Aj Schwanz

This morning I read this:

1 Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty warrior. His father was Gilead; his mother was a prostitute. 2 Gilead’s wife also bore him sons, and when they were grown up, they drove Jephthah away. “You are not going to get any inheritance in our family,” they said, “because you are the son of another woman.” 3 So Jephthah fled from his brothers and settled in the land of Tob, where a group of adventurers gathered around him and followed him.

and I thought about how much I like the Bible.  What a story!  And what a short little blibby it’s given.

Mighty warrior!

Son of a prostitute!

Driven from his family!

Lived with adventurers!

Obviously the Bible did not have Hollywood execs to get a script past, because the long passages on mildew treatment might not be given so much space.

I realized how much of the Bible I don’t “get” while reading Judges.  The Canaanites move in; the Philistines attack; the Moabites oppress.  Big whoop.

But if I heard “the Nazis move in; the Taliban attacks; the Appartheid oppress” I think I’d be more concerned, more invested in the story.  Perhaps having to seek out the meaning involves me in the story, sets me out on my own Bastian adventure.  Like Jephthah, only without the prostitute mother and with shorter adventurers.