What's in a name? (The Bible's characters)
Another large hint that many of the Bible's stories are fictional can be found in the names of their characters.
The example I run across most often are Mahlon and Chilion, the doomed husbands of Ruth and her sister-in-law in the widely-misunderstood Book of Ruth; the reader is tipped off in advance to their coming fates by the fact that their names respectively mean "sick" and "wasting away".
But other suspiciously clever monikers abound, in the New Testament as well as the old:
Zacchaeus, the tax collector who offers so much money to the poor, has a name which at its root means "to give alms".
Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, is appropriately-named "ruler of the people" (talk about a case of your parents having your life planned out for you, huh?).
One would only have to be introduced to Martha to know that she is the "lady of the house".
And Judas Iscariot has three equally-possible (to some) translations. One is that he was an Edomite, the same red-haired, good-for-nothing race as Herod. The second and third translations are "assassin" (a particular sort, too, but I won't get into it here) and "traitor".
The most fascinating and tantalizing sobriquet, however, which I've stumbled on in my recent studies (comprised mainly of Dr. Price's The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man and Jack Miles's God and Christ), is that of Thomas.
Like Moses, Thomas is a name that has clearly undergone some surgery. It was the Greek name for the sign of Gemini, which is to say that it means "twin", but that of course isn't a real name. "He would have been called So-And-So the Twin" (Price). But withal the So-And-So? And isn't it strange that a man would simply be referred to as "the Twin"? One imagines he must have had a pretty famous brother or sister.
You see this coming, don't you?
Multiple traditions (and possibly some manuscripts of the canon, though I don't have a source for that to reference at the moment, so just disbelieve me there) have it that Thomas's full name was Judas Thomas - and Judas is one of the brothers of Jesus listed in the canonical gospels. While by no means proven, it certainly isn't a stretch to imagine the Catholic Church deciding to start snipping away at the connection once its emerging orthodoxy began to demand a sole, virgin birth by an eternally virginal Mary - and a time-honored way to lie without, y'know, actually saying anything factually untrue is just to withhold certain information. The issue could be buried well enough simply by ceasing to identify Thomas's twin.
To me, a mind-blowing thought, even if unsubstantiated.
And I hope you're grateful for it, 'cause I don't have internet access in my apartment right now and this post has cost me nearly 3000 won to type at the local internet cafe.
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