The Great Thirst Part One: Prepared

by Mary C. Findley

  Chapter Seventeen – “I Wish There Was a Map”

  “Hey, Keith, how are you doing?”

  “Talia?” Keith pulled his phone away from his ear and stared at it. It was Sunday night. He had already given up hope of hearing from Talia before having to handle another Bible as Literature class solo.

  “Yes, I’m back at my apartment now. I was wondering, could I come over to your place and try to catch up on what I missed with the Bible as Lit class?”

  “Oh, I didn't do anything special. I gave them the assignments from the course plan, but we spent the class kind of doing a Science experiment. Are you … is everything okay?”

  “Some thieves stole artifacts my aunt and uncle had just collected, and stabbed Uncle Naddy.”

  “Stabbed him? No wonder your aunt was scared.”

  “She wouldn't tell me over the phone what happened. But my uncle is going to be okay, and I am pooped, but I wanted to apologize for not answering your calls, and for making you do the class alone when I had just promised we were partners til the end.” He could hear the weariness in her voice, but also the big smile framing her words.

  “See, my aunt and uncle are both PhDs, and they run all over the world, but anytime one of them gets hurt, or gets sick, if it’s serious enough, the other one just goes to pieces. It has always been so weird, since I was a kid, how they want me to be their rock when they can’t prop each other up. There’s no other way to explain it. Aunt Sophie said she needed me, so I had to go.”

  “I know some people like that. It’s like they’re the kids and you’re the parent. But your uncle really is okay?”

  “That is exactly what it’s like. Yes, he’ll be fine. I’m sorry to invite myself over, but I need so bad to pray with Joana about the class and everything, and I'll tell you the whole story about what happened.”

  “Okay, sure, come on over. Joana will be glad to see you.”

  “I can’t wait to see her. I’m sorry I caused so much trouble.”

  Keith took a shower and changed clothes, putting on his black slacks and turtleneck. Half an hour later, Talia rang the doorbell. He saw that she looked pale and kind of generally wiped out, as might be expected from a person with a serious case of jetlag.

  “Talia!” Joana’s voice synthesizer announced, and the wheelchair rolled into the entryway. Talia had to push past Keith to hug his sister. He gathered his wits with difficulty and shut the door.

  “Welcome back,” Joana said.

  “It’s good to be back,” Talia said with great fervor.

  On Monday, Keith thought the kids were just a little too impressed when Talia explained her absence by telling them about Naddy being stabbed by artifact thieves.

  “Wow, just like the movies, where Indy has to have to fight off the bad guys to save the treasure!” someone said.

  “Cool!”

  “Well, you ought to be a little less excited about all this, and a little more glad that he’s going to be okay,” Keith pointed out.

  “Oh, well, yeah,” muttered several voices. “What kind of stuff do your aunt and uncle look for, Ms. Ramin?” Karen asked.

  “You won't believe what they just found,” Talia said, and turned on the projector to show her phone shots of the leathery bag and scrolls.

  “So is that those testaments you talked about?” Rikki wondered. “They look so cool!”

  “We don't know yet,” Talia admitted. “People are studying them, and I hope they will contact my aunt and uncle and let us know if we can help.”

  “I thought you said somebody stole what they found?” Adam asked. “how did you get pictures of it?”

  “God sent someone to take this into safekeeping,” Talia explained.

  “So what will your aunt and uncle do now? Keep looking for some other stuff to do with the testaments? After he gets better, I mean?” Annie added hastily.

  “I'm not sure,” Talia said. “They need to figure out what else to look for. The last clues they had led them to that bag. I wish there was a map or something to show us where to go next.”

  After that they moved on to the topic of English translations of the Bible.

  “So how come there are so many translations of the Bible in English, anyway?” Laura asked. “People have been speaking lots of other languages longer than English has existed.”

  “That’s true, Annie,” Talia replied. “English has become kind of a universal language, though, for trade and all kinds of communication. That doesn’t mean all the English translations are good ones, though. You have to be careful, first of all, that it’s a translation, from the original languages, and not a paraphrase, and that it’s a good translation, not one that was made to promote some agenda.”

  “What do you mean by agenda, Ms. Ramin?” David asked.

  “I mean that there was a reason for making that translation besides making it as good and accurate as it can be,” Talia replied. “Even when the King James translation was made, King James told them to make sure they supported the divine right of the monarchy, because he thought the Geneva Bible, an older translation, spoke against it. But you shouldn’t make a translation just to support or speak against something that’s a current political issue. You have to make it true to the original languages.”

  “Wait a minute,” Adam protested. “Doesn’t God want us to use the Bible to change people’s minds about things? Wouldn’t that be a great chance, if the Bible told them things they believe were wrong? Like, we could make our own translation, in the class, here, and it would teach people not to hate other people for their skin color, or other stuff.”

  “Dude, people used the Bible to say that slavery was okay. How can you use it to do the opposite?” Nathan argued.

  “People did that,” Sheila pointed out. “The abolitionists used the Bible to say that slaves should be freed. You can already make the Bible say anything you want it to.”

  Talia put up her hands. “Okay, first of all, Adam, we can’t make our own translation, because I’m probably the only person in this class who knows Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. And you also can’t make the Bible say something it doesn’t already say. You have to tell the truth about what it says.”

  “You know all those languages?” Kimberly demanded.

  Talia blushed. “Yes, but let’s not get sidetracked. The points people have made about making the Bible support opposite sides of a serious conflict of belief, like slavery – that’s what we need to talk about. People who pick out a verse here and there to support a position – they are taking those verses out of context. Lots of people do that. Maybe the verses support that position, but maybe they are not giving people the whole story.”

  “In my family, we read the Bible every day,” Parker said. “We start in Genesis and we keep going through Revelation, and then we start right over again. Dad says you can’t know the whole story about God without knowing the whole Bible. He told us about the up and down times in the Bible and how they’re like waves. Sometimes God shows His love, and His mercy, and His grace. Sometimes He shows His judgment, His hatred of sin, how He even uses bad people to punish His people. Dad says, ‘God made everything, and we need to know everything about God’.”

  “That’s beautiful, Parker.” Talia said. “That’s exactly the way we should look at the Bible, too. We need to look at the whole picture of God. And by the way, the reason a lot of people go wrong about translation and interpretation is because they’re thinking about things backwards.”

  “How do you mean, backwards?” Lisa asked.

  “Think about how you can get the Word out, to make people know just what it says, and God will change their wrong thinking. Don’t worry about going on the attack against something that’s wrong, or propping up something that’s right. The Word of God is alive, and powerful, and sharper than a two-edged sword. It separates, it reproves, and it can straighten out wrong thoughts and ideas.”

  “I get it!” Tom shouted. “It’s not a booster seat or a prop for
our little ideas. It is the greatest idea of all.”

  Jayna chimed in. “It’s the truth, and it can set people free.”

  Talia clapped her hands. “Yes! Yes! Absolutely!”