Wednesday, May 23, 2007

"Doesn't Hebrews sound like it would be in the Old Testament?"

Okay, so my seminary story.

First day of class. Small class, about 10 of us, around a table. Professor asks everyone to take out their Bibles. Bunch of well-worn, ragged Bibles come out. And mine, bright, tight and white.

"Turn to Hebrews 11:12."

FOOOM!!!!

As if in one movement, all my fellow students instantly open their Bibles to Hebrews 11:12.

Doesn't Hebrews sound like it would be in the Old Testament?

Thumb, thumb. Hmm. Thumb, thumb. Try to make myself invisible. Discreetly try to gauge the percentage into their tomes everyone has turned. Finally find it. And they're off again. This time, to one of those tiny books of the New Testament that you can only find if you just happen to know that Philippians is between Ephesians and Colossians. And you know where those are.

So, maybe I can somehow absorb the little kid's ditty. And just to be on the safe side, I'm ordering some of these.

4 comments:

jfield said...

I have to laugh because I had the same experience. Didn't occur to me that my Oxford Study Bible did not have cut outs for each of the books like the bibles in my parents' home.

I eventually solved this by using a Palm Pilot bible where I could jump to the verses faster than anyone.

Anonymous said...

I went to a private Lutheran school in Utah, of all places, for the fifth grade. One of our most "important" religion class exercises was memorizing the order of the entire Bible - I still remember most of the old testament, which has served me well in various trivia-type situations.

Anonymous said...

this made me laugh. hebrews DOES sound like it would be in the HEBREW bible, ehh? i never thought the book was that great anyway. hebrews, that is. not the whole bible.

i made those little tabs with sticky notes, although maybe i should order a nice set of them.

Stephanie said...

It does sound like it would be in the OT. As Jess says, I think lots of folks memorize the order of the Bible....I took a "theology" quiz recently that had a number of questions based just on order of books. As if that's theology. :)