self” meant watching where the sun came up and calling that place “the front,” and the opposite—sun down—“behind.”
Thus, our East (qedem, front, in Hebrew) and West (aharon, behind, past) have those names in the Bible. North is called tzafon and means “hidden” or “concealed,” probably because Israel always felt more comfortable going south toward the desert, than towards the lands of the north, which were inhabited by more powerful cultures. When they faced the east, the right hand pointed to the south. In Hebrew, south is iamin, which means, the right. That is why Benjamin, the name of Jacob’s last son, means “son of the right” or “son of the south,” which is where that tribe was located on the map of Israel.
Several things were orientated at that time. The door of the temple of Jerusalem faced east, so that the sun would enter through it very early. The Garden of Eden was located in the east (Genesis 2:8) and Jonah camped east of Nineveh. From the East will come He who will free the Israelites from the Babylonian captivity (Isaiah 41:2) and from this same East He will take them to restore their land in Judah.
Much later, the wise men who sought the newborn Jesus, would also come from the Orient.
Dry Bones
Wind moves ships and windmills. It billows out flags and clears the skies. It also destroys and topples trees. Wind can be friendly or fearful, a blessing or a catastrophe. In the Bible, wind is a frequently named natural element, perhaps because it is perceived as one of the most primitive experiences: does anyone remember the first time that strange and invisible force was felt?
There are several different uses for the word “wind” in the Old Testament. The Spirit of God is called ruach, which means “the wind of breath.” This is why there are situations in which God’s ruach blows and others, in which the wind simply blows. However, both winds come from the Creator.
The prophet Ezekiel was taken to a valley full of human bones. In the Biblical tradition, human bones transmit impurity and should not be touched. We are told that Ezekiel had to walk close by them, perhaps with a certain amount of fear or reverence. And there they were, old dry bones, remnants of forgotten beings. Since Adam had created the word “land,” he could say that there were so many bones, that they covered the entire landscape. Could all those dry old bones join back together and come alive?
The prophet carried out his office and prophesied what God had told him. In a marvelous whirlwind, the bones began to come together and find each other, much like someone putting together the pieces of broken ceramic jar. Next came the tendons and the flesh; until the skin covered all into place. They had everything but the wind, that force which fills the sails and cools the evening heat. And this wind only comes from God.
One more word from the prophet was enough, and from the four winds came the wind. For it is the Spirit of God that vivifies and amalgamates life, by joining the parts together so that they cease to be separate pieces placed next to each other, to become a body. The presence of the Spirit, that mysterious wind, completed what was lacking. And they became a vast army.
(Ezekiel 37:1–14)
Names
In ancient times, there was a passion for seeing beauty in certain animals and expressing it in names: Rachel means sheep. Deborah means bee. Jonah is a man’s name, but in its original Hebrew, yonah meant “dove.”
In the Bible, Susana (shoshanah) is the word that names a lily and is related to the number six, for the petals of the lilies. Curiously, Azucena also derives from the same Semitic word, but reached us through the Arabs who lived in Spain. Note the coincidence in the sound of the consonants of the two names; from the same root, the name took different routes to arrive in different forms to the same Spanish language.
The name Leila holds the mystery of the night (laila means “night” in Hebrew). Esther is the name of the Persian goddess Ishtar. In Persian, estara means “star” and passed almost unchanged into English.
The book of Ruth (a name which means “friend, friendship”) introduces us to Naomi, whose meaning in Hebrew is “sweet” or “graceful one,” while Mara (alas!) means bitter, bitterness.
David means “beloved.” Another great monarch Salomon, bears in his name the idea of a pacifier (in Hebrew it is shelomó, very close to the word shalom—peace).
Names that include the syllable el are a whole other chapter. They are called theophories, that is, God is included in them. Daniel means “God is my judge,” understood as “only God can judge me” (dan is “judge” in Hebrew). Manuel (also Emmanuel) means “God is with us.” Raphael means “God is my physician.” Gabriel and Gabriella mean “man (or woman) of God” (geber, geberet are man and woman in Hebrew). Finally, “my mountain, fortress, rock, is God” is expressed by Ariel (ar is “mount” in Hebrew).
Delilah (same in Hebrew delilah) means “weak,” “languishing,” which does not do justice to her courage and ingenuity in deceiving Samson (Hebrew shimshon), also the name of a Canaanite deity. According to his name, Samson believed himself to be practically a god, but he was actually so weak that he lost his power when his hair was cut.
The Female Disciples
A disciple is a person who adheres to a doctrine under the guidance of a master. The prophets had disciples, as did the Pharisees and John the Baptist. As we know, Jesus had disciples.
Usually, we consider that Jesus had twelve disciples. Their names are given in several texts, with a few variations: in Matthew 10:1–4 they coincide, with some minor discrepancies, with the lists in the other Gospels and Acts 1:13, where Mathias is chosen to replace Judas Iscariot after his death. It is true that Jesus gave special attention to a group of twelve disciples in order to give them special training (Matthew 11:1), but it is also true that a crowd followed Him on the road and many of them were also considered disciples.
Matthew 27:55 mentions that many women were at the foot of the cross, as that they had followed Him from Galilee. In two places, Luke (vv. 23:27 and 49) confirms this version of a group of women who followed Jesus on his journeys. Without forcing the meaning of the text, we have every right to consider this large group as disciples of Jesus. If we consider woman’s secondary place in those times, we can discern how brave and transgressing it must have been for women to leave their homes alone and follow their master on the road. At one time, Jesus deemed it necessary to extend the preaching and designated seventy disciples, in pairs, to prepare the way for Him in every town (Luke 10:1–17). We do not know if there were women among them, but there is nothing said against it.
Acts 6:1–2 says that the number of disciples had grown until it had become a multitude. This is because in that book the word disciple is synonymous with Christian and, consequently, each new believer was considered a disciple. We already have the names of Sapphira and the “disciple” Dorcas (Acts 9:36). Acts 9:19 mentions that there were disciples in Damascus, quite a distance from the region where Jesus acted during his life.
What may be cause for surprise or doubt to us, was not so for the first Christians. For them, it was common for women to be part of the leadership of the emerging Church.
Year One
It was the year 1269 in the Roman calendar. This calendar counted the years from the foundation of Rome, and governed all documents in the western world. Dionysius Exiguus,—or “Dennis the Small,” because he was short in stature—wished to replace this method for counting years with a new calendar beginning with the Christian era. To do this, it was necessary to establish the year in which Jesus had been born, something that until then no one had thought of determining. Dionysius was a monk and well versed in the science of his time. He mastered mathematics and history, and was an expert in astronomy. He fulfilled every condition for carrying out this task.
With the means available at the time, he calculated dates, estimated stellar data and pored over books in the library. After much investigation, he sentenced the sought-after date, the year in which the Lord had been born. At that time, he