Odd Bible Quotes

Odd, the way the less the Bible is read the more it is translated

But then I sigh, with a piece of Scripture Tell them that God bids us to do evil for good; And thus I clothe my naked villany With odd old ends stolen out of Holy Writ; And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.

. . . my obsession with gratefulness. I can't stop. Just now, I press the elevator button and am thankful that it arrives quickly. I get onto the elevator and am thankful that the elevator cable didn't snap and plummet me to the basement. I go to the fifth floor and am thankful that I didn't have to stop on the second or third or fourth floor. I get out and am thankful that Julie left the door unlocked so I don't have to rummage for my King Kong key ring. I walk in, and am thankful that Jasper is home and healthy and stuffing his face with pineapple wedges. And on and on. I'm actually muttering to myself, 'Thank you. . .thank you. . . thank you.' It's an odd way to live. But also kind of great and powerful. I've never before been so aware of the thousands of little good things, the thousands of things that go right every day.

I saw the gooseflesh on my skin. I did not know what made it. I was not cold. Had a ghost passed over? No, it was the poetry. A spark flew off Arnold and shook me, like a chill. I wanted to cry; I felt very odd. I had fallen into a new way of being happy.

It's a scary thing, a life-changing, paradigm-shifting thing, to honestly ask yourself this question: Am I moving with God to rescue, restore, and redeem humanity? Or am I clinging fast, eyeteeth clenched, to an imperfect world's habits and cultural customs, in full knowledge of injustice or imperfections, living at odds with God's dream for his daughters and sons?

It is odd that the Bible says, ‘God created man,’ whereas it is the other way round: man has created God. It is odd that the Bible says, ‘The body is mortal, the soul is immortal,’ whereas even here the contrary is true: the body (its matter) is eternal; the soul (the form of the body) is transitory.

There is a difference between criticizing people and criticizing a people's uninformed ideals. That is, unless one defines himself or others by their ideals, then he is offended, and usually offended secretly. Because oddly enough, this person is the same person quickest to resort to dismissive name-calling, such as 'bigot' or 'zealot'. And oddly enough, he is always the one, the 'open-minded' one, who adamantly protests for, not only himself, but others not to listen to any type of scholarly theological truth inherently for the sake of his own personal, moral beliefs.

There is something distinctly odd about the argument, however. Believing is not something you can decide to do as a matter of policy. At least, it is not something I can decide to do as an act of will. I can decide to go to church and I can decide to recite the Nicene Creed, and I can decide to swear on a stack of bibles that I believe every word inside them. But none of that can make me actually believe it if I don't. Pascal's Wager could only ever be an argument for feigning belief in God. And the God that you claim to believe in had better not be of the omniscient kind or he'd see through the deception.

The light shone on a face imprinted with more odd and unwholesome tales than a warehouse full of Bibles.

But not so odd a name, after all, if you’ve ever read through the phone directory, with its Hyman Diddlebockers and Sasparilla Greenleafs. I read through the phone book once, never mind when, and it satisfied a deep need in me to realize how many people aren’t called Smith.

The Bible is filled with discrepancies, many of them irreconcilable contradictions. Moses did not write the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament) and Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John did not write the Gospels. There are other books that did not make it into the Bible that at one time or another were considered canonical—other Gospels, for example, allegedly written by Jesus’ followers Peter, Thomas, and Mary. The Exodus probably did not happen as described in the Old Testament. The conquest of the Promised Land is probably based on legend. The Gospels are at odds on numerous points and contain nonhistorical material. It is hard to know whether Moses ever existed and what, exactly, the historical Jesus taught. The historical narratives of the Old Testament are filled with legendary fabrications and the book of Acts in the New Testament contains historically unreliable information about the life and teachings of Paul. Many of the books of the New Testament are pseudonymous—written not by the apostles but by later writers claiming to be apostles. The list goes on.

One of my favorite apparent discrepancies—I read John for years without realizing how strange this one is—comes in Jesus’ “Farewell Discourse,” the last address that Jesus delivers to his disciples, at his last meal with them, which takes up all of chapters 13 to 17 in the Gospel according to John. In John 13:36, Peter says to Jesus, “Lord, where are you going?” A few verses later Thomas says, “Lord, we do not know where you are going” (John 14:5). And then, a few minutes later, at the same meal, Jesus upbraids his disciples, saying, “Now I am going to the one who sent me, yet none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’” (John 16:5). Either Jesus had a very short attention span or there is something strange going on with the sources for these chapters, creating an odd kind of disconnect.

How would I know what Jesus would have done? That fella was a mass of contradictions as far as I can see. One minute he says to turn the other cheek, the next minute he's having a big strop and kicking over lads' market stalls. He says blessed are the meek and he goes around shouting and roaring the odds to everyone. He rises from the dead and then shags off a few weeks later and leaves his buddies in the shit.

A properly Bible-trained conscience should be at odds with groups like unfaithful Judah. The faithful Jeremiah was proof of that. (Jer 38:6) The royals of Judah failed their children. The royals of Judah ignored the motto: My job is to raise independent, responsible adults. pg 38

Anatole has been explaining to me the native system of government. He says the business of throwing pebbles into bowls with the most pebbles winning an election—that was Belgium’s idea of fair play, but to people here it was peculiar. To the Congolese (including Anatole himself, he confessed) it seems odd that if one man gets fifty votes and the other gets forty-nine, the first one wins altogether and the second one plumb loses. That means almost half the people will be unhappy, and according to Anatole, in a village that’s left halfway unhappy you haven’t heard the end of it. There is sure to be trouble somewhere down the line.

It is certain that when God has a purpose for your life, it does not matter what the odds are.

It’s a scary thing, a life-changing, paradigm-shifting thing, to honestly ask yourself this question: Am I moving with God to rescue, restore, and redeem humanity? Or am I clinging fast, eyeteeth clenched, to an imperfect world’s habits and cultural customs, in full knowledge of injustice or imperfections, living at odds with God’s dream for his daughters and sons?

