Yesterday, while on a field trip with my daughter's class of preschoolers, my wife was deep in conversation with one of the other mothers, when a small voice called out to her, "Excuse me! Excuse me!" Candace turned her attention to one of the students, a boy named Eli, who obviously had something very urgent that needed to be relayed to a parent.
"Yes, Eli?" my wife asked him, no doubt expecting to hear about a need to use the restroom or that somebody's pumpkin had been taken by another student.
"When I grow up, I want to be a landscaper."
Candace laughed and offered an, "Oh yeah?" sort of response.
"Yes, and I will have a tractor that is too big to fit on the trailer that I pull behind my pickup truck."
When my wife relayed this story to me later in the day, I laughed at the humor of it, but it got me thinking. When I was four, I had all sorts of aspirations to do big things that I enjoyed, but never even considered the "prestige" or financial implications of those desires. I knew what I liked. I knew what I wanted to do. Nobody could tell me no.
I fast-forward a few years and find myself working in a cubicle, staring at a computer, growing stale under artificial light and controlled temperatures. Is this the career I had dreamed of? Not really. There are a lot fewer dinosaurs, airplanes and magic taking place than I had ever envisioned.
It's the story that most of us can tell. Our goals and priorities change, we take what we can get, we settle for mediocre because it is comfortable, or we kill ourselves working jobs we hate because of the recognition and the lifestyle it affords us.
Maybe Eli will change his mind as he grows up. He'll discover he has a desire to drive an expensive car. He'll want the next iDevice that Apple cranks out. He'll want the notoriety of having words like "Senior Vice President" in his job title.
Or maybe Eli will grow up to be the World's Greatest Landscaper, just like he had dreamed.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
What Dreams May Come
Last night, I dreamed I was walking down a long gravel road strewn with broken down school buses, in order to reach a barn for some food. I have no idea why the food came from a barn, but that's just where everyone in the world got food from.
On the way, I passed my Aunt Sandy, who was walking away from the barn, talking to herself and not acknowledging having seen me.
When I got there, I found a guy I used to work with, named Miguel, talking to an Iranian guy about won-tons; not the kind in soup, the crispy fried ones. I know this, because Miguel asked the Iranian guy his opinion on won-tons and the guy replied, "They are crispy."
Miguel and the Iranian then had a short discussion about Miguel's (previously unknown to me) Egyptian heritage, and that it was obvious from the shape of the bridge of his nose. The Iranian guy disagreed and said that Egyptian noses had a slight bend in them, much like his, and that Miguel must be mistaken.
There is no point to this story, I just felt it was high time I updated the blog again.
On the way, I passed my Aunt Sandy, who was walking away from the barn, talking to herself and not acknowledging having seen me.
When I got there, I found a guy I used to work with, named Miguel, talking to an Iranian guy about won-tons; not the kind in soup, the crispy fried ones. I know this, because Miguel asked the Iranian guy his opinion on won-tons and the guy replied, "They are crispy."
Miguel and the Iranian then had a short discussion about Miguel's (previously unknown to me) Egyptian heritage, and that it was obvious from the shape of the bridge of his nose. The Iranian guy disagreed and said that Egyptian noses had a slight bend in them, much like his, and that Miguel must be mistaken.
There is no point to this story, I just felt it was high time I updated the blog again.
Sunday, January 03, 2010
Greek Mythological References in the book of Job?
At a weekly Bible study I attend, we ran across a couple passages in Job in which God is speaking and makes some very specific references to constellations named after Greek Mythological characters:
Job 38:31-32 (NKJV)
31 “Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades,
Or loose the belt of Orion?
32 Can you bring out Mazzaroth in its season?
Or can you guide the Great Bear with its cubs?
Since Job is regarded by many to be the oldest book in the Bible, this made me wonder about the timeline in relation to the Greeks and also why God would choose to use Greek Mythological characters as a reference in His message to Job throughout this chapter.
As with most of the issues I run across and can't seem to find a decent answer, I turned to my dad to find his take on it, since he has studied the Bible in its Greek and Hebrew forms with some intensity, hoping he might be able to shed some light on it for me.
Below is our exchange, which I think gives a pretty good answer to my questions.
