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A CRAFTY YOUNG MANWe all tend to embellish our stories over the years. The longer they go without being recorded or documented, the more embellished they become. We all know about the "fish that got away," that grows with each retelling of the story, or the three point buck that becomes six point, and then twelve point over the years. And...then there are the stories about how hard we had it when we were the age of our kids... There are those who will resent the way I point out the embellishments in the next story. However, there is more involved than exaggeration of the facts. This story points out a different manner of perceiving the world than is common today. I will let the hero of the story tell it himself: "Hi, my name is Jacob. "The truth is, I wasn't the best behaved of kids when I was growing up. It's somewhat embarrassing , when I look back on it now, but it's important that you understand this to understand my story. You see, I've always been sort of a trickster. Okay, my brother called me a schemer and a cheater. That's because I cheated him, not once, but several times. He was so gullible, that it almost seemed a crime not to fool him in some way. Then, one day, I went too far. He got so mad at me, that I had to run away from home to keep him from killing me because he was so angry. "I went to a foreign land and went to work for one of the people who lived there, a rich sheep herder. Well, my father was a sheep herder, so I used what I learned growing up and became his chief shepherd. His flocks did so well, that he let me marry two of his daughters. (Back then, polygamy was the common practice, you see.) But, as good as I had it with my father in law, I realized that my brother was the only real family I had, and that I needed to go back and set things straight with him, if I could. "Here's where the problem came in. I was afraid that my brother might think that I had come back to cheat him out of his inheritance. So that my brother would have no reason to suspect this, I had to build up a steak in life that was greater than his. I didn't have much time to do it in. Desperate measures were necessary. "Here's how I did it. "First, I got my father in law to agree to give me all the speckled and spotted sheep. They were only a small part of his flock. He had no problem with that. Then, I got him to agree that all the speckled and spotted sheep that were born the next season would be mine too. Again, he had no problem. He didn't know what I planned. "Next, I separated the sheep into four groups. The first were the speckled and spotted, which were mine. I sent them off with one of my servants, so that there would be no question, and so that if my father in law discovered my tricks, I would at least have them. The next were the rams. They had to be kept separate from the ewes during mating season, if my tricks were to work. Finally, the ewes were separated into the strong, and the weak. "Now, it was time for me to work my tricks. I cut branches from poplar and ash, trees that have a bark that is a much different color than the wood. Then, I pealed most of the bark, so that when you looked at them they looked speckled, or spotted. I put these branches in the watering troughs. That way, when ever the strong ewes came to water, they would see them. After the strong ewes watered, I released the rams into them and let them be mated. When birthing season was over, all the lambs born to these ewes were speckled and spotted, and therefor mine. Now I owned over half of my father in laws heard. "Oh, yeah. He caught me. But he had made the promise and he was a man of his word. Even though his sons objected, I got to keep all the speckled and spotted sheep. "Then, when I finally returned home, I discovered that my plan worked. My brother was so impressed with the size of my flocks that he knew I didn't need to cheat him. He accepted me back with open arms. Okay, I offered him all that I owned, which he refused, thank God. Well, maybe his anger mellowed a little over all those years, as well. But, my brother and I had good relations until our dying days, and I think that the way I tricked my father in law had something to do with it." Are you objecting to Jacob's testimony yet? This kind of thing just doesn't work. We know enough about genetics to know that you can't guarantee the traits of the off spring by using such magic. It would be like saying, if you wanted a blue-eyed blond-harried girl, all you have to do is have the woman look at a picture of a blue-eyed blond-harried girl before she had sexual relations. It might appear to work, if the couple were both white, and Anglo-Saxon. But, it would never work if the couple were Afro-American. Let me point out that our witness is none other than Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, the third of the three patriarchs of the Hebrew people. You can find his story in Genesis chapter thirty, starting with the 25th verse. Jacob thinks that he was brought here to tell you how he repaired broken relations with his brother, Essau. However, Jacob was brought here to demonstrate that the people who wrote his story saw the world and God in a totally different manner than we do today. This isn't the real Jacob. It is the Jacob of the myth. The Jacob that sits before you today is the result of several generations of embellishment between the real event and the recording of that event when writing was invented. Even the most simple member of our jury knows that you cannot guarantee a blond-harried blue-eyed girl by having the woman look at a picture of such before sexual relations. You get what you get, and wishing won't make it so. Neither can you guarantee speckled sheep by having the ewes look at what appears to be speckled wood through water in a trough. Yet, for the people who wrote the story of the patriarchs, this was how the world worked. Is the Bible indeed the express word of God, perfect and without error? That depends on how much you are willing to ignore as you read it. Ax heads do not float, in our world. The sun doesn't stand still, in our world. And...when you mate sheep, having the ewes look at something speckled won't cause all the offspring to be speckled, no matter how much you try. If you want a Bible without error, you must accept the idea that once-upon-a-time the world allowed for such magic. (Either that, or you must somehow work the magic out of the Bible.) People in primitive areas believe that the world is filled with such magic. Yet, we know that they just don't understand reality. If they are wrong now, isn't it possible that the ancients were wrong as well? PREVIOUS ESSAY NEXT ESSAY |