Fasting is found throughout the Bible. It always seems to show up when ordinary men need extraordinary power, provision, and perseverance to overcome impossible odds, enemies, or obstructions.

Oddly, I’ve never heard of a church or denomination that asked people to affirm a doctrinal statement like this: The purpose of Scripture is to equip God’s people for good works. Shouldn’t a simple statement like this be far more important than statements with words foreign to the Bible’s vocabulary about itself (inerrant, authoritative, literal, revelatory, objective, absolute, propositional, etc.)?

About 4,400 years ago 8 people stepped off Noah’s ark. According to the United Nations Population Growth Statistics, the world’s population grows at about .47% per year. That is the growth rate for all civilizations who kept records. Suppose you put $8.00 in the bank 4,400 years ago and received .47% a year. How much money would you have? What a coincidence! It would be about $7,000,000,000. That’s kind of odd, because 4,400 years ago 8 people stepped off the ark and now we have about 7,000,000,000 people on planet earth. God’s math works! Compound interest is something we teach to seventh-graders. You don’t have to be a professor to figure this out. A twelve-year-old can do the calculation. Ask any seventh-grader, the algebraic equation looks like this: A=P (1+r/n)t . . . where "A " is the ending amount (about 7,000,000,000 in this case), "P " is the beginning amount (8 in this case), "r " is the interest rate (.47% in this case), "n " is the number of compoundings a year (1 in this case), and "t " is the total number of years (4,400 in this case).

Creation offers proof (for those willing to accept it) of a powerful “Someone” behind the natural world. The astronomical odds against this world happening merely by chance provide insurmountable evidence for a Creator. The intricate beauty and complex design of the creation—from subatomic particles and the molecular building blocks of life to galaxies and the expanses of the universe—demonstrate that a “Designer” planned it all.

In other words, the prophets are weirdos. More than anyone else in Scripture, they remind us that those odd ducks shouting from the margins of society may see things more clearly than the political and religious leaders with the inside track. We ignore them at our own peril.

The improved odds of a natural death came with another price, captured by the Roman historian Tacitus: “Formerly we suffered from crimes; now we suffer from laws.” The Bible stories we examined in chapter 1 suggest that the first kings kept their subjects in awe with totalistic ideologies and brutal punishments.

wasn’t confined to medicine. Think about all those ancient Greek statues with defined scrotum and penises (although the penises are on the small side because sexuality was apparently at odds with intellectual pursuits and so a big brain, not a big penis, was the ideal). The vulvas of the time were but mysterious mounds concealed by crossed legs.

The idea of reimagining God as times and circumstances change should, therefore, not strike us as odd or the least bit troubling—our Bible is full of reimagining. Without it, there wouldn’t be a “New” Testament or a Christian faith tradition. The entire history of the Christian church is defined by moments of reimagining God to speak here and now.

To the Congolese (including Anatole himself, he confessed) it seems odd that if one man gets fifty votes and the other gets forty-nine, the first one wins altogether and the second one plumb loses. That means almost half the people will be unhappy, and according to Anatole, in a village that’s left halfway unhappy you haven’t heard the end of it. There is sure to be trouble somewhere down the line.

But soon the poltergeist ran out of ideas in connection with Aunt Maud and became, as it were, more eclectic. All the banal motions that objects are limited to in such cases, were gone through in this one. Saucepans crashed in the kitchen; a snowball was found (perhaps, prematurely) in the icebox; once or twice Sybil saw a plate sail by like a discus and land safely on the sofa; lamps kept lighting up in various parts of the house; chairs waddled away to assemble in the impassable pantry; mysterious bits of string were found on the floor; invisible revelers staggered down the staircase in the middle of the night; and one winter morning Shade, upon rising and taking a look at the weather, saw that the little table from his study upon which he kept Bible-like Webster open at M was standing in a state of shock outdoors, on the snow (subliminally this may have participated in the making of lines 5-12). I imagine, that during the period the Shades, or at least John Shade, experienced a sensation of odd instability as if parts of the everyday, smoothly running world had got unscrewed, and you became aware that one of your tires was rolling beside you, or that your steering wheel had come off.

It is the broadly Platonic notion of the otherness and unlikeness of the divine to anything in or beyond the universe that has shaped the more formal theological constructions of God in the Western religious imagination. And yet these constructions are built on a conceptual framework very much at odds with the Bible itself, for in these ancient texts, God is presented in startlingly anthropomorphic ways. This is a deity with a body.

Until that morning when we all went to the riverbank, I still believed Mother would take Leah, not me. Leah who, even in her malarial stupor, rushed forward to crouch with the battery in the canoe and counter its odd tilt. I was outshone was usual by her heroism. But as we watched that pirogue drift away across the Kwenge, Mother gripped my hand so tightly I understood that I had been chosen. She would drag me out of Africa if it was her last living act as a mother. I think probably it was.

As we will see, there are lots of other discrepancies in the New Testament, some of them far more difficult to reconcile (virtually impossible, I would say) than these simple examples. Not only are there discrepancies among different books of the Bible, but there are also inconsistencies within some of the books, a problem that historical critics have long ascribed to the fact that Gospel writers used different sources for their accounts, and sometimes these sources, when spliced together, stood at odds with one another.

