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Biblical What-Ifs -- have you thought of any?

The_RivThe_Riv Shipmate
in Heaven
So, this stems from the Epistle reading from last Sunday: 1 Corinthians 10:1-13. Here are verses 1-4: I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. So, one idea lofted in the sermon was that the rock from which Moses and the Israelites twice received water actually followed them throughout their desert wanderings. That it rolled self-propelled beside them as they trekked. Nothing extraordinary considering the parting of the Red Sea and the pillar of fire, right? The original Holy Roller. So, I mused on this for a bit, but then I thought:

WHAT IF the stone that "followed" the Israelites, rolling itself along, was the very same stone that eventually covered, but then rolled away from Jesus' tomb?! WHOA!!!

Have you had a similar Bible story What If? pop into your head? Do tell.
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Comments

  • Graven ImageGraven Image Shipmate
    I have no "What IF," but I love the idea it was the rock in front of the tomb.
  • HarryCHHarryCH Shipmate
    What if the myrrh presented to Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem was the same myrrh used long afterward when Mary of Bethany anointed Jesus?
  • The_RivThe_Riv Shipmate
    edited March 25
    Graven Image wrote: »
    I have no "What IF," but I love the idea it was the rock in front of the tomb.
    It has a nice "full circle" aspect to it, doesn't it.
    HarryCH wrote: »
    What if the myrrh presented to Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem was the same myrrh used long afterward when Mary of Bethany anointed Jesus?
    There you go! Yes, and why not? How many potential loose ends can we identify and tie-up?



  • RockyRogerRockyRoger Shipmate
    What if Jesus's cross had been made by a certain carpenter in Nazareth?

    Ouch!
  • TurquoiseTasticTurquoiseTastic Kerygmania Host
    What if it were made with the wood of the Tree of Life? Eh? EH????.
  • ChastMastrChastMastr Shipmate
    What if Peter, Paul, and Mary were the original Peter, Paul, and Mary from the New Testament? :O
  • ChastMastrChastMastr Shipmate
    This reminds me of the Hanukkah story in which a Marvel character named Doc Samson is trying to explain Hanukkah to a bunch of schoolchildren and they find it boring so he starts “enhancing” it…
    Unfortunately, the kids begin adding their own ideas to the story at this point, claiming that the person really responsible for the Hanukkah miracle was the Human Torch who must have been hiding under the lamp and keeping it lit. When they start claiming the Torch was also responsible for Moses’ burning bush, however, Samson finally loses it and force feeds the kids the story again in a menacing fashion. As the kids persist in asking why Jewish kids don’t get a Santa Claus, a disgruntled Samson claims Antiochus IV killed Santa by dropping an anvil on him, causing the entire class to start bawling.

    https://screenrant.com/marvel-avengers-hanukkah-comic-story/

    https://theunspokendecade.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/samson-3.png
  • Lamb ChoppedLamb Chopped Shipmate
    Oh gosh, that's so close to what my grandfather used to say, every Christmas Eve--he'd tell all the gathered grandchildren that there'd be no Christmas because on the way home from work, he'd passed Santa Claus lying dead drunk in a gutter on the side of the road.

    Never mind. As you were...
  • TurquoiseTasticTurquoiseTastic Kerygmania Host
    What if John the disciple didn't die but is still around waiting for the Second Coming? Because the Bible doesn't say that he would definitely die, it just says that you shouldn't necessarily assume he wouldn't die ...
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    edited March 25
    TurquoiseTastic wrote: »
    What if it were made with the wood of the Tree of Life? Eh? EH????.

    Not quite. When Adam and Eve were ejected from the garden, the discarded apple core grew to a tree and it was from that the wood of the cross was hewn. Genuine medieval legend. (Which C S Lewis adapted to explain the Wardrobe).
  • SighthoundSighthound Shipmate
    What if Jesus, when feeding the 5000, had means-tested it and only fed those below a certain income?

    Politicians would have loved that!
  • SparrowSparrow Shipmate
    HarryCH wrote: »
    What if the myrrh presented to Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem was the same myrrh used long afterward when Mary of Bethany anointed Jesus?

    I've always assumed that it was the Bethlehem myrrh that the women were taking to the tomb on Easter morning. Mary (mother of Jesus) probably kept it. A poor working class couple in Nazareth wouldn't have had any other use for it, and they would never have sold it or given it away.


