father and brother.

But wait, there’s more!

Rebekah sent Jacob to stay with her brother Laban.  Laban ended up as Jacob’s father-in-law, after first tricking him – Jacob – to marry Leah, his first-born daughter.  (See, Jacob really loved and “bargained for” Rachel, but Leah had to get married first, by the law of the time, so he ended up marrying both of them.)  Which led to yet another bit of “guile” on the part of Jacob.

He wanted to return home – with wives Rachel and Leah – but he also wanted compensation:

Laban was reluctant to release him, as God had blessed his flock on account of Jacob.  Laban asked what he could pay Jacob.  Jacob proposed that all the spotted, speckled, and brown goats and sheep of Laban’s flock, at any given moment, would be his wages.  Jacob placed peeled rods of poplar, hazel, and chestnut within the flocks’ watering holes or troughs…

See Jacob(With the image of him and his mother Rachel, at left.)   See also Genesis 30 … Bible Gateway, verses 25-42, titled “Jacob Prospers at Laban’s Expense.”  Briefly, Jacob agreed to be paid by taking only the “speckled and spotted sheep and every black lamb, and the spotted and speckled among the goats.”  But then he made the peeled rods of poplar, hazel, and chestnut noted above, and put them in front of watering holes.  According to the Bible, that’s the trickery that made Jacob rich:

[S]ince they bred when they came to drink, the flocks bred in front of the rods and so the flocks brought forth striped, speckled, and spotted…   Whenever the stronger of the flock were breeding Jacob laid the rods in the runnels before the eyes of the flock, that they might breed among the rods, but for the feebler of the flock he did not lay them there; so the feebler were Laban’s, and the stronger Jacob’s.  Thus the man [Jacob] grew exceedingly rich…

So Jacob grew exceedingly rich at the expense of his father-in-law.  He bargained for “only” the speckled and spotted sheep, then took steps to make sure that most of the sheep and the strongest of the sheep turned out to be “speckled and spotted.”

In the fullness of time, Jacob went on to “wrestle with God” and become the patriarch Israel,as told in Genesis 32:22-32.  He fathered 12 sons, who became the 12 tribes of Israel:  “The children named in Genesis were Reuben (shown at right), SimeonLeviJudahDanNaphtaliGadAsherIssacharZebulun, daughter DinahJoseph, and Benjamin.”  (See Jacob, which also indicated daughter Dinah didn’t count as a “tribe.”)

Which gets us back to the question:  When Jesus greeted Nathanael in John 1:47 – Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom [there] is no guile!” – what was He really saying?  Was He saying Nathanael was a “prince with God,” a penitent man with “no disposition to deceive?”  Or was He “cracking wise?”  (Or maybe He was quoting Psalm 32:2, “Happy are they to whom the Lord imputes no guilt, and in whose spirit there is no guile!”  Which still doesn’t solve the question.)

John 1:43-45 described Philip meeting Jesus, then going to find Nathanael and tell him the news; “Jesus of Nazareth was the one foretold in the scriptures as the savior of his people.”  As the Sacred Story article went on to say, “Nathanael listened, and made a wise-crack – ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?‘”  (See John 1:46)

So the question is:  Did Jesus respond to Nathanael’s sarcastic comment – under the fig tree – with a sarcastic comment of His own?  Did Jesus laugh, make jokes, be sarcastic?

That’s ultimately for you to decide, but I’ve said all along that God has a sense of humor.

Aside from making Mick Jagger a grandfather, there’s also Psalm 2:4, “He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord scoffs at them.”  Psalm 37:13 says, “The LORD laughs at the wicked, because He sees that their day will come.” (That’s Psalm 37:14 in the BCP Revised Standard version.)   Then there’s Psalm 59:8, “But you laugh at them, LORD; you scoff at all those nations.”  And finally see Psalm 104:26, “there is that Leviathan, which you [God] have made for the sport of it.”  (Psalm 104:27 in the BCP RSV.) 

In turn I’ve done many posts on the subject.  Just type in “God sense humor” in the search-box above right.  Those posts include On Robin Williams’ “Top Ten,” in memory of man who “had a gift for turning tragedy into something we could laugh at – and with.”

