Tales from the Bible

Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Tales from the Bible’

37
The Sunday of Palms and Willows Clay Lane

For centuries, northern countries from Russia to England have laid the catkins of the willow tree before Jesus as he enters Jerusalem.

Palm Sunday, the Sunday before Easter Day and the start of Holy Week, has been celebrated with willow branches in colder climes, including England, for centuries.

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38
Adam and Eve Clay Lane

Adam and Eve are set in a Garden of carefree delight, but the Snake swears they are victims of a cruel deception.

Early in the 6th century BC, the leaders of Jerusalem were forced out of their land and scattered across the Near East, as a punishment for ignoring God’s laws. It was then that they wrote the story of Adam and Eve, drawing on ancient traditions to fashion a profound reflection on the ongoing story of mankind’s troubled yet hopeful relationship with his Maker.

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39
Elisha and the Fiery Horsemen Clay Lane

The King of Syria goes on a mole-hunt, but Elisha does not seem to mind being his prime suspect.

Naaman, the Syrian general whom the Israelite prophet Elisha cured of leprosy, had not been long back home in Syria when his King was at war with his southern neighbour.

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40
The Man Born Blind Clay Lane

A man born blind is healed by Jesus, but finds himself a social outcast as a result.

Jesus has been avoiding Jerusalem, but now he has taken the fateful step. Immediately he engulfs himself in controversy by coming to the aid of a woman accused of adultery, and by appearing to claim to be God. When he heals a blind man on the Sabbath the Pharisees hope he has at last done something they can prosecute him for.

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41
Noah’s Flood Clay Lane

God’s love proved to be bigger and stronger than all man’s wickedness.

In the 6th century BC, Jerusalem was captured by the Babylonians, and her nobility were deported to Babylon. In their exile, they studied their oppressor’s heathen mythology of a great flood, and turned it quite brilliantly into an allegory of Israel’s sins, the ‘flood’ of invasion, and their own Noah-like role in keeping Judaism alive until God restored Israel to her land.

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42
Elisha and Naaman the Syrian Clay Lane

Naaman had very fixed ideas about what it takes to get a miracle.

Joram was King of Israel (i.e. the ten northern tribes) in the middle of the ninth century BC.

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