  • la vie en rougela vie en rouge Purgatory Host, Circus Host
    I've heard the suggestion that the Magi's gifts might have been sold to pay for the passage to Egypt.
  • Lamb ChoppedLamb Chopped Shipmate
    I sort of figured that too, painful as it might have been to let go of them.
  • The_RivThe_Riv Shipmate
    Take heart. The Flight to Egypt is only found in Matthew, Gospel-wise. :wink:
  • ChastMastrChastMastr Shipmate
    The_Riv wrote: »
    Take heart. The Flight to Egypt is only found in Matthew, Gospel-wise. :wink:

    I don’t think that affects it having happened, of course. :wink:
  • Gamma GamalielGamma Gamaliel Shipmate
    We Orthodox do the 'What-if?' thing all the time.

    It's great fun and we can get away with it because we aren't Sola Scriptura ... 😉

    It's late so I can't think of any examples right now but will do when I have more time.

    An RC priest once postulated to me that we don't know what happened to the Rich Young Ruler and for all we know he could have been there on the Day of Pentecost.
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    Gamma Gamaliel wrote: »
    . . . and we can get away with it because we aren't Sola Scriptura ... 😉
    Please let it go already.

  • Lamb ChoppedLamb Chopped Shipmate
    Amen.
  • Lamb ChoppedLamb Chopped Shipmate
    If we’re doing what-ifs, i wonder about the woman who put in the two half pennies, whom Jesus used as an object lesson. I happen to have one of those coins—they’re super tiny, about the size of a lentil—and Jesus must have been sitting awfully close to be able to see what she had in her hand. My question is what, if anything, Jesus did after explaining to the disciples that she’d just put her only money to live on into the offering. Did he provide her with money—or probably more useful, entrust her care and the job of getting her back on her feet to one or more of his followers (say, Mary and Martha)? It seems unlike him to do nothing. In the case of the exorcised man in the Gadarenes, for example, it’s obvious that someone in Jesus’s little group provided him with their spare clothes, as he was naked when they met him but clothed when the crowd came running. I wonder how often they did such things.
  • SparrowSparrow Shipmate
    edited April 28
    I heard somewhere a theory that Jesus's telling of the parable of the Good Samaritan was based on personal experience, that he was the victim of the attack and was helped by a stranger; maybe something that happened in the "missing years" before he started his ministry, when it has been theorised that he might have travelled widely.
  • chrisstileschrisstiles Hell Host
    Firenze wrote: »
    TurquoiseTastic wrote: »
    What if it were made with the wood of the Tree of Life? Eh? EH????.

    Not quite. When Adam and Eve were ejected from the garden, the discarded apple core grew to a tree and it was from that the wood of the cross was hewn. Genuine medieval legend. (Which C S Lewis adapted to explain the Wardrobe).

    In the legend of the rood at least it was just a seed from the Tree of Life, not necessarily a seed from the discarded fruit which Adam and Eve ate. Seth begs the seed from the Angel guarding Paradise, and Adam is buried at Golgotha with the seed under his tongue.
  • HedgehogHedgehog Shipmate
    Jacobus de Voragine's "The Golden Legend" states:
    It is read in the gospel of Nicodemus that, when Adam waxed sick, Seth his son went to the gate of Paradise terrestrial for to get the oil of mercy for to anoint withal his father's body. Then appeared to him S. Michael the angel, and said to him: Travail not thou in vain for this oil, for thou mayst not have it till five thousand and five hundred years be past, how be it that from Adam unto the passion of our Lord were but five thousand one hundred and thirtythree years. In another place it is read that the angel brought him a branch, and commanded him to plant it the Mount of Lebanon. Yet find we in another place that he gave to him of the tree that Adam ate of, and said to him that when that bare fruit he should be guerished and all whole. When Seth came again he found his father dead and planted this tree upon his grave, and it endured there unto the time of Solomon. And because he saw that it was fair, he did do hew it down and set it in his house named Saltus. And when the Queen of Sheba came to visit Solomon, she worshipped this tree, because she said the Saviour of all the world should be hanged thereon, by whom the realm of the Jews shall be defaced and cease. Solomon for this cause made it to be taken up and dolven deep in the ground. Now it happed after, that they of Jerusalem did do make a great pit for a piscine, whereas the ministers of the temple should wash their beasts that they should sacrifice, and there found this tree, and this piscine had such virtue that the angels descended and moved the water, and the first sick man that descended into the water, after the moving, was made whole of whatsoever sickness he was sick of. And when the time approached of the passion of our Lord, this tree arose out of the water, and floated above the water, and of this piece of timber made the Jews the cross of our Lord.

