The Real Story

Another week has passed and, once again, I have nothing specific to write about. Towards the end of the week, both my wife and I got sick, because our son got sick earlier this week and gave it to us in payment for his care. Oh, the joys of parenthood.

I learned something pretty cool, at least to me, in my religion class. We are studying the New Testament, and in this semester, we only go over the gospels. My professor explained that in scriptures, descriptions are deliberate when they are included in the text by their authors. Have you ever thought about what Eve looked like? Was she blonde, brunette, tall, short, strong, anorexic, etc.? The reason we don't know is because her physical description was never included by the authors of the creation and Garden of Eden stories. A description of what Eve looked like is not important--almost irrelevant--therefore, the author chose not to include a description of her in the text..

With this concept in mind, we discussed the birth story of the Savior as described in Luke 2, and more specifically the traditional picture we have of the stable, manger, and swaddling clothes. Why were the descriptions of the inn, the stable, the manger, the wise men, etc. included?

A stable in the time of the Savior and in Bethlehem was a cave, which they would put animals in and partially cover the opening with rocks to give them protection in the night. The manger was not a cute little wooden object that most of us put on display each Christmas season with our nativity scenes. It was a trough carved in stone, sometimes simply dug out in the side of the cave where the herders and shepherds would place food for the animals. The swaddling clothes that Mary placed the baby Jesus in after his birth were strips of fabric, not a blanket or quilt like we use today, to swaddle the baby and keep him secure. The use of strips or pieces of fabric was also the way that dead bodies were treated and wrapped with embalming agents (such as myrhh--gifted to the Savior by the wise men). With this more historically accurate image of the birth story, we are able to see similarities in the place of birth and also of death of the Savior. The author of Luke painted the picture that this baby, the Savior of mankind, was born.......to die.

The descriptions are there for a reason, the scriptures are not a best-selling novel that the authors put as much description into the text as possible to make it more interesting--no, the descriptions are there to help us understand the symbolisms and lessons that the authors, and ultimately God, would have us learn, and it is up to us to take note of these things as we read and study the scriptures ourselves.