Imagine you are in a classroom and they hand you a test with many interesting multiple choice questions, until you get to “Can you just explain what exactly you believe how the Universe started?” & here are the options. a) The Big Bang b) It’s always been there c) God! or Gods d) A bowl of cherries e) I don’t know…. If you choose (a) then what or who & why caused it? & the test continues…..If you choose (b) that would be my choice. If you choose (c) then who or what created God or Gods? And where do they come from? And if you think they have always been there, the same thing could be said about the universe. If you choose (d) It doesn’t make sense, it is odd, an anomaly, not supposed to be etc :) if you choose (e) then you are being honest. There’s nothing wrong with not knowing. You can make “assumptions” or “pretending” that you know or a book (bible) “knows” or “tells” you but I just don’t buy that. The beauty of it is that you are here today & you can be thankful & enjoy all the life that you have ahead of you. And the test (life) continues with more wonderful questions and experiences :)

When the angels of the Bible spoke to human beings, did they speak in words? I don’t think so. I think the angels said nothing, but they were heard in the purest silence of the human spirit, and were understood beyond words. On a more human scale there are many things beyond. A mother watches her child leave home. Her heart is still. Her eyes are full of tears and prayer. That is beyond. An old man with wrinkled hands is carrying his grandchild. With startled eyes the baby regards his grandfather. The old man, with the knowledge of Time’s sadness in his heart, and with love in his eyes, looks down at the child. The meeting of their eyes. That is beyond. A famous writer, feeling his life coming to an end, writes these words: ‘My soul looks back and wonders – just how I got I got over.’ A young woman, standing on a shore, looks out into an immense azure sea rimmed with the silver line of the horizon. She looks out into the obscure heart of destiny, and is overwhelmed by a feeling both dark and oddly joyful. She may be thinking something like this: ‘My soul looks forward and wonders- just how am I to get across.’ That is beyond.

I personally love the Bible. I read it all the time, in the original Greek and Hebrew; I study it; I teach it. I have done so for over thirty-five years. And I don’t plan to stop any time soon. But I don’t think the Bible is perfect. Far from it. The Bible is filled with a multitude of voices, and these voices are often at odds with one another, contradicting one another in minute details and in major issues involving such basic views as what God is like, who the people of God are, who Jesus is, how one can be in a right relationship with God, why there is suffering in the world, how we are to behave, and on and on. And I heartily disagree with the views of most of the biblical authors on one point or another. Still, in my judgment all of these voices are valuable and they should all be listened to. Some of the writers of the Bible were religious geniuses, and just as we listen to other geniuses of our tradition—Mozart and Beethoven, Shakespeare and Dickens—so we ought to listen to the authors of the Bible. But they were not inspired by God, in my opinion, any more than any other genius is. And they contradict each other all over the map.

Jesus insisted that the greatest ritual service is the service of human need. It is an odd thing to think that, with the possible exception of that day in the synagogue at Nazareth, we have no evidence that Jesus ever conducted a ‘church’ service in all his life on earth, but we have abundant evidence that he fed the hungry and comforted the sad and cared for the sick. Christian service is not the service of any liturgy or ritual; it is the service of human need. Christian service is not monastic retreat; it is involvement in all the tragedies and problems and demands of the human situation.

Indeed, the only conservative Protestants I knew who attended church regularly were my dad and his family.17 In the middle of the Bible Belt, active church attendance is actually quite low.18 Despite its reputation, Appalachia—especially northern Alabama and Georgia to southern Ohio—has far lower church attendance than the Midwest, parts of the Mountain West, and much of the space between Michigan and Montana. Oddly enough, we think we attend church more than we actually do. In a recent Gallup poll, Southerners and Midwesterners reported the highest rates of church attendance in the country. Yet actual church attendance is much lower in the South. This

Hareton, with a streaming face, dug green sods, and laid them over the brown mould himself: at present it is as smooth and verdant as its companion mounds—and I hope its tenant sleeps as soundly. But the country folks, if you ask them, would swear on the Bible that he walks: there are those who speak to having met him near the church, and on the moor, and even within this house. Idle tales, you’ll say, and so say I. Yet that old man by the kitchen fire affirms he has seen two figures looking out of his chamber window on every rainy night since his death:—and an odd thing happened to me about a month ago. I was going to the Grange one evening—a dark evening, threatening thunder—and, just at the turn of the Heights, I encountered a little boy with a sheep and two lambs before him; he was crying terribly; and I supposed the lambs were skittish, and would not be guided. “What is the matter, my little man?” I asked. “There’s Heathcliff and a woman there under the hill,” he blubbered, “an’ I daren't pass ’em.” I saw nothing; but neither the sheep nor he would go on, so I bid him take the road lower down.

Then one evening he reached the last chapter, and then the last page, the last verse. And there it was! That unforgivable and unfathomable misprint that had caused the owner of the books to order them to be pulped. Now Bosse handed a copy to each of them sitting round the table, and they thumbed through to the very last verse, and one by one burst out laughing. Bosse was happy enough to find the misprint. He had no interest in finding out how it got there. He had satisfied his curiosity, and in the process had read his first book since his schooldays, and even got a bit religious while he was at it. Not that Bosse allowed God to have any opinion about Bellringer Farm’s business enterprise, nor did he allow the Lord to be present when he filed his tax return, but – in other respects – Bosse now placed his life in the hands of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And surely none of them would worry about the fact that he set up his stall at markets on Saturdays and sold bibles with a tiny misprint in them? (‘Only ninety-nine crowns each! Jesus! What a bargain!’) But if Bosse had cared, and if, against all odds, he had managed to get to the bottom of it, then after what he had told his friends, he would have continued: A typesetter in a Rotterdam suburb had been through a personal crisis. Several years earlier, he had been recruited by Jehovah’s Witnesses but they had thrown him out when he discovered, and questioned rather too loudly, the fact that the congregation had predicted the return of Jesus on no less than fourteen occasions between 1799 and 1980 – and sensationally managed to get it wrong all fourteen times. Upon which, the typesetter had joined the Pentecostal Church; he liked their teachings about the Last Judgment, he could embrace the idea of God’s final victory over evil, the return of Jesus (without their actually naming a date) and how most of the people from the typesetter’s childhood including his own father, would burn in hell. But this new congregation sent him packing too. A whole month’s collections had gone astray while in the care of the typesetter. He had sworn by all that was holy that the disappearance had nothing to do with him. Besides, shouldn’t Christians forgive? And what choice did he have when his car broke down and he needed a new one to keep his job? As bitter as bile, the typesetter started the layout for that day’s jobs, which ironically happened to consist of printing two thousand bibles! And besides, it was an order from Sweden where as far as the typesetter knew, his father still lived after having abandoned his family when the typesetter was six years old. With tears in his eyes, the typesetter set the text of chapter upon chapter. When he came to the very last chapter – the Book of Revelation – he just lost it. How could Jesus ever want to come back to Earth? Here where Evil had once and for all conquered Good, so what was the point of anything? And the Bible… It was just a joke! So it came about that the typesetter with the shattered nerves made a little addition to the very last verse in the very last chapter in the Swedish bible that was just about to be printed. The typesetter didn’t remember much of his father’s tongue, but he could at least recall a nursery rhyme that was well suited in the context. Thus the bible’s last two verses plus the typesetter’s extra verse were printed as: 20. He who testifies to these things says, Surely I am coming quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!21. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.22. And they all lived happily ever after.

