Bible Study

One of the strangest and most uncomfortable choices I made in Spain while I was looking for ways to make my luggage lighter was the decision to leave my bible behind in Malaga.

Now the bible I had been using and travelling with was a huge hard cover NIV with half of each page taken up with the scriptures themselves and the other half with study notes and maps and cross-references and character profiles and all sorts of other meta-biblical stuff. It was all very interesting, but not very practical for packing in a rucksack. So I left it behind.

Nor was the dangerous symbolism associated with abandoning the scriptures to go travelling on my own through Europe lost on me. I felt superstitiously uneasy as we pulled out of the train station, so I decided not to think too hard about it and focussed instead on finding ferry tickets to Tangiers.

But the subversive niggle of realising I was a Christian who didn’t even own a bible never really left me alone and took up residence in the back of my head alongside equally insidious influences such as the feeling that I should update my blog more regularly and the suspicion that I should probably take better care of my teeth.

Once I got back to Australia, however, I knew it was time to set things right. I gritted my teeth (I’ve got to stop doing that) and headed for that ever-present help in time of nothing else to write about: Koorong Christian Bookshop.

Now I have ranted, a little harshly perhaps, on the questionable usefulness of some materials in Koorong in the past, but when it comes to places where you can buy bibles, Koorong certainly is one. They’ve got a whole section with shelves and shelves of them, which might seem excessive these days, but then if you’re going to run a Christian bookshop, the one thing you’re going to want to stock lots of is the Christian book.

They had bibles in every possible size and colour. Every translation I’d ever heard of and a few I hadn’t. Red letter bibles, large print bibles, amplified bibles. Everything from just the text and nothing else through to cross-referenced, annotated, indexed, concorded and inclusive of a CD with extra… I don’t even know what.

So which one did I choose?

As enticing as the gigantic annotated versions were, I decided my days of carrying a besser-brickesque book around with me were behind me. The study notes in the old one never really answered the questions I was interested in anyway. This is probably because the questions I’m interested in can’t really be answered in a four page essay, let alone a footnote at the bottom of a chapter. Also, I’m getting to the stage where if I want to take bible studies to the next level, then footnotes aren’t going to cut it anymore.

I went with a slim line black soft cover NIV with notes on translation choices but nothing else. I’ve borrowed one of my mother’s bible commentaries, so the new plan is to start again from the beginning with a book-by-book analysis by a guy who reputedly knows what he’s on about. So here we go again; chapter one.

In the beginning, God…

Far from home




Garry with 2 Rs

Square One

Well then here we are back where it all started. Sitting with my laptop in my parents’ spare bedroom writing a blog entry for no apparent reason. Far From Home has come full circle, and it only took two and a half years. The European adventure has come to an end, and this seems as good a time as any to look back at some of the moments that made the last nine months so unforgettable, and some of the lessons we’ve learned along the way.

Scenic highlights

Fez Medina
Alhambra
The Aar River
The lights of Paris from the top of the Eiffel Tower.

Gastronomic highlights

Tapas in general, especially in Granada.
Francesina in Portugal
Traditional Moroccan couscous.
Giant slices of pizza for €1.50 in Rome

Cross-linguistic highlights

Watching Star Trek with Spanish Subtitles. “Para ir a donde ninguno haya ido audazmente” just didn’t have the same ring to it.
Being mistaken for a native Spanish speaker at a restaurant while attempting to order in Italian.
Trying unsuccessfully to convince Spanish children that there is no such sport as ‘footing’ (apparently there is in Espanglish, it’s another word for jogging).

Things to take with me next time

A much better camera
A girl. They're generally fairly bothersome to travel with, but standing on top of the Eiffel Tower at sunset on my own while everyone else was busy making out did feel a little silly.
Vegemite

Things I wanted to do but didn’t

Legoland. It’s in Denmark, and was just too far north to get there and back in the time I had.
Celebrate a successful Ashes campaign.
Walk the Camino de Santiago.

Things I did do but shouldn’t have

Left my hat on a train.
Tried to go to England.

So there you have it, or not as the case may be. A European oddysey in handy to read blog form. The next trick is going to be getting myself back home to Darwin.

Far from home




Garry with 2 Rs