But don’t just take my word for it.  There’s also the site Who was Canadian behind iconic image of “Laughing Jesus?”  That’s where the image above came from, but there’s some debate about who actually created the original.  Be that as it may, it’s popular:  “One of the most popular images of Jesus today is a painting of him laughing.”

Unfortunately, time and space – not to mention the reader’s “attention span of a gerbil” – are running out.  That means it’s time to wrap this up.

We can close by noting there’s also some question about who this sarcastic Nathanael really was.  The consensus is that he was actually Bartholomew the Apostle, “one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus, and is usually identified with Nathanael (alternatively spelled Nathaniel).”

See also Nathanael – Believed To Be The Apostle Bartholomew:  “Church tradition says Nathanael carried a translation of Matthew’s Gospel to northern India.  Legend claims he was crucified upside down in Albania.”

Which means there’s enough tragedy to around, as if we didn’t know that already.  (Crucified upside down in Albania, indeed!)  In turn it would be nice to think that Jesus, like Robin Williams, “had a gift for turning tragedy into something we could laugh at – and with.”

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Leviathan, which God made “for the sport of it…”

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The upper image is courtesy of Laughing Jesus – Image Results.

The full citation for the “Sacred Story” article is sacredstory.org/2012 … nathanael-and-the-fig-tree.  From the Sacred Story home page:  “Do you wonder about your life as a spiritual journey?  Do you have questions about the Bible?  Are you interested in conversations about God?  Then this blog is written for you – not as an easy source of authoritarian answers, but as a shared exploration of the questions.”   Ditto!!!

The lower image is courtesy of Leviathan – Wikipedia, with the caption:  “‘Destruction of Leviathan,’ 1865 engraving by Gustave Doré.’”

See also Bartholomew the Apostle – Wikipedia, “He is described as initially being skeptical about the Messiah coming from Nazareth, saying: ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’”

The post Bible readings for January 18  included notes on the term wiseacre, variously defined as:  1) a person who possesses or affects to possess great wisdom;  2) a wise guy;  or 3) “Old person speak for smartass.”  Dictionary.com added the term is “often used facetiously or contemptuously.”

The story of Leah…

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I recently became enamored of the name “Leah.”

I knew there was a Leah mentioned in the Bible, but couldn’t remember exactly who she was.  (Or more precisely, whose wife she was.)  And how she and her sister Rachel both ended up marrying the same man, and in turn “giving birth” to eight of the 12 Tribes of Israel.

And finally, how one of her “great, great, great” (etc.) grandsons was one Jesus of Nazareth.

For the full story, see the Wikipedia article on Leah:

She and her younger sister Rachel became the two concurrent wives of Hebrew patriarch Jacob.  She had six sons, whose descendants became [six] of the Twelve Tribes of Israel.  She also had a daughter, Dinah.

But how she ended up married to Jacob involved a bit of trickeration.  (Described in Genesis 29.)  

Basically, his mother Rebecca sent Jacob to his uncle Laban’s.  She did that so Jacob wouldn’t get killed by his brother Esau.  (In an earlier bit of trickeration, Jacob bamboozled Esau out of his birthright – that is, his favored status as first-born son – and as shown at right.)  

So anyway, Uncle Laban had two daughters, the beautiful Rachel and her older daughter Leah.  Jacob fell in love with Rachel, and in the fullness of time worked seven years for Laban. (In exchange for Rachel’s “hand.”)  But on the wedding night, Laban pulled the old switcheroo:

Laban brought together all the people … and gave a feast.  But when evening came, he took his daughter Leah and brought her to Jacob, and Jacob made love to her…  When morning came, there was Leah!  So Jacob said to Laban, “What is this you have done to me?  I served you for Rachel, didn’t I?  Why have you deceived me?”  Laban replied, “It is not our custom here to give the younger daughter in marriage before the older one.  Finish this daughter’s bridal week; then we will give you the younger one also, in return for another seven years…”

That’s from Genesis 29:22-28 (NIV).  And incidentally, Jacob also ended up having sons by both of Rachel’s and Leah’s handmaids.  (They were named Bilhah and Zilpah.)  First, Rachel gave Bilhah to Jacob because she – Rachel – was barren; she couldn’t have children.  Then – when Leah stopped conceiving after bearing Jacob four sons – she gave her handmaid to Jacob.

