By the dozen

I won't bore you with my regular introduction of "we have the best family dinners ever," but last week we had a particularly funny episode that I'll recount in part.

So, we were were talking about the old-timey way of hanging people (throwing them up on stakes on a wall, just in case you were curious), and other random things like why my brother and I long misunderstood Ezekiel 4, and eventually we started talking about clocks. This is because we have a heinous clock that chirps, hoots, and makes other bird noises ever hour, on the hour. It's awful. I took the batteries out one time, but my mom actually likes the clock, so she found new batteries and now the clock is as loud as ever. This is fine, as we say, because what makes her happy makes us happy, but during supper we kept hearing it (it ended up being a long supper, so we heard the clock at least twice, and possibly even three times) and it was quite the topic of conversation.

That brought us to the thought that we should manufacture a clock with the twelve disciples on it! By the way, this may seem like a confusing train of thought to you, but we were talking about clocks, and we'd been talking about hanging people, and Judas was a disciple, and he hanged himself... well, somehow this made sense to us.

So anyhow, we had great discussion about how the clock would look. Would it have sounds for each disciple? Like Matthew, being a tax collector, would have clinky money sounds, and John would have some angelic sound, and Peter and the fishermen-type guys would have... fish sounds. Well, we decided that maybe the disciples wouldn't get sounds after all. But then there was the discussion of where we'd put the disciples. Who would get the 12:00 spot, right at the top of the clock? I voted Peter, but there was significant pull for John. Then we questioned if Judas should even get a slot. Maybe we could stick Matthias instead of Judas. My brother, of course, thought that perhaps we could have Judas at the 6:00 slot, and the clock could show the rope hanging him.

My mom wasn't impressed.

After a while we thought maybe we should just skip the disciples (too much drama!) and just do the twelve tribes. Of course, then there's the discussion about which tribe you should leave out (remember, Joseph got two tribes), and then we started all over again.

I Googled "twelve disciples wall clock" later, sure I'd find that somebody had already invented it, and to my surprise, didn't find anything. I looked only casually, but the closest I could find was a Last Supper clock and an old clock in Prague with the twelve on there, but it's an old clock, and not for sale. Also, there's a rock formation in Australia called The Twelve Apostles, and you can get clocks with the rock formation on the face, but that is, in fact, no help at all.

So one day if you wander into a Christian bookstore and see a twelve disciples clock, well, perhaps it was I, who somehow managed to finagle a deal to design clocks. It could happen!

Rich with details

The next time someone tells you that the Bible is a dry book best meant for church, tell them to read the story of Joseph. Every time I read the story of Joseph I just marvel, because it is so incredibly full of texture and fabric and everything that makes for an amazing story.

The story trails back to even before Joseph was born, of course, but even just consider Joseph's childhood--surrounded by three mom-ish things, plus a real mother, and 10 older brothers who didn't think too keenly of Joseph. Consider the account of Rachel dying while bearing Benjamin. Do we ever stop to think that Joseph was motherless? I think his motherlessness must have had at least some effect on the way he turned out.

I mean, consider Reuben's sin with Bilhah (clearly didn't get the thou-shalt-not memo in regards to thy father's wife), and then contrast that with Joseph's clear refusal of Potiphar's wife. Clearly their moral standards were not on the same level.

Then consider the interesting emphasis there is, in Joseph's story, on his various coats. His coat of many colours, the coat that Potiphar's wife stole from his back, the coat he donned to go meet with Pharaoh, and the coat that Pharaoh put on him after making him second-in-command. No "dry book" would spend time talking about someone's various outfits.

I could go on and on, but I think you all know the story. I just love to read it, and see all those little things that make the story seem so much more real. For instance, after Joseph cried when he saw Benjamin for the first time, he washed his face before coming back in. The Bible doesn't have to record that, but it makes it so much more remarkable when it does!

Plus, since Joseph is a type of Christ, that brings a whole new level of meaning to the story. Honestly, it's truly incredible!

Well-favoured

I'd actually forgotten about this until I was reading the story of Jacob and Leah/Rachel yesterday morning, but I think it bears repeating.

You know how the Bible describes Rachel as well-favoured? Well, that word "well favoured" is usually coupled, in the Bible, with the term for people who were a little stockier, or chubbier, or whatever word you choose to use.

The cattle in Pharaoh's dream, the one Joseph had to interpret, the one where they were fatfleshed? Yeah, well-favoured cattle.

Remember how the prince of the eunuchs in Daniel's time was worried about them eating the pulse instead of king's meat, because they'd get too skinny? Those kids were well-favoured.

Does that mean Rachel fell in that category? Not per se, however, I thought that was pretty amusing.

I'm not sure this bears any significance upon my daily life, or yours, but it made me grin as I read it in my Bible reading. Nice.

Joseph & co.

The other night our family was having a Bible reading (I like to call it "pre-BOB," a Saturday night gathering where we sing BOB-related songs and read BOB-related verses, etc.) and I got to rambling about Joseph, and we had a rather rousing (not exactly Bob-related) discussion about him and his life.

This is Bible Joseph, just in case that hasn't come across yet.

I was just pondering a few things.

1. Did Joseph ever check in on brother Simeon while he was in prison? I mean, I think if I were Joseph and my brother was just down in the dungeon, and if he missed his family as much as the story indicates, that he would have found some sort of way to get updated on him. Maybe he would have had his Steward make sure that Simeon was well cared for? That Steward, by the way, must have been soo confused about the goings-on of Joseph's life. Seriously. Oh, plus, I would think it would have been super easy for Joseph to check out prisons himself. I mean, he'd been a clever prison-keeper back before his Zaphnathpaaneah days, right? So it would stand to reason that nobody would question if he wanted to poke around in prisons whenever he wanted.

2. Speaking of that. Didn't any of the farmers wonder why in the world they were handing over a fifth of their crops to an ex-con? I think I would have wondered, quite honestly. My brother was rather surprised that I brought this up at all, since Joseph was number two in the land and all. True, brother, but you'd think they'd at least have some moments of doubt or worry or something.

3. I'd think at least some of the wives would wonder why they had to uproot and move to Egypt of all places (you really want our children to be raised in that heathen land, honey?) but my mom thinks they would have been glad to be closer to the corn. I still think they'd have at least one disgruntled wife between the all of them.

4. I liked how Pharaoh had known Joseph for about five minutes and decided that he was the person "discreet and wise" to run the whole Project Survive Famine. Yes, he interpreted your dream, but you don't know much about him other than the fact he'd been in jail.

I'm stuck on this whole jail thing today.

Ah, well. Nobody knows. Maybe nobody ever bothered with these things in those days ("these things" being the moving-to-a-heathen land, visiting-my-brother-secretly, bringing-food-to-an-ex-con things), I don't know.

Ohhhh, but one more thing. Did Simeon (it was Simeon, right?) grow to respect the person Zaphnathpaaneah was while he was imprisoned in Egypt? Did he know what was going on in the land? Hear many current events? I just wonder if he respected Joseph without even knowing it was him, you know?

Heaven will be sweet. For a million reasons, but one being that I'll get to finally find out all this stuff. I've got some questions for Amos, too, actually. Soon!!