It's in There... NOT!

(Fourth in a series)

Misquote: "Cleanliness is next to godliness"

While there are many references in the Torah (first five books of the Bible) to cleanliness, the focus is not on taking a bath. Mostly, being "clean" in the Bible refers to a state of ritual purity. That does sometimes involve hygiene, but cleansing in the Bible is often concerned most directly with a person's ability to enter holy places and engage in sacred activities.

The source of this proverb is not known, but some say it comes from a second-century Rabbi. The first reference in the English language comes from Sir Francis Bacon.

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It's in There... NOT!

(Third in a series)

St. Paul's Horse

Check it out, folks, there's no horse in that story! You can read the whole story of Saul's (later, Paul) conversion in Acts 22, but here's the part where they usually add the horse:

⁵as the high priest and all the Council can testify, I even obtained letters from them to their brothers in Damascus, and went there to bring these people as prisoners to Jerusalem to be punished.

 ⁶"About noon as I came near Damascus, suddenly a bright light from heaven flashed around me. ⁷I fell to the ground and heard a voice say to me, 'Saul! Saul! Why do you persecute me?'(NIV)

Where the idea came from, I haven't a clue, but Christian artists through the centuries have pictured Paul falling off his "high horse." This fresco, "The Conversion of Paul the Apostle" by Ben Long, appears in St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Wilkesboro, North Carolina.

Horses in the Bible are often associated with war, but in Zechariah 9:9, the prophet places hope for the nation in the hands of a "gentle" king who rides not a war horse but "a colt, the foal of a donkey." (NIV)

  Biagio D'Antonio, Il Passagio Del Mar Rosso (The Crossing of the Red Sea)

It's in There... NOT!

(Second in a series.)

#2 - Misquote: "The lion will lie down with the lamb"

A common text for Christmas cards, this seems to be an abbreviated form of Isaiah 11:6 which reads, "The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child will lead them." (NRSV)

So how did the lion and the lamb get top billing? Does the short version simply make a better Christmas card (note the alliteration)? Do the lion and lamb make better symbols? ("The big bad wolf" gives wolves a bad name, and calves and fatlings remind us of food....)

And did you know that the popular Twilight movies have taken on the symbolism of the lion and the lamb? This ad reads, "And the lion fell in love with the lamb."

(And PS: The Twilight saga books use the image of an apple to hint at the theme of temptation. See our first installment of It's in There...Not.)

Feel free to email BJ Daly Horell with your favorite items and quotes that are not found in the Bible. I'll include as many as I can in this summer blog series!