    In fairness to de Voragine, earlier he did suggest that that whole history was apocryphal.

    Frankly, considering the huge amount of fantasy that he recorded, having HIM diss something as apocryphal is easily the funniest line in the whole book.
  • The_RivThe_Riv Shipmate
    ChastMastr wrote: »
    The_Riv wrote: »
    Take heart. The Flight to Egypt is only found in Matthew, Gospel-wise. :wink:

    I don’t think that affects it having happened, of course. :wink:

    Of course. Anything can happen in a story, especially this one.
  • Baptist TrainfanBaptist Trainfan Shipmate
    What if Noah's Ark had sprung a leak?
  • ChastMastrChastMastr Shipmate
    The_Riv wrote: »
    ChastMastr wrote: »
    The_Riv wrote: »
    Take heart. The Flight to Egypt is only found in Matthew, Gospel-wise. :wink:

    I don’t think that affects it having happened, of course. :wink:

    Of course. Anything can happen in a story, especially this one.

    Well, as you may imagine, we don't agree on that. Peace be with you, regardless.
  • The RogueThe Rogue Shipmate
    What if a fruit from the Tree of Life fell and rolled out of the gate of the Garden of Eden?
  • DardaDarda Shipmate
    The Rogue wrote: »
    What if a fruit from the Tree of Life fell and rolled out of the gate of the Garden of Eden?

    Would it have got past the cherubim and flaming sword?
  • chrisstileschrisstiles Hell Host
    Darda wrote: »
    The Rogue wrote: »
    What if a fruit from the Tree of Life fell and rolled out of the gate of the Garden of Eden?

    Would it have got past the cherubim and flaming sword?

    This is how cricket was invented.
  • Baptist TrainfanBaptist Trainfan Shipmate
    I'm not sure that umpires always carry flaming swords. Perhaps they've been told not to, for Health & Safety reasons.
  • Jengie JonJengie Jon Shipmate
    I had some fun a while back with Nathaneal's sudden change of tone when he meets Jesus in John 1:46-50. Aparently to be "under the fig tree" was to be a student of the law, so what if:

    Nathaneal started doing the maths, it was almost two decades since he had studied the law in Jerusalem, the teacher does not look that old, he'd have been a kid. Hang on, what about that kid, the one that spent three days with us, wait a tick. Nathaneal taks a quick sharp look at Jesus' face. It could well be. By heck, he recognised me after eighteen years or so "You are the Messiah".

  • SandemaniacSandemaniac Shipmate
    chrisstiles wrote: »
    Darda wrote: »
    The Rogue wrote: »
    What if a fruit from the Tree of Life fell and rolled out of the gate of the Garden of Eden?

    Would it have got past the cherubim and flaming sword?

    This is how cricket was invented.

    🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
  • The_RivThe_Riv Shipmate
    Flaming sword? The hell you say! What's next -- water from a rock?! :lol:
  • SpikeSpike Ecclesiantics & MW Host, Admin Emeritus
    What if Jesus had been a girl?
  • TurquoiseTasticTurquoiseTastic Kerygmania Host
    Hedgehog wrote: »
    Jacobus de Voragine's "The Golden Legend" states:
    It is read in the gospel of Nicodemus that, when Adam waxed sick, Seth his son went to the gate of Paradise terrestrial for to get the oil of mercy for to anoint withal his father's body. Then appeared to him S. Michael the angel, and said to him: Travail not thou in vain for this oil, for thou mayst not have it till five thousand and five hundred years be past, how be it that from Adam unto the passion of our Lord were but five thousand one hundred and thirtythree years. In another place it is read that the angel brought him a branch, and commanded him to plant it the Mount of Lebanon. Yet find we in another place that he gave to him of the tree that Adam ate of, and said to him that when that bare fruit he should be guerished and all whole. When Seth came again he found his father dead and planted this tree upon his grave, and it endured there unto the time of Solomon. And because he saw that it was fair, he did do hew it down and set it in his house named Saltus. And when the Queen of Sheba came to visit Solomon, she worshipped this tree, because she said the Saviour of all the world should be hanged thereon, by whom the realm of the Jews shall be defaced and cease. Solomon for this cause made it to be taken up and dolven deep in the ground. Now it happed after, that they of Jerusalem did do make a great pit for a piscine, whereas the ministers of the temple should wash their beasts that they should sacrifice, and there found this tree, and this piscine had such virtue that the angels descended and moved the water, and the first sick man that descended into the water, after the moving, was made whole of whatsoever sickness he was sick of. And when the time approached of the passion of our Lord, this tree arose out of the water, and floated above the water, and of this piece of timber made the Jews the cross of our Lord.

