It looks like the story of the penitent thief is not in Matthew, but is in Luke 23:39-43:
Matthew gives us the centurian saying, “surely this man was the son of God,” however. (Didn’t John Wayne do the centurian in some movie?)
Matthew probably is the most down-to-earth gospel, IMHO. You know the four symbols of the evangelists (the four living creatures before the throne of God in Revelations as applied to the gospel writers)? Matthew is traditionally symbolized as a man (showing Jesus’ humanity). Here’s a nifty link to a page from the Book of Kells that show the four evangelists.
There is so much good stuff–the story of Ruth and Naomi is so homely and kind.
And Slithy Tove, to continue your corporate reading of Daniel, all the yes-men get whacked but the brave officer who dares to tell the CEO the truth about the CEO (feet of clay and all that) gets the promotion (hey, it could happen!).
Well I could choose the ever-popular Revelation, with its Whore of Babylon and the Seven Vials and 1/3 of the earth burnt to a crisp…but that’s every teenager’s favorite, almost to the point of being a cliche…
The Book of Jonah is good. (And not just because it’s short.) Everyone gets hung up on the whole whale thing–“Is it a fish or is it a whale? Whales aren’t fish.” “Could someone have been swallwed by a whale and lived for three days?” “There was this one case…” “Oh, that’s an urban legend.”–but the story has a lot of nicely ironic touches, a good moral message, and definitely one of your more appealing Biblical portrayals of the Big Guy. (“You want me to slaughter this whole city full of kids and animals who never hurt anyone, yet you’re getting all weepy over this one tree which you didn’t even plant?”)
Sorry it took me so long to respond to you, but I was so rattled by the notion that someone might actually flirt with me that I guess I lost my composure. Anyway, no, my user name has nothing to do with T. S. Elliot. It’s just that my first name’s Bill and my last name is Norton, so “bnorton”.
And here’s another one of my favorite lines from Song of Songs:
If anyone knows the British folk-rock group Steeleye Span, they did a song based on parts of the Song of Songs. After I found out that was the source of the text, it bothered me a lot less that the beloved’s hair was compared to a flock of goats. I mean, I don’t know that I’d want my hair compared to goats…
::Sigh:: Well aren’t you just dreamy! Here’s back atcha:
Grumpy: The “everything is meaningless” bit from Ecclesiastes (“vanity of vanities, all is vanity, said the wise man” in the traditional King James language which is perhaps better known) is a comment on the fact that no human work is permanent. Building a trophy house? It will be a wreck in 200 years. Getting rich? You may lose it all tomorrow. Writing the most beautiful poetry the world has known? Even if it survives for 4,000 years, it will be lost eventually. Founding a government with just laws? Even if it’s “1,000-year reich,” it will crumble and turn to dust. Every effort of humans is nothing in the face of eternity.
Thanks for that verse, JET. It really would make a good metal song.
As MEBuckner notes, Jonah is another really interesting story that everyone seems to know superficially. Jonah doesn’t want to be a prophet (prophets are kooks, you see) but when forced to be a prophet, he at least wants his prophecy to be true–if the fire and brimstone don’t rain down, he’ll really look like a fool (the fact that the people repented in time–so what?). And you know what? People really do get attached to little things like trees, so that bit shows a good grasp of human psychology.