By becoming the aggressor in sharing the good news of Christ with everyone in earshot, I became the one doing the influencing for good rather than the one being influenced for evil. I deduced that my Christianity is not about me but about Christ living through me. Jesus Christ represents everything that is truly good about me. Oddly enough, it started with a prank telephone call when I was seventeen. As I was studying the Bible one night, I had just said a prayer in which I asked God for the strength to be more vocal about my faith. All of a sudden, the phone rang and I answered. “Hello?” I asked. No one answered. “Hello?” I asked again. There was still silence on the other end. I started to hang up the phone, but then it hit me. “I’m glad you called,” I said. “You’re just the person I’m looking for.” Much to my surprise, the person on the other end didn’t hang up. “I want to share something with you that I’m really excited about,” I said. “It’s what I put my faith in. You’re the perfect person to hear it.” So then I started sharing the Gospel, and whoever was on the other end never said a word. Every few minutes, I’d hear a little sound, so I knew the person was still listening. After several minutes, I told the person, “I’m going to ask you a few questions. Why don’t you do one beep for no and two beeps for yes? We can play that game.” The person on the other end didn’t say anything. Undaunted by the person’s silence, I took out my Bible and started reading scripture. After a few minutes, I heard pages rustling on the other end of the phone. I knew the person was reading along with me! After a while, every noise I heard got me more excited! At one point, I heard a baby crying in the background. I guessed that the person on the phone was a mother or perhaps a babysitter. I asked her if she needed to go care for her child. She set the phone down and came back a few minutes later. I figured that once I started preaching, she would hang up the phone. But the fact that she didn’t got my adrenaline flowing. For three consecutive hours, I shared the message of God I’d heard from my little church in Luna, Louisiana, and what I’d learned by studying the Bible and listening to others talk about their faith over the last two years. By the time our telephone call ended, I was out of material! “Hey, will you call back tomorrow night?” I asked her. She didn’t say anything and hung up the phone. I wasn’t sure she would call me back the next night. But I hoped she would, and I prepared for what I was going to share with her next. I came across a medical account of Jesus’ death and decided to use it. It was a very graphic account of Jesus dying on a cross. Around ten o’clock the next night, the phone rang. I answered it and there was silence on the other end. My blood and adrenaline started pumping once again! Our second conversation didn’t last as long because I came out firing bullets! I worried my account of Jesus’ death was too graphic and might offend her. But as I told her the story of Jesus’ crucifixion--how He was sentenced to death by Pontius Pilate, beaten with leather-thonged whips, required to strip naked, forced to wear a crown of thorns on His head, and then crucified with nails staked through His wrists and ankles--I started to hear sobs on the other end of the phone. Then I heard her cry and she hung up the phone. She never called back. Although I never talked to the woman again or learned her identity, my conversations with her empowered me to share the Lord’s message with my friends and even strangers. I came to truly realize it was not about me but about the power in the message of Christ.

Here’s some startup pedagogy for you: When confronted with any startup idea, ask yourself one simple question: How many miracles have to happen for this to succeed? If the answer is zero, you’re not looking at a startup, you’re just dealing with a regular business like a laundry or a trucking business. All you need is capital and minimal execution, and assuming a two-way market, you’ll make some profit. To be a startup, miracles need to happen. But a precise number of miracles. Most successful startups depend on one miracle only. For Airbnb, it was getting people to let strangers into their spare bedrooms and weekend cottages. This was a user-behavior miracle. For Google, it was creating an exponentially better search service than anything that had existed to date. This was a technical miracle. For Uber or Instacart, it was getting people to book and pay for real-world services via websites or phones. This was a consumer-workflow miracle. For Slack, it was getting people to work like they formerly chatted with their girlfriends. This is a business-workflow miracle. For the makers of most consumer apps (e.g., Instagram), the miracle was quite simple: getting users to use your app, and then to realize the financial value of your particular twist on a human brain interacting with keyboard or touchscreen. That was Facebook’s miracle, getting every college student in America to use its platform during its early years. While there was much technical know-how required in scaling it—and had they fucked that up it would have killed them—that’s not why it succeeded. The uniqueness and complete fickleness of such a miracle are what make investing in consumer-facing apps such a lottery. It really is a user-growth roulette wheel with razor-thin odds. The classic sign of a shitty startup idea is that it requires at least two (or more!) miracles to succeed. This was what was wrong with ours. We had a Bible’s worth of miracles to perform:

But her eyes would blaze like stars when Harold read poetry to her, and I fancy myself that she thought over-much for her years; that she had—what do they call it ?—genius; and that it was only because she was silent that people fancied her simple. It was odd: those two children led such simple, ordinary lives: rising with the sun; eating food of the plainest; always in the open air; rained on by summer showers; blown on by autumn winds; seeing nothing except the animals and the birds on the farms, and having no books except their Bible and their 'Pilgrim's Progress,' and the plays of a man they called Shakspeare:—and yet there was something noble and uncommon about them; and they seemed always to be hearing such

