2:154, #458: Biblical Punning

Ok, lookout...here they come:

If "the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters," as Genesis 1:2 says, does that make Him the Original Surfer who inspired Duuude-eronomy, the 5th book of the Pentateuch?

When I saw "The Ten Commandments" the other night, I thought, "Should 'Exodus' really be pronounced "Exit-us?"

Was God the original Bookie, given there is the Book of Numbers?

In the Candy Cane Version of the Bible, would the 8th book be renamed Baby Ruth? Would it be about her early years and teens?

Does the Book of Job indicate that we were created for work?

Was Song of Solomon the original sexy rock 'n roll tune? If you read it backwards, do we find out who buried Paul?

If you feel like the guy in The Scream (public domain pic, of course)...go right ahead!
Got deep breath?

2:153, #457: Jewish Dispersions

Today's fascinating fact in The One Year Book of Christian History is that on August 2, 1492...the same year Columbus the Christian discovered the New World...ALL Jews were kicked out of Spain. It turns out that it was the 9th of Ab in the Jewish calendar...the same day in the Jewish Calendar they got removed from Jerusalem in 586B.C. by the Babylonians, by the Romans from Jerusalem in 70 A.D., and kicked out of all of England in 1290.

I guess when God predicted back in Deuteronomy in the blessings and cursings sections to spread His people out all over the place when they were disobedient to Him, He wasn't joking or exaggerating.

The bas-relief from public domain is of the sack of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. Does anybody think that Adolf Hitler might have been the logical 20th century version of Nebuchadnezzer and Caesar? After all, his Nazi eagles looked just like those of the Roman Empire. And while I think of it, Babylon, Rome, and the Third Reich with their eagle emblems are gone...does that bode ill for the USofA and our bald eagle mentality?

2:152, #456: Happy Armada Dunking Day

Yessirree, Bob...on this day in 1588 God finished off His work in smashing the Spanish Armada's attempt at invading England. The day before the English did a decent job by using fire ships and cannon balls to blast away at the Spanish, but the following day...July 29th...severe storms in the North Sea pretty much finished off the fleet and caused many of the sailors to end up in Scotland. I wonder if they were treated to a dinner of haggis and made to dance among the thistles?!!

In any event, The One Year Book of Christian History points out that this was the turning point in keeping England Protestant under Elizabeth I; which continued to foster the Reformation in that land and shape its history for the rest of history, so to speak. I guess since England remained Protestant, it gave birth to Protestors who eventually got shipped to the New World and chucked a bunch of tea in Boston Harbor...all due to the fact that the Lord sent a storm a couple of hundred years earlier, as He says he does with all weather in Amos 4:7. I guess the storm "fell on the righteous and the unrighteous" that day, too!

Oh, and FYI...the Spanish started the fight on SUNDAY the 28th, statistically a not-so-bright-idea as my past research has shown...67% of the time the attacker loses when starting a ruckus on Sunday, breaking the Christian Sabbath. For you newbies, let me mention a few battles where the attacker lost on Sunday...Bannockburn, New Orleans, Waterloo, Pearl Harbor, Gallipolli, and Little Big Horn.
Got bumpershoot and Bible?

2:151, #455: Memorable Movie Lines

Picture Gandalf on the Bridge at Khazad-dum and the Balrog is inquiring about his Summer Hebrew grade...or perhaps his Apprentice Wizard grade: "YOU...SHALL NOT...PASS!!"... pretty much sums it up.

Then there's Gerard Butler's classic from "Reign of Fire," spoken in a thick Scottish brogue, "The only thing worrrse than a Dragon is an Amerrrican!!" (I loved Matt McConaughey's body tattoo!)

In King Kong, it may have been "Beauty that killed the Beast" as Richard Denham proclaims in the last line, but the bullets and the sudden stop at the end of the 1,250 foot drop might have contributed!!

One that always chokes me up, even after 34 times watching "Gettysburg" is the one word line Jeff Daniels utters as Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain at the Battle of Little Round Top: "BAYONETS!!!"

General Kemper's description and suggestion to General Pickett after Pickett makes an analogy of the South leaving the Union being like a gentleman having the right to leave a club might be my favorite line in "Gettysburg:" "You certainly have a way of trivializing the momentous and complicating the obvious...have you ever considered running for Congress?"

"Serenity" has a bunch of memorable lines, but my fave is when the Crew is about to battle the Reavers, Simon Tam is wounded and River Tam, after saying that he's been taking care of her, simply turns to run at the Reavers and says, "MY TURN!!"...and kicks the ever-loving daylights out of the bad guys!!

Guess it's about time to get to work...7am...so rather than "kill you with my brain" as River says she can do to Jayne Cobb in "Firefly," I'll simply say, as the dwarves did in "Snow White..."
HI HO, HI HO, IT'S OFF TO WORK I GO!!
Got mortar to tuck point the stone walls of Grey Havens?!!

