Random Thoughts From the Other Side

I'd like to turn this into a regular feature here in hell, where I share all the little things that shaved away at my faith until I realized one day that laughing about Santa while simultaneously believing in other imaginary people is just ridiculous, but I'll forget the title 5 minutes from now because the sun has left me and the cold has invaded and I am now very, very SAD. Oh, and just so you know, it's Casual Grammar Thursday.

Anyhooooooo . . .

Why the age gaps in the story of Jesus? That always bothered me. You only ever get The Jesus Story at 3 ages:

1. O hai, a savyur iz boarn. People stop by with presents no sane person gives an infant, Herod orders The Tenth Plague Two: Electric Bugaloo, and we all run off to Egypt. What Jesus does in Egypt for the next 12 years or so is entirely unrecorded. Uh, hello- savior? Son of God? God in the flesh? I'm guessing his childhood was a little different from yours and mine. He could make 5 fishes into 5,000, turn water into wine and raise the freakin' dead, and there aren't any interesting stories from his youth? Really? The mind boggles.

2. Jesus reappears as the sort of rude, know-it-all, barely pubescent smarmy little asshole you yearn to slap when they appear at your house for some ill advised family affair. Yes, I know it's wrong to assault children, but you know what I'm talking about. The Bible presents the Pharisee's collective reaction to obnoxious, possibly acne prone Jesus as a desire to keep their jobs and deny God's wishes, but I think God should have known that adults do not like to be lectured by people too young to have more than 5 pubic hairs. Fast forward to . . .

3. Jesus, All Grown Up. This Jesus is depicted as pretty much the same as obnoxious, possibly acne prone Jesus, but it plays better, because his voice has stopped cracking. Jesus, All Grown Up is weird in his own way, though. Twelve to thirty is a huge span of time, especially 2,000 years ago, when life expectancies made planning your thirtieth birthday party more than one day in advance a little overly hopeful, and Jesus hasn't changed a bit. He's portrayed in exactly the same way, and he's not married, has no children, none of the accoutrements expected of Jewish men in the time, and no explanation for it. Mary's not pining for grandbabies she'll never have, Joseph isn't worried that Jesus likes pink a little too much, nobody mentions it at all. It's a little odd.

In fact, the sameness of Jesus from twelve to thirty remind me very much of authors with little talent and inattentive editors who write dialogue for every single character exactly the same. Women sound just like men, children sound like adults, Northerners sound like Southerners, you get the drift.

It's almost like somebody started with the barest outline of a story they heard from a guy, who heard it from a guy whose cousin's best friend may have been there, 70 years later, and then filled in some blanks, but left others bare. Mostly because very few people have the literary chops to describe god as both a tantrum-throwing two year old and a surly, rebellious teen.

Btw, do not ever, ever, ever ask a nun about these issues if she happens to have a ruler handy. The stereotype about nuns and rulers exists for a reason.