Keeping up with the topic of leaders, let’s look at one without a crown or a kingdom. His name is Zerubbabel [zuh-ROO-buh-buhl] 所羅巴伯 {suo3-luo2-ba1-bo2}, son of Shealtiel. Zeruba-what, you ask? Granted, he wasn’t listed as a king of Israel or Judah or named as one of the prophets. Nevertheless, he was a key figure in the history of Israel and God’s…
Category: Curiosity
Song of Songs
or Song of Solomon雅歌 {ya3-ge1}Old Testament – Wisdom Books The name of this Book comes from its very first verse:Solomon’s Song of Songs.所羅門的歌，是歌中的雅歌。 This Book is remarkable. It not only has two names, (3 if you count Canticles), but is also highly distinguished in its style, message, and purpose compared to all other Books, so distinguished in fact, that…
Forest of Versions
The Holy Bible on our desks, shelves, or phones is quite literally a treasure. I’m not just saying that because it’s a “Christian” thing to say. Even if you have some deep-sea-salvaged articles nicely displayed on pedestals, I’m sorry, they still pale in comparison. The Bible, inspired by the living God, authored by kings, prophets, and…
倚靠
Continuing the Oddball series, here’s another one, 倚靠 {yi3-kao4}. The word seems harmless enough. Go for “rely/reliance/reliant” or “depend/dependence/dependent” and you won’t be wrong. But the Biblical equivalence for 倚靠 is not that straightforward. Where 倚靠 appears in the Bible, the English version predominantly uses the word “trust“. In the example of Psa 22:4, “In you our ancestors put their trust; they trusted and you delivered…
Apocalypse
啟示錄 {qi3-shi4-lu4}New Testament – Apocalypse(No zombies need apply) The Book of Revelation (Not Revelations) is arguably the most debated and revered Book in the Bible. Its literary style and fantastical content challenge people’s conventional understanding of time, causality, and God’s will regardless of their cultures and eras. Perhaps that’s because it truly is a book from heaven….
Lamentations
耶利米哀歌 {ye1-li4-mi3-ai1-ge1}Old Testament – Major Prophets Lamentations’ pronunciation isn’t tricky at all because… it’s English. The keen eyes among you may have noticed that its Chinese name suggests that the author is Jeremiah 耶利米. Traditionally, this Book was indeed attributed to Jeremiah, hence placed right after the Book of Jeremiah; however, certain evidence suggested otherwise. IMO, authorship bears no impact…
Lookalikes
I get it, most of us haven’t taken any Hebrew-as-a-Second-Language classes. Naturally, a lot of names in the Bible can sound confusingly similar. For example, a group of them has been bugging me for the longest time so I’ve decided to lay them all out, in hope that they can be settled once and for all….
Empires
You’ve seen them throughout the Bible, the Babylonians, Medo-Persians, Romans, etc. They were not particularly a friendly bunch. In fact, the very definition of an empire is a state that has political and military control over other states. If they were ever mentioned in the Bible, chances are they had locked horns with God’s people….
A Look at Ourselves
Christians. At the mention of this word, a whole array of emotions, experiences, connotations, and implications come to mind. Depending on who you are, they take on vastly different colors. If you are reading this, chances are this word solicits a deep conviction that resonates from the inside out, influencing your thoughts, attitudes, and actions….
This Is Unfair
Speaking of incongruency between languages, the one that deals the most unease for me comes from Genesis 2:9. There we are introduced to two significant trees: 生命樹 Tree of Life分別善惡樹 Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil Do you see the disparity here? Tree of Life gets 3 syllables in both languages. The other tree (because I’m…