Shocking? Not So Much

I get e-mails from a news site, mostly a list of headlines linking to articles about what's going on in the world. It's just one of my sources.

Anyway, like most commercial sites, they include advertisements in their e-mails. One of them is for a book entitled Shocked By The Bible: The Most Astonishing Facts You've Never Been Told.

I'm not going to buy the book.  I'll tell you why.  The advert gives a list of "shocking and astonishing" facts that you aren't supposed to know.

Did you know ...

• The Bible doesn't say Jesus died on a Friday or rose at sunrise Sunday morning
• No wise men at all visited baby Jesus in a Bethlehem manger
• The phrase "God the Father" is not in the Old Testament, but is surprisingly everywhere in the New Testament
• There were not just two of each animal aboard Noah's Ark
• Moses did not write the Ten Commandments

Shocking ... but all true!

The problem is, even the most rudimentary Bible scholar, or Sunday School Child, will know these facts.  I'm not nearly the Bible scholar I should be, but even I could answer these-- and without having to look them up. 

Let's go through them one by one...



1.  The Bible doesn't say Jesus died of a Friday or rose at sunrise Sunday morning.

Of course it doesn't.   They didn't use those names for the days of the week in first century Judea.  Our names for weekdays come from Norse gods (except for Saturday) and were not adopted until sometime between 200 and 500 AD. 

However, the Bible does say that the Pharisees went to the Romans and asked them to break the legs of those being crucified because it was almost the Sabbath-- or the seventh day of the week-- which we know as Saturday.  They couldn't leave them on the crosses over the Sabbath.  Now, in Jewish calendars, the day begins at sunset.  Therefore, the Sabbath would begin on sunset of the day we think of as Friday.  Thus, we can conclude that Jesus was crucified on a Friday.

Now, because they had to get his body off of the cross and buried before sunset, so they didn't really have time to prepare it for burial according to their customs and beliefs.  So the women were going to back to the tomb after the Sabbath, or on the first day of the week, which we would call Sunday, to finish the burial preparations.  They were going to the tomb that morning, and when they got there, the stone was rolled away and the tomb was empty.  Therefore, we can conclude that Jesus rose sometime between sunset on the Sabbath-- when it officially ended-- and early morning the first day of the week.  Which we know as Sunday.



2.  No wise men at all visited baby Jesus in a Bethlehem manger.

The Bible clearly states that the wise men came to the house, where the young child lived.   Furthermore, Herod ordered all boys under the age of two to be murdered according to the time given to them by the wise men of when the star first appeared.   So, Jesus was about two years old, and living in a house by the time the wise men got there.  Yeah, we put them in our manger scenes, but that's just for tradition's sake. 


3.  The phrase "God the Father" is not in the Old Testament, but is surprisingly everywhere in the New Testament.

And why would it be in the Old Testament?  God was not a father until his only begotten son was born, so why would people refer to him as God the Father before that?   Jesus is God's son, and referred to him as Father frequently.  Through his sacrifice, we can be adopted into God's family as his children, too, so he is our Heavenly Father.  I'm not sure why this should come as a surprise to anyone. 


4.  There were not just two of each animal aboard Noah's Ark.

Nope.  The Bible says clean animals and birds were brought in by sevens.  Of unclean animals, they were there by twos-- a male and his female. 


5.  Moses did not write the Ten Commandments.

Duh.  God did.  


Now, keep in mind, I haven't read the book.  There may actually be more interesting stuff in there.  I should think, though, that they would put something more compelling than stuff any Sunday School child would know. 

But that's just me.