The book of Genesis is a window into what cultures were like before the revelation of the Bible. One thing we see early on is the widespread practice of primogeniture—the eldest son inherited all the wealth, which is how they ensured the family kept its status and place in society. So the second or third son got nothing, or very little. Yet all through the Bible, when God chooses someone to work through, he chooses the younger sibling. He chooses Abel over Cain. He chooses Isaac over Ishmael. He chooses Jacob over Esau. He chooses David over all eleven of his older brothers. Time after time he chooses not the oldest, not the one the world expects and rewards. Never the one from Jerusalem, as it were, but always the one from Nazareth. Another ancient cultural tradition revealed in Genesis is that in those societies, women who had lots of children were extolled as heroic. If you had many children, that meant economic success, it meant military success, and of course it meant the odds of carrying on the family name were secure. So women who could not have children were shamed and stigmatized. Yet throughout the Bible, when God shows us how he works through a woman, he chooses the ones who cannot have children, and opens their wombs. These are despised women, but God chooses them over ones who are loved and blessed in the eyes of the world. He chooses Sarah, Abraham’s wife; Rebecca, Isaac’s wife; Samuel’s mother, Hannah; and John’s mother, Elizabeth. God always works through the men or the boys nobody wanted, through the women or girls nobody wanted.

He that withholds corn, the people shall curse him: but blessing shall be upon the head of him that sells it.

O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counsellor? Or who has first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.

Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord GOD; I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for my holy name's sake, which ye have profaned among the heathen, whither ye went.

A father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows, is God in his holy habitation. God sets the solitary in families:

Then we have the Gospel of John, the odd man out. John’s story of Jesus is so out of step with the others that it is sometimes hard to see how he could be talking about the same person.

Christians throughout the ages have sought the wisdom of our earliest teachers, those who were closer in space and time to Jesus. They are heroes we have in common among denominations, unlike later saints who are treasured by one or the other church but not by all. For the sake of this book, the church’s earliest teachers are like odd and strange aunts and uncles in an extended family. They are embarassing at family gatherings. It’s harder to figure out what to talk to them about than it is with someone whom you would choose voluntarily as a friend. And yet these unchosen cranks make you you. And if you can overcome that initial awkwardness, there is wisdom there, and even love.

Representing Pharisaic views, for example, Josephus catered to the Greco-Roman intelligentsia, formulating a body-soul dualism quite at odds with Israel’s Scriptures but very much at home in the Platonic tradition.

Ellsworth was fifteen, when he astonished the Bible-class teacher by an odd question. The teacher had been elaborating upon the text: “What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” Ellsworth asked: “Then, in order to be truly wealthy, a man should collect souls?

And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me.

And what nation is there so great, that has statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?

but the land, whither ye go to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drinks water of the rain of heaven: a land which the LORD thy God cares for: the eyes of the LORD thy God are always upon it,

The heart of the righteous studies to answer:

The hoary head is a crown of glory, if it be found in the way of righteousness. He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that rules his spirit than he that takes a city.

It might sound odd, but we’re actually in a better position than any of our spiritual forefathers in that respect. We live at a time when the languages of the major civilizations that flourished during the lifetimes of the biblical writers have been deciphered.

and my fellow-prisoners,

children, which in that day had no knowledge between good and evil,

It’s a scary thing, a life-changing, paradigm-shifting thing, to honestly ask yourself this question: Am I moving with God to rescue, restore, and redeem humanity? Or am I clinging fast, eyeteeth clenched, to an imperfect world’s habits and cultural customs, in full knowledge of injustice or imperfections, living at odds with God’s dream for his daughters and sons? He calls his people farther and farther out into the fresh air for the wild and holy work of restoration, renewal, and redemption.

God is the Author of all our stories. That’s not to say that we’re just puppets in His story. We have freewill in the decisions we make, but He knows us all so intricately. He has crafted your life better than any author ever could. Our enemies that seem so strong, these odds that seem so great, they’re nothing! The Writer of our story has overcome this world! He’s not just the Writer. He’s also the true hero. He conquered Satan, darkness, and death and invites us to do the same. He doesn’t promise it will be easy, but He’s in control. It was our Hero Who said, “In this world you will have trouble, but take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

Isn’t it an odd thing that doubting doctrines and dogmas not fully articulated until the Middle Ages can make you a heretic? Admitting to your pastor or priest that you doubt God, the Church, or the Bible can get you excommunicated. Yet treating your fellow human beings as though they were worthless scum will get you elected to the parish council (or to the U.S. Congress). Being open and honest about your faith—or lack thereof—will gain you ridicule and contempt. But take heart, fellow Christians. If you pretend everything is good, and that you are a faithful believer in all things, you most certainly will gain the respect of everyone in your community. Well, except the most important person of all—the guy who railed against hypocrisy: Jesus of Nazareth.

Anticipating Jesus’s descent and executing his followers probably strikes most readers as odd. The Qur’an portrays Jesus as a messenger of God and his followers as those “nearest in love to the believers” (5:82). But the prophecies attributed to Muhammad outside the Qur’an foresee Jesus returning to fight alongside the Muslims against the infidels. As in the Bible, the appearance of Jesus heralds the Last Days. But instead of gathering the faithful up to heaven, he will lead the Muslims in a war against the Jews, who will fight on behalf of the Antichrist, called the Deceiving Messiah. Jesus will “shatter the crucifix, kill the swine, abolish the protection tax, and make wealth to flow until no one needs any more,” says one prophecy attributed to Muhammad and quoted by the first emir of the Islamic State.