O brother where art thou ver1.jpgSo, just to keep things straight:  Zilpah and Bilhah both bore two sons to Jacob.  Rachel also bore two sons for Jacob.  But the “winner” clearly was Leah, who gave Jacob six sons.  (Or, to borrow a phrase from O Brother, Where Art Thou, Leah might well have said, “Ohhhh mercy!  Yes, I  got to beat that competition!”)  And as noted, those 12 sons eventually became  the 12 Tribes of Israel.

Also incidentally, Bilhah later committed adultery with Reuben – Jacob’s “eldest son with Leah” – and as described in Genesis 35:22: “While he was living there [‘beyond the tower of Eder’], Reuben had intercourse with Bilhah, his father’s concubine, and Jacob soon heard about it.”

But that’s a whole ‘ nother story.

For another take on Leah’s story, see the Jewish Women’s Archive.  It tells the further story of these two “co-wives in competition for status in the household.”  It also tells of Rueben – noted above – finding mandrakes for the two women.  (They were known in the Bible as “love apples,” and were similar to today’s Viagra.)  That’s as described in Genesis 30, and which “mandrakes” led to both Leah and Rachel each bearing two more sons for Jacob.

More to the point of this post, see Leah in the Bible Was an Early Ancestor of Jesus Christ:  “Leah in the Bible is a person many can identify with.”  Or as it says in Matthew 1:2 – part of his Genealogy of Jesus – “Jacob was the father of Judah and his brothers.”  And Leah was the mother of Judah, and also of five of the other 12 brothers who became the Tribes of Israel.

Thus as noted in Ruth 4:11:  “May the LORD make the woman who is coming into your home [Ruth] like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the family of Israel.”  Which means that there’s probably some kind of object lesson in all of this “spirited competition…”

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And finally, it should be noted that June 29 was the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul.  It honors “the martyrdom in Rome of the apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul.”  (Seen below, and as noted in last year’s On Peter, Paul – and other “relics.”)  That post had this point to make (on competition):

Some Christians seem to think they have to be all “nicey-nicey,” all the &%#$ time, with each other and with non-Christians.  But the Feast of Peter and Paul goes to show it’s okay to have differences of opinion, or even “squabble” from time to time.  {E.A.]

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“Saints Peter and Paul,” by El Greco

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The upper image is courtesy of Janette’s Sage: Leah verus Rachaeljanettessage.blogspot.com.

The image to the left of the first main paragraph is courtesy of Israelites – Wikipedia.  The caption:  “Mosaic of the 12 Tribes of Israel, from a synagogue wall in Jerusalem.”

“Note” also that an asterisk in the main text indicates a statement supported by a reference detailed further in this “notes” section.  Thus as to Luke 24:45 – “Then he opened their minds” – see the Intro. (Among other things, as to the possibility of expanding your mind.)

The image of Jacob and Esau is courtesy of the Wikipedia article on Esau.  The caption:  “‘Esau Selling His Birthright’ (painting circa 1627 by Hendrick ter Brugghen).”

The lower image is courtesy of Saints Peter and Paul by GRECO, El – Web Gallery of Art:

The two saints[,] the most influential leaders of the early Church[, are shown here] engaged in an animated discussion.  The older, white-haired Peter … inclines his head thoughtfully to one side as he looks towards the text being expounded.  In his left hand he holds his attribute, the key to the kingdom of Heaven.  His right hand is cupped as if weighing up an idea.  Paul presses his left hand down firmly on the open volume on the table, his right hand raised in a gesture of explanation as he looks directly at the viewer.  [E.A.]

The article noted El Greco painted the two together several times “with remarkable consistency.”  Peter always has white hair and a beard, while “Paul is always shown slightly balding, with dark hair and beard, wearing a red mantle…”