Equally? Did He not allow His only begotten son to die for everyone’s sins, to cleanse them, to prepare them for the glory of the Lord? To those who claim He is perfect and infallible, let me repeat—He made mankind in His image, did He not?
Therefore I believe—no, I know—He possesses more than a touch of humanity. As well as a damn good sense of humor. You are molded in His image, do not presume to mold Him to yours.
I think that to understand, though, why some people believe this to be so, you must first realize that although the Bible is the word of God, it was written by men.
Human men, well after the fact. Not only that, but it was written over the course of many years, and has gone through various interpretations and translations over those years. And that what means something in one time and place doesn’t always mean the same in another. Not to take away from the men who wrote the words, but as I said, they were only human. And they were not Him.
There are those who will argue that’s all well and good but He spoke through them, merely gave them the words to say. Again, I repeat—the Bible was written by men, most of whom weren’t even firsthand witnesses to the events. Recipients of stories handed down, told and retold before it reached them.
At one time there was a game, played mostly by young people, in the mid to late twentieth century, I think, but don’t hold me to that date. It went by different names—Gossip, Telephone—what have you. The basic premise and the intent was rather the same regardless of the name. One person whispers a secret to the person beside him, who whispers that secret to the next one, and so on and so forth until it ends up back where it began, with the original teller of the tale. The object is to see how much the “secret” has changed in the course of the telling, through miscommunication and/or misunderstanding, and have a good laugh over it. Which is generally quite a bit. And that’s just within a short period of time. Now add years to that, as well as miles, a great many more people, plus translation into and out of various languages, some of them long dead and rather arcane, and you’ll see why things become hazy and misunderstood. And never lose sight of the fact that they’re given, of course, with a male perspective. Not to put down those of the XY
persuasion, but they have this thing about being dominant, and they tend to write themselves the best parts in the story. Is it small wonder women are generally given short shrift? And a great deal of blame for the problems of the world? And don’t get me started on that rib story, either.
Now I’m wandering off the beaten track, and that wasn’t my intention. Let me back up and start all over again.
As I started to say, God’s more subtle than that. And He loves His children far more than they seem to give Him credit for. And like all good parents, He can’t completely sit back and leave them to their own devices. He wants them to learn, of course, to understand their mistakes, correct them and move on. That’s where we come in.
Jesus, Mary, the Apostles, and I.
He sends us forth into different times, different places, different situations—
unrecognizable except to one another. He gives us the script; we play our parts in our attempts to direct humanity to a better understanding of itself. Which makes for some rather interesting stories, let me tell you. Perhaps later, I’ll tell you some of mine, but not right now. And if you’re lucky, Judas won’t mention any of his.
’Cause let me tell ya, that man is boring and abhorrent in any place and time.
How do we do this, you might ask, through what miracle do we appear and reappear time after time after time? The miracle of God, of course, though some may call it reincarnation. A resurrection by any other name…. The gist of the matter is we’ve a message to deliver, and sometimes part of it gets through, but at other times we simply fall flat on our faces. Ours is not to make the judgment call, and God tells us not to be discouraged by any particular failure, but rather to be optimistic in our successes. Sometimes, though, that’s hard to do, because it inevitably ends the same way. With Jesus’ death. Which is rather difficult to take, even at the best of times. Even knowing what we do, that he’ll return to us one day.
And we’ll be right there with him. Yet living through it…well, it’s difficult, for all of us. It must be especially so for his mother. But Mary never complains. I think I admire her more than any woman I’ve ever known. God chose wisely when He selected her to be the mother of His only son.
Take these modern times we live in now—I have to say they appear to be pretty fucked up in lots of ways. Wars are far too prevalent. Too many people are going hungry, too many are homeless. Some people have far more wealth than they can ever hope to use, while so many don’t even have the basic necessities of life.