I found a Bible in his bedroom.” Her shoulders sagged. So . . . that was why he’d summoned her. He’d discovered she’d failed to slam the door on Pieter’s curiosity about faith and was going to interfere. “He asked if there was a Bible in the house, and I showed him where it was,” she admitted. Oddly, Quentin didn’t seem angry. He tugged on his collar and seemed merely a little embarrassed. “I’m willing to admit I’ve been wrong about that,” he said. “I studied Christianity at college and understand the basic doctrines. The principles aren’t bad, and if they bring Pieter comfort, I don’t mind him exploring until he is an adult and ready to make his own decisions.

If for some reason academics outside the church choose to study any or all of the pieces into which Scripture falls in their hands, they are of course at liberty to do so. They are even at liberty to take the whole canon, as this odd collection the Christians once put together, and investigate why the church might have done that, what arbitrary sense she might have been imposing on the collected bits. And the church may happily receive any and all insights such investigations stumble across or information they make available. But such activity is not and cannot be exegesis of texts from the volume we call the Bible.

The problems with this concentration on God’s wrath are pluriform. First and foremost, it contradicts the experience that most of us have with God, and that a lot of us have with the Bible. Our experience of God is not of wrath, but of love. Indeed, that’s how most people experience God even before they accept the idea that Christ stands between us and God. So it seems odd to first have to convince people that God’s wrath burns against them, then to convince them that Jesus lovingly took on that wrath.

There once was a man who said, ‘God must think it exceedingly odd if He finds that this tree continues to be when there’s no one about in the Quad.’ Reply: Dear Sir: ‘Your astonishment’s odd. I am always about in the Quad. And that’s why the tree will continue to be, since observed by, yours faithfully, God.

Question 1 asks us, “What makes you so sure that God exists at all—especially when you can’t see, hear, or touch him?” • We believe in many things that we don’t see or directly experience with our senses—the virtue of love being a great example. Yet we see evidence of love through its effects. Similarly, we can’t see God, but we can believe in him based on his work in us and in the universe around us. • One of the ways we can know that God is real and active in our world is that he’s real and active in our lives—he’s our friend! If that’s true in your own experience, then talking about him will be a natural part of your answer to people who ask you this question about God’s existence. • Evidence #1: Whatever has a beginning has a cause. Science shows us that the universe had a beginning. It therefore had a cause—one that’s outside of itself and is therefore beyond time, space, matter, and physical energy. In other words, that cause has the characteristics of the God of the Bible. • Evidence #2: Our universe is fine-tuned, with astounding “just-so” precision, in ways that make it a place that can support life. The odds of this happening on its own, by sheer chance, are vanishingly small and thus point powerfully to an intelligent designer—One whom the Bible calls God. • Evidence #3: Apart from God there can be no objective moral standards. But we clearly live in a world that has objective moral standards. Therefore there has to be a divine moral lawgiver. We refer to that lawgiver as “God.” • Our experience, science, and philosophy all point to the existence of an invisible God, One that fits the descriptions given in Scripture for Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—and of us, as Christians.

The challenge here is that we have been trained to read even the Bible as a catalog of heroes to emulate. Moses is the great model of leadership, Joshua is the ideal warrior, and we should “dare to be a Daniel,” as the old hymn exhorts. This is a little odd, when you actually read the narratives and discover that Abraham, Noah, Moses, David, and all the rest were ordinary sinners like the rest of us who had received an extraordinary calling. They fell short of that calling, but God was faithful. And they too needed a Savior — and this is the central plot unfolding in Scripture. In our ambition, we trip over the central character and the central meaning of the whole story.

And yet there is something there. People of faith share a camaraderie that is hard to reproduce in other social circumstances, and they often display a cheerful, albeit oddly naïve, attitude.

The irony of having had such a secular upbringing is that I now live in Texas. Oh, the irony. Here in Texas, it is not only acceptable to go to church and have the mythic belief structure of an eleven-year-old—no, we are considered the odd ones out because we don’t go to church... at least that was how it seemed to us in the beginning.

Exactly why the sources were intertwined in this way is unclear. Exploring this issue really involves asking two questions: (1) Why were all of these sources retained, rather than just retaining the latest or most authoritative one? (2) Why were they combined in this odd way, rather than being left as complete documents that would be read side by side, much like the model of the four different and separate gospels, which introduce the Christian Bible or New Testament? Since there is no direct evidence going back to the redaction of the Torah, these issues may be explored only in a most tentative fashion, with plausible rather than definitive answers. Probably the earlier documents had a certain prestige and authority in ancient Israel, and could not simply be discarded.9 Additionally, the redaction of the Torah from a variety of sources most likely represents an attempt to enfranchise those groups who held those particular sources as authoritative. Certainly the Torah does not contain all of the early traditions of Israel. Yet, it does contain the traditions that the redactor felt were important for bringing together a core group of Israel (most likely during the Babylonian exile of 586-538 B.C.E.). The mixing of these sources by intertwining them preserved a variety of sources and perspectives. (Various methods of intertwining were used-the preferred method was to interleave large blocks of material, as in the initial chapters of Genesis. However, when this would have caused narrative difficulties, as in the flood story or the plagues of Exodus, the sources were interwoven-several verses from one source, followed by several verses from the other.) More than one hundred years ago, the great American scholar G. F Moore called attention to the second-century Christian scholar Tatian, who composed the Diatessaron.10 This work is a harmony of the Gospels, where most of the four canonical gospels are combined into a single work, exactly the same way that scholars propose the four Torah strands of J, E, D, and P have been combined. This, along with other ancient examples, shows that even though the classical model posited by source criticism may seem strange to us, it reflects a way that people wrote literature in antiquity

Earth alone in all the solar system contains a “zone of life.” Only here can water remain liquid, and oxygen abounds in free, active form. While all this may seem odd to people who do not believe in God, nothing about the Earth seems odd to the Christians. The Bible tells us that: The earth is the LORD ’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters. PSALM 24:1–2

The thing I will never forget was the talk he gave about faith. While the forgettable man handed out little red leatherette-bound New Testaments, “Searchlight” passed out key chains. They were not just any key chains. Each one had a little plastic ball on the end with a single mustard seed inside. The plastic globe magnified it, much like the odd man’s eyes. If you looked closely, you could read a Bible verse on a shred of paper next to the mustard seed. It said, “If ye have faith, even as much as a single seed of mustard, ye shall be able to move mountains.” I took that to heart. In my particular case it might have said, “Ye shall move from the mountains” or even “Ye shall grow mountains and parlay them into a huge career.

