of home, and, without meaning to, each generation allowed their words to be defeated and buried by the passage of time.
For this reason he was surprised to hear Elamite amid the murmur. But it grew clearer and stronger. There was a strong wind in the room and a clamor, but neither the wind nor the clamor bothered him. In the midst of the emotion that engulfed him, he had a vision of graves opening up and springing out words that inaugurated names; he felt that which only happens in dreams and consists of hearing new words, but feeling that we have known them forever. It was as though the words knew him. What they were saying to him came from the origins of time and projected strongly into the future.
Then he saw the brightness descend upon them.
(Acts 2:1–13)
More Names
In the Old Testament, Aaron´s and Moses’ sister was called Miriam. The origin of this name is unknown, although it probably derives from an Egyptian word. When it was translated into Greek, it became Mary, and so it appears by mistake in many Bibles in Exodus 15:20 and other passages that mention her. Miriam was a woman of character, the first to be called a prophetess, and leader of the women who sang and danced after crossing the Red Sea. Perhaps it was because of her strength and bravery that only she was punished when she challenged Moses for his sexual misconduct (Numbers 12). She made the accusation together with her brother Aaron, but nothing is said about his punishment.
Joseph (yosef in Hebrew) means “he who adds” (yasaf is “to add” in Hebrew). Height, soft curves and sharp profile embodied the name Tamara, which is feminine and means palm tree. With Mark, which is a Latin name, we have two alternatives: it may derive from the word for hammer, in the sense of strength and power, but it also may come from Mars, the god who was the son of Jupiter and Juno, who was devoted to war and gave strength to the fighters. It is probable that both meanings are connected to this name. Andrew is a Greek word that means “male,” and was also related to bravery and virility.
There are names that sparkle: Sarah in Hebrew means “princess.” Leah probably means “wild cow,” which in that time was a compliment that all women wished to hear, and accepted with modesty. We are told that her eyes were tender and pleasant (Genesis 29:16), but her charm was not enough to seduce Jacob, who fell in love with her sister Rachel, for such is the way of the heart, a story that we will look into later on.
From the theophoric name Nathanael come our Nathan and Natalie. It means “gift of God” (natan in Hebrew is a word related to giving and the suffix el means “God”).
Joshua (yehoshua) means “the savior.” He succeeded Moses and led the people of Israel when they reached the Promised Land, a land of salvation and abundance for those who came from slavery and the desert. From the aridity of the desert they went to a land flowing with milk and honey, where the sickle and the plough could do their work. Many centuries later, a man called Joshua—we know him by the Greek form: Jesus—would also cross a border and invite others to cross it with him.
Christopher Columbus and the Bible
The Bible must be read and studied, and it has to be done correctly. For it can be read in such a way that it leads to error, as in the case of Christopher Columbus, although in this case, the mistake led to a happy ending.
Towards the end of the 15th century, the list of books that make up the Bible had not yet been defined. They varied according to the different Christian traditions. If we compare our current Bible with the one used at that time—the Latin Vulgate Bible that Western Christianity read during the Middle Ages and that Catholicism used until well into the 20th century—it had about fifteen more books. Among these was the one called the Second Book of Esdras (2 Esdras), a work also known as the Apocalypse of Esdras or the Book of the Prophet Esdras. It was part of the Old Testament; it was read as such and no one dared to question its standing as Sacred Scripture.
Christopher Columbus was convinced that the Earth was round and that if he set out westward he would reach the east. But not knowing the distance worried him, and this factor was crucial for calculating the time the voyage would take and the realistic possibilities of reaching the goal. As a true believer, he resorted to the Bible and in it he scrutinized the Second Book of Esdras, whose content reviews and enlarges the seven days of creation. Columbus used 6:42 as the basis for calculating the distance between the coast of the Kingdom of Portugal and the extreme Orient which was called India. In this text he found the light he was seeking. It reads like this:
. . . on the third day you commanded the waters to be gathered together in a seventh part of the earth; but you made six parts dry and preserved them so that some of these might be sown and cultivated . . .
He reflected that if the sea only occupied one seventh of the Earth against six parts covered by firm ground, a few days of sailing westward would take him to the coast of India.
Columbus died without knowing that he had been greatly mistaken. He had read the Biblical text literally, not realizing that it was symbolic, that it was not a geography manual, for only one fourth of the earth’s surface consists of firm ground. However, fate took pity on the admiral. An unknown continent between Europe and the Indies allowed him to rest from his hectic voyages convinced of his sagacity in interpreting Scripture.
(From Christopher Columbus, Diary of the Third Voyage)
A Love Story
Jacob and Rachel
Darkness and drink had their effect and, after spending the first night with the woman he thought he had chosen, he woke up in the morning to realize it was someone else. He had worked seven years to get Rachel, but it was Leah who was in his bedsheets.
He wasted no time to complain, as his father-in-law gave him all kinds of excuses to justify what he had done. He proposed giving him Rachel after one week if he agreed to work another seven years as payment for her. Thus, the father made sure of placing his elder daughter Leah and wagered that Jacob—whom he knew was seduced by the body of his other daughter—would not hesitate to agree. After all, thought Jacob, seven years had been like a few days to him in order to get Rachel. Another sever years would not be burdensome, especially if she was delivered in advance and he could now enjoy being with the woman he loved. In the eyes of love, fourteen years of labor did not seem like a long time.
It had all started at the well. Rachel arrived leading her sheep and, when Jacob first saw her, he kissed her, he wept and he raised his voice because he knew that he had found the woman for whom he had been waiting for. She stood out for her bronzed face and her slender figure; he had never perceived in another woman that special fragrance that her body exhaled at the end of a long day in the hills with her flock of sheep. A fragrance that was true to her, for Rachel means sheep—she was that beautiful. Rachel was different from the others, and Jacob felt a strange vibration when he walked passed her tent or when he saw her fading into the distance in the desert, leading her sheep. “It’s worth leaving everything for a woman like that,” thought Jacob.
In the long run, his father-in-law’s trick meant that Jacob received four women: Leah and Rachel as wives as well as Bilhah and Zilpah, the two slaves that accompanied them. Faithful to his heart, Jacob always loved Rachel more than Leah and the slaves, which gave rise to jealousy and conflicts among them, and when doing business too. For example, at one point Rachel received a few mandrakes from Leah, to allow Jacob to sleep with her, with such good fortune for Leah that that night she conceived another son when she thought she was sterile and would not give birth again.
Between the four women, they gave Jacob twelve sons and one daughter; Dinah the curious.
(Genesis