2:150, #454: Bull Run & Monkeys Revisited

OK, last year on this date, I posted some comments on both the Battle of Bull Run and the Scopes Monkey Trial on Post #196. This year I've got other thoughts on the same thing. Just about the time of the American Civil War Old Darwin came up with his hair-brained Theory...Origin of the Species was published in 1859 to be precise...so a scene in my favorite movie (34 watchings), "Gettysburg," will be this day's post.

Confederate General James Longstreet walks up on Generals Pickett, Kemper, Armistead, and Garnett discussing "the latest scientific theory" of Charles Darwin. General Armistead backs the theory, General Pickett objects. So, General Pickett decides he "will lay to rest" the fallacious nature of Darwin's Theory. Let me set this up as a script:

General Pickett: "There are some among you who think you are descended from a ape...or that even I am descended from a ape... but I challenge the man to step forward who believes General Lee is descended from a ape!!"

General Kemper: "Here, here!"

General Garnett: "Not likely."

General Armistead: "All science trembles before the searing logic of your fiery intellect."
Armstead and Longstreet leave the scene and Kemper is heard saying, "So, exactly how many of your relatives are there that are apes?!"

One interesting thing about this non-historical dialogue with no historical record to substantiate it as far as I know, is that Armistead the Christian supports Darwin while Pickett, who apparently never came to faith according to my research, puts forth argumentation similar to William Jennings Bryan's at the Scopes Trial that could readily be torn apart by his opposition with ridicule. By the way, Scopes was convicted in that trial and the ruling was later overturned on a technicality. Christianity, however, was given a major black eye and Darwinism is held to be Truth. I think if someone wants to believe in evolution, the jackass should be the model, not the monkey...similarities of behavior are much more similar.

General Lee poses an interesting soliloquy that ends up as the last lines of the movie and is a good commentary on war. In talking with General Longstreet after Pickett's Charge has been crushed, he says:

"If they fight, we must fight them....And does it matter, after all, who wins?
Was that ever really the question? Will Almighty Got ask that question in the end?"
Probably not...


Resources for dialogue besides my brain: [http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/g/gettysburg-script-transcript-civil-war.html]

2:149, #453: July 18 Stuff

Today happens to be the day in history when Jerusalem fell in 586 BC and Adolf Hitler published Mein Kampf in 1925 AD...on a Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath. Seems to me there's more than a little piece of coincidence in that particular timing. After all, God used Babylon to severely discipline His people because they rejected Him before He sent the Messiah and then He posted notice that the Holocaust was in the offing in 1925 as a result of their rejecting Him after He sent Messiah.

Actually, my historical interpretation of the events of 1914-1945 is that God Caused a Second Thirty Years' War (in case you missed it, historical naming does not have to be year accurate in all circumstances, i.e., The Hundred Years War had intermittant peace times). The way I see it, "Christian" Europe never was that, just as America never was a "Christian nation," so God sent WWI...37 million dead, the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918...50-100 million dead/500 million infected, & WWII...70 million dead to get the world's attention after it had rejected His Messiah for all those centuries. The Christians were the real culprits in not being effective salt and light in the world's society. My Biblical basis for this analysis is what I call the Acts 1:8/8:1 Phenomenon...in 1:8 He commissions the Church to go into Jerusalem, Samaria, and all the earth, for the next 7 chapters the Church grows but does not follow orders, so in 8:1 God raises up Persecution and drove them...He constrained them to get into the boat in the Gospels...into all the ends of the earth, so to speak.

I wonder what He plans to do with all the New World Order goomers that are trying to take over the world and eventually establish themselves as gods while the Church does not follow His marching orders as we should? I guess Psalm 2:1-4 covers it, "Why are the nations in an uproar, and the peoples devising a vain thing? The kings of the earth take their stand, and the rulers take counsel together against the LORD and against His Anointed: "Let us tear their fetters apart, and cast away their cords from us!" He who sits in the heavens laughs, The Lord scoffs at them."
Got possible dead head count?

2:148, #452: Mowing Cogitations

If you mow over a bee while it's drawing nectar from a clover flower, does he get chopped up or just flung out at a high rate of speed, giving him a really good buzz?

While I was zooming around on my zero turn mower, I was thinking of a bumper sticker I could apply to either my car and/or my mower: "My Harley is a John Deere!!"

Do you ever wonder if you're breaking a law when you stand in front of a sign to read it and it says, "No parking, standing or stopping anytime?"

If the new John Deere 997 is a zero turn mower, was the old 950 tractor a doughnut turn tractor?

If "nothing runs like a Deere" why do people buy so many different type vehicles?

Can 24 years of inhaling diesel fumes be considered a mind altering drug situation?

Just curious.