The chronology of John is so totally at odds with that of the Synoptics (not that they always agree among themselves) that we must suppose John's itinerary of Jesus to be governed solely by the theological demands of any particular scene. For example, Matthew, Mark, and Luke have Jesus, by implication, active for about a year's worth of ministry and teaching in Galilee, after which he embarks on the fatal visit to Jerusalem for Passover. But John has Jesus going to Jerusalem and back several times. For Matthew, the Jerusalem crowds on Palm Sunday have to inquire of the Galileans who Jesus is, but John's Jerusalemites know him well enough. And John has Jesus present at three Passover feasts, giving us our traditional estimate of a three-year ministry. But is John just constructing a Passover scene whenever he wants to have Jesus return to Passover themes in his teaching? Likewise, in the Synoptics, the Last Supper takes place on Thursday, the crucifixion on Friday, but not in John, where Jesus must die on Thursday, like the Passover lamb he typologically embodies.

Now I sit me down in school Where praying is against the rule For this great nation under God Finds mention of Him very odd. If Scripture now the class recites, It violates the Bill of Rights. And anytime my head I bow Becomes a federal matter now. Our hair can be purple, orange, or green, That’s no offense; it’s a freedom scene. The law is specific, the law is precise. Prayers spoken aloud are a serious vice. For praying in a public hall Might offend someone with no faith at all. In silence alone we must meditate, God’s name is prohibited by the state. We’re allowed to cuss and dress like freaks, And pierce our noses, tongues, and cheeks. They’ve outlawed guns, but FIRST the Bible. To quote the Good Book makes me liable. We can elect a pregnant Senior Queen, And the unwed daddy, our Senior King. It’s “inappropriate” to teach right from wrong, We’re taught that such “judgments” do not belong. We can get our condoms and birth controls, Study witchcraft, vampires, and totem poles. But the Ten Commandments are not allowed, No Word of God must reach this crowd. It’s scary here I must confess, When chaos reigns the school’s a mess. So, Lord, this silent plea I make: Should I be shot; my soul please take! Amen

An atheist club felt oxymoronic, like an apathy parade. But against all odds, it exists. The gathering of the godless takes place in a back room with a long table. A big blue atheism banner hangs from the ceiling—right next to the Christmas decorations of cardboard silver angels, an irony several of the atheists point out.

We often hear people say that we should put family above work. Oddly enough, we will not find this thought expressed in the Bible. I will say that again: Nowhere in the Bible does it say that family is more important than work. What the Bible does say is that love matters above all. Families are to be one vehicle through which we express love. Our work is to be another. We will be accountable for our families; we will also be accountable for our work. Often, from a biblical perspective, families were (and are) a place where work gets done.

Rushton is a warm, ebullient speaker. Humorous in just the right places and not too heavy on biblical text. That may sound odd, but people don’t come to church to hear from the Bible. For a start, it was written thousands of years ago. It’s a little dry. The best vicars translate the Bible in a way that reflects the lives and concerns of their congregation.

Here is a more modern approach to thinking about what the Ancients conveyed with their system of light angles. Imagine the square as representing even numbers and the triangle as representing odd numbers. It is hard to draw shapes with one or two sides; instead, they used three and four as iconic representations. The even numbers (square) represent freezing or a type of stasis. The odd numbers (triangle) represent growth or a type of expansion.

and begin at my sanctuary.

And in his name shall the Gentiles trust.

Of whom do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute? of their own children, or of strangers? Peter saith unto him, Of strangers. Jesus saith unto him, Then are the children free.

Behold my servant, whom I have chosen; my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased: I will put my spirit upon him, and he shall show judgment to the Gentiles.

Thus saith the Lord GOD; I will even gather you from the people, and assemble you out of the countries where ye have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel.

At the Transfiguration, when the divinity of Jesus is revealed to the apostles, his clothes and face glowing and shining in front of them, Peter stood amazed, scarcely able to speak. Tyndale had translated his stumbling words as the slightly odd, ‘Master here is good beinge for us’, which was perhaps a mistake, perhaps an attempt to convey Peter’s confusion. The King James Translators had him say simply, ‘Lord, it is good for vs to be here.’ Harwood, reaching high for propriety and perspicuity, managed to turn the apostle into a frock-coated, bewigged and slightly obsequious 1760s estate agent, exclaiming ‘Oh, sir! what a delectable residence we might establish here!

and mine eyes and my heart shall be there perpetually.

Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake.

A soft answer turns away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.

Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.

In the multitude of people is the king's honor: but in the want of people is the destruction of the prince.

but when Jesus was glorified, then remembered they that these things were written of him, and that they had done these things unto him.

Loose him, and let him go.

The legs of the lame are not equal: so is a parable in the mouth of fools.

Now therefore are we all here present before God, to hear all things that are commanded thee of God.