    In fairness to de Voragine, earlier he did suggest that that whole history was apocryphal.

    Frankly, considering the huge amount of fantasy that he recorded, having HIM diss something as apocryphal is easily the funniest line in the whole book.

    They did "what ifs" properly in those days.
  • TurquoiseTasticTurquoiseTastic Kerygmania Host
    What if Salome the disciple were the repentant Salome daughter of Herodias? Eh? EH????
  • Baptist TrainfanBaptist Trainfan Shipmate
    What if Jesus hadn't managed to grab Peter's hand when he was walking on the water? Would the Keys of the Kingdom have sunk with him?
  • TurquoiseTasticTurquoiseTastic Kerygmania Host
    edited May 1
    Ooooh what if Judas had not betrayed Jesus. What would have happened then? Eh? EH????
  • Stercus TauriStercus Tauri Shipmate
    If the Romans had preferred hanging as a capital punishment, would the faithful in later centuries have been happy to go around wearing a little silver gallows? It's a strange paradox that the cross - an instrument of torture - can become a work of art.
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    Stercus Tauri wrote: »
    If the Romans had preferred hanging as a capital punishment, would the faithful in later centuries have been happy to go around wearing a little silver gallows? It's a strange paradox that the cross - an instrument of torture - can become a work of art.
    I’ve read various writers who’ve basically said that had the Romans favored hanging, people would be wearing necklaces with gallows or a noose. I’ve never quite bought that supposition. Some form of cross symbol is found in cultures throughout time and across the world. In adopting it, Christianity wasn’t just reflecting how Jesus died, but was also tapping in to a form that already had spiritual significance.


  • Stercus TauriStercus Tauri Shipmate
    That is a most reasonable comment - thanks.
  • NicoleMRNicoleMR Shipmate
    In all seriousness, we'd probably use the icthys.
  • Lily PadLily Pad Shipmate
    edited May 18
    At a youth conference, our curriculum for small group study was the book of Jonah. The teens were asked to consider "what if" there was a fifth chapter? They dreamed up some amazing conclusions to the story.
  • TelfordTelford Shipmate
    Sighthound wrote: »
    What if Jesus, when feeding the 5000, had means-tested it and only fed those below a certain income?

    Politicians would have loved that!

    Mikhail Gorbachev once commented that they would have been far more than 5.000 because the gospels only refered to men in attendence
  • TelfordTelford Shipmate
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    Stercus Tauri wrote: »
    If the Romans had preferred hanging as a capital punishment, would the faithful in later centuries have been happy to go around wearing a little silver gallows? It's a strange paradox that the cross - an instrument of torture - can become a work of art.
    I’ve read various writers who’ve basically said that had the Romans favored hanging, people would be wearing necklaces with gallows or a noose. I’ve never quite bought that supposition. Some form of cross symbol is found in cultures throughout time and across the world. In adopting it, Christianity wasn’t just reflecting how Jesus died, but was also tapping in to a form that already had spiritual significance.

    I read a book in which Paul, in a moment of self doubt, pondered on what would have happened if Jesus had been decapitated.

  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    Sparrow wrote: »
    I heard somewhere a theory that Jesus's telling of the parable of the Good Samaritan was based on personal experience, that he was the victim of the attack and was helped by a stranger; maybe something that happened in the "missing years" before he started his ministry, when it has been theorised that he might have travelled widely.

    It is said a number of Jesus' parables came from firsthand experiences. If it did not happen to him, it was a friend or someone close to him that experienced it.
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