Begin Question>>
http://read.ly/Job38.31.nasb
Why does this verse and the next, spoken by God, reference characters from Greek Mythology? Is it this way in Hebrew? I would have thought Job would predate Greek Mythology. If it doesn't, does this then mean that Greek culture was a, or even the prevelant philosophy in the area at the time, and that God was using these references to be relevant to their culture in this chapter?
This came up at our Bible study this morning and none us can figure out why those specific references would have been used. - Adam
End Question>>
Begin Response>>
Adam:
It is at least somewhat accepted that Job is the oldest book in the canon. There is also a legend that Job was in fact, the architect of the Great Pyramid of Giza which is on the order of 4500-5000 years old, (some think much older). In Isa. 19 there is a description of an altar to the Lord (a "pillar") in the "midst of the land of Egypt" and "at the border" which may refer to the pyramid since it is in the place which is both in the middle and at the border as the land "Egypt" has not remained geographically the same through its history.
The Hebrew text uses distinctly Hebrew names for these Greek translations. I can only assume that the translators emplaced the more modern Greek names. For example, the Hebrew text uses "the seven stars" -or more literally, a derivative of the word "cluster" in the case of Pleiades. Now that does however at least imply that these groupings or constellations were widely recognized across various cultures a very long time ago. Having said that, Greek mythic history is very old. Athens for example, is one of the oldest cities, possibly as old as 5000-7000 years (before there were "Greeks") and the name is obviously a derivative of Athena (though the corresponding myth could have been constructed to fit the name of the city ?)
In any case, the mythic characters were well known and were written about nearly 3000 years ago and the verbal history obviously predates the written records by a long time. So- I dunno which is older but constellations were widely recognized, whatever they may have been called, in various cultures for a long time. Gen. 1 states: "And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years" .
Sorry for the slow response time.
fwiw
End Response>>
Job 38:31-32 (NKJV)
31 “Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades,
Or loose the belt of Orion?
32 Can you bring out Mazzaroth in its season?
Or can you guide the Great Bear with its cubs?
Since Job is regarded by many to be the oldest book in the Bible, this made me wonder about the timeline in relation to the Greeks and also why God would choose to use Greek Mythological characters as a reference in His message to Job throughout this chapter.
As with most of the issues I run across and can't seem to find a decent answer, I turned to my dad to find his take on it, since he has studied the Bible in its Greek and Hebrew forms with some intensity, hoping he might be able to shed some light on it for me.
Below is our exchange, which I think gives a pretty good answer to my questions.
Begin Question>>
http://read.ly/Job38.31.nasb
Why does this verse and the next, spoken by God, reference characters from Greek Mythology? Is it this way in Hebrew? I would have thought Job would predate Greek Mythology. If it doesn't, does this then mean that Greek culture was a, or even the prevelant philosophy in the area at the time, and that God was using these references to be relevant to their culture in this chapter?
This came up at our Bible study this morning and none us can figure out why those specific references would have been used. - Adam
End Question>>
Begin Response>>
Adam:
It is at least somewhat accepted that Job is the oldest book in the canon. There is also a legend that Job was in fact, the architect of the Great Pyramid of Giza which is on the order of 4500-5000 years old, (some think much older). In Isa. 19 there is a description of an altar to the Lord (a "pillar") in the "midst of the land of Egypt" and "at the border" which may refer to the pyramid since it is in the place which is both in the middle and at the border as the land "Egypt" has not remained geographically the same through its history.
The Hebrew text uses distinctly Hebrew names for these Greek translations. I can only assume that the translators emplaced the more modern Greek names. For example, the Hebrew text uses "the seven stars" -or more literally, a derivative of the word "cluster" in the case of Pleiades. Now that does however at least imply that these groupings or constellations were widely recognized across various cultures a very long time ago. Having said that, Greek mythic history is very old. Athens for example, is one of the oldest cities, possibly as old as 5000-7000 years (before there were "Greeks") and the name is obviously a derivative of Athena (though the corresponding myth could have been constructed to fit the name of the city ?)
In any case, the mythic characters were well known and were written about nearly 3000 years ago and the verbal history obviously predates the written records by a long time. So- I dunno which is older but constellations were widely recognized, whatever they may have been called, in various cultures for a long time. Gen. 1 states: "And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years" .
Sorry for the slow response time.
fwiw
End Response>>
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