Elizabeth, there’s not room for both you and God on the throne of your heart. It’s either Him or you. You need to step down. Now, if you want victory, you’re gonna have to first surrender.” Elizabeth pushed the thought away. “But, Miss Clara, do I just back off and choose to forgive and let him walk all over me?” “I think you’ll find that when you let Him, God is a good defense attorney. Trust it to Him. And then you can turn your focus to the real enemy.” “The real enemy?” “The one that wants to remain hidden. The one that wants to distract you, deceive you, and divide you from the Lord and from your husband. That’s how he works. Satan comes to steal, kill, and destroy. And he is stealing your joy, killing your faith, and trying to destroy your family.” The old woman was fiery now, like an old-time preacher just getting wound up and ready to pound the pulpit. “If I were you, I would get my heart right with God. And you need to do your fightin’ in prayer. You need to kick the real enemy out of your home with the Word of God.” So many of Elizabeth’s conversations through the day were just words and concepts thrown back and forth. She really didn’t listen to much of it carefully. Like music played in the background to set a mood, conversations were the same thing. But this one was more than a conversation, more than just a few concepts thrown out between two people. She stared at Clara with a laser focus. “It’s time for you to fight, Elizabeth. It’s time for you to fight for your marriage! It’s time for you to fight the real enemy. It’s time for you to take off the gloves and do it.” Elizabeth felt a strength coming, a resolve. With an understanding of grace came a freedom to love she’d never experienced. She glanced at Clara’s Bible. She’d always thought of it as a book filled with stories. Lessons and tales of people who succeeded against great odds. But if Clara was right, it wasn’t just a storybook. It was a manual of warfare. It was a path toward deep forgiveness and love from God that could empower her to forgive and love others. Something came alive as she sat there. Something was reborn. And for the first time in a long time, Elizabeth found something she’d lost. Hope. Hope for herself. Hope for Tony and Danielle that things could be different. Hope for her family. She put a hand on the old woman’s shoulder and Clara hugged her. “You think about what I’ve said here.” “I will,” Elizabeth said in a daze. She brushed away tears all the way home and was glad Danielle didn’t ask questions.

We’re mentioned in the first English translation of the Bible, Lamentations 4:3, circa a.d. 1382, as ‘The cruel beestis cleped (or called) lamya . . .’ Oddly enough, in the King James version someone has changed all of the references to the lamya to ‘sea monsters.

While those who advocate biblical inerrancy reject many of the findings of historical criticism, they still attempt to justify their own claims via the rational approach that historical criticism also employs. In doing so the fundamentalist is claiming that the truth of the Bible is tied up with factual claims that can be intellectually defended. As such, those institutions that advocate biblical inerrancy expend a great deal of time and energy attempting to offer explanations that will effectively reconcile any problems that they are presented with in the Bible. Yet it is this very process of rational justification that makes fundamentalism a very modern phenomenon, one that sets it at odds with the more ancient tradition of inerrancy found within the Church.

A book about the Bible by a memoirist may seem like an odd undertaking, but anyone who has loved the Bible as much as I have, and who has lost it and found it again, knows how a relationship with the Bible can be as real and as complicated as a relationship with a family member or close friend. For better or worse, my story is inextricably tethered to the stories of Scripture, right down to my first name.

The Bible undercuts our cultural obsession with sexual fulfillment. Scripture (along with many subsequent generations of faithful Christians) bears witness that lives of freedom, joy, and service are possible without sexual relations. Indeed, however odd it may seem to contemporary sensibilities, some New Testament passages (Matt. 19:10–12, 1 Cor. 7) clearly commend the celibate life as a way of faithfulness.

Father," Chartrand said, "may I ask you a strange question?" The camerlegno smiled. "Only if I may give you a strange answer." Chartrand laughed. "I have asked every priest I know, and I still don't understand." "What troubles you?" The camerlegno led the way in short, quick strides, his frock kicking out in front of him as he walked. His black, crepe-sole shoes seemed befitting, Chartrand thought, like reflections of the man's essence... modern but humble, and showing signs of wear. Chartrand took a deep breath. "I don't understand this omnipotent-benevolent thing." The camerlegno smiled. "You've been reading Scripture." "I try." "You are confused because the Bible describes God as an omnipotent and benevolent deity." "Exactly." "Omnipotent-benevolent simply means that God is all-powerful and well-meaning." "I understand the concept. It's just... there seems to be a contradiction." "Yes. The contradiction is pain. Man's starvation, war, sickness..." "Exactly!" Chartrand knew the camerlegno would understand. "Terrible things happen in this world. Human tragedy seems like proof that God could not possibly be both all-powerful and well-meaning. If He loves us and has the power to change our situation, He would prevent our pain, wouldn't He?" The camerlegno frowned. "Would He?" Chartrand felt uneasy. Had he overstepped his bounds? Was this one of those religious questions you just didn't ask? "Well... if God loves us, and He can protect us, He would have to. It seems He is either omnipotent and uncaring, or benevolent and powerless to help." "Do you have children, Lieutenant?" Chartrand flushed. "No, signore." "Imagine you had an eight-year-old son... would you love him?" "Of course." "Would you do everything in your power to prevent pain in his life?" "Of course." "Would you let him skateboard?" Chartrand did a double take. The camerlegno always seemed oddly "in touch" for a clergyman. "Yeah, I guess," Chartrand said. "Sure, I'd let him skateboard, but I'd tell him to be careful." "So as this child's father, you would give him some basic, good advice and then let him go off and make his own mistakes?" "I wouldn't run behind him and mollycoddle him if that's what you mean." "But what if he fell and skinned his knee?" "He would learn to be more careful." The camerlegno smiled. "So although you have the power to interfere and prevent your child's pain, you would choose to show your love by letting him learn his own lessons?" "Of course. Pain is part of growing up. It's how we learn." The camerlegno nodded. "Exactly.

Love Thy Neighbor.’ Gotta love it. There is no golden rule in Islam, clowns. This moral equivocation completely ignored the facts on the ground. Jews and Christians simply were not murdering people and justifying the murders by quoting their Scriptures. The violence in the Bible is descriptive, while the Koran’s violence is prescriptive. The fantasy these quislings advanced was at odds with reality and the rivers of bloodshed in the cause of Islam. Never do we see Jews slaughtering in the name of HaShem or Christians in the name of Jesus Christ.