The Lighter Side of Defending the Faith

Throughout the ages Christians have relied upon some creative and sometimes convoluted arguments and legends in support of their belief system. Today many seem quaint or comical yet; strangely, most were considered legitimate defenses or support for Christian belief. The most famous of these are the tales of the Holy Grail but there are a few lesser known defenses that deserve a smiling review. (The quest for the Holy Grail seems rather pointless considering there is no way to demonstrate the grail to be authentic, even if one were found).

One of the rarely quoted early Christian writers was a man named Barnabas, writing in the early part of the second century (probably around the year 120). In the "Epistle of Barnabas" the author's intent is to show that the message of the Jewish Bible (Christian Old Testament) was directed, not to Jews; but rather, to Christians. One of his most humorous assertions is that the Jewish tradition of circumcision was a misinterpretation by Jews of the real message of the biblical story of Abraham's circumcision. In the biblical story Abraham performs the act of cutting of the penile foreskin to symbolize the covenant or "agreement" he made with God. When Abraham has to fight a battle to save his brother Lot he takes with him 318 servants as his army and he circumcises all 318 prior to their rescue mission. Barnabas believes the number 318 is significant because in Greek the number 318 is written as Tau Iota Eta. Tau is written out looking like the letter T, which is a reference to the cross. Iota Eta, is written out to look like a J and E, which, of course, are the first two letters of the name Jesus. According to Barnabas the story of the circumcision is actually a prophesy about the cross of Jesus. Barnabas seems oblivious to the fact that the story of Abraham was not originally written in Greek, but Hebrew, and that 318 in ancient Hebrew looks more like a pitchfork head and the letter "n." At least we can get a good chuckle from this Christian reasoning yet strangely enough, the claims about the shape of the Greek letter Tau is used as Christian "evidence" in dozens of their "well-reasoned arguments."

In another humorous example along the same vein, the venerated second century defender of Christianity, Tertullian, explains that Moses actually foreshadowed Christ. When the Israelites were engaged in a battle with the Amelekites Moses was instructed to keep his arms outstretched during the engagement. As long as Moses had his arms held out the Israelites fared well in battle. When he dropped his arms the Amelekites began to win. Tertullian saw Moses outstretched arms as a prophecy for Christ hanging on the cross. This is actually the basis for many of the so called Old Testament prophecies about Christ. Anywhere in ancient writings where the mere shape of a cross is indicated Christians have used as prophetic proof. It should not be surprising that Christian followers often see cross symbols in foodstuffs or in the shadows cast by porch lights.

A third example involves one of the most important individuals in Christian history yet few beyond the Catholic elite have heard of her or know her role in the history of Christianity. Her name was Helena and she was the mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine. She was actually a Christian prior to her son's legendary conversion and may have played a significant role in opening Constantine to the possibility that Christianity was the only true faith (although Constantine's life after is supposed conversion gives very little indication that his conversion was anything more than a political move). The importance of Helena really takes shape following Constantine's edict of tolerance for the religious sect. Helena put forth the assertion that since Christianity was now tolerated and the Roman Emperor a subscriber the religious history of Christianity needed to be explored. With her son's blessing and money she set off for Palestine in search of this history. Wandering around Jerusalem for a few years around AD 326, Helena was given a guided tour of all the legendary places of importance by local residents. How they would have known where Jesus' birth occurred or where his tomb was located is unclear considering that there was no record or chain of witnesses. The most humorous of these is that they presented Helena with three crosses. Helena had a sickly woman touch all three and when she touched the one in the middle she was cured. Helena proclaimed this the true cross of Jesus and brought it back with her to Rome (or wherever her son was residing while building his new capital city). At the place where the cross was discovered she had the Church of the Holy Sepulcher erected.

A few points about this story deserve a good chuckle and probably earned the tour guides a good deal of money. They told a tale that only a complete fool could believe and actually found one in Helena. Wood, as most people know, is an organic material. When left untreated and unpreserved, it will disintegrate in about 10 to 20 years. The question about how many pieces of dead wood are still around 200 years after their use is an easy one. There are none. That some early Christians would have kept the cross as a memento considering that the cross as a symbol did not begin for at least 20 years, is laughable. However; they supposedly did not just keep one cross. They kept three! it is not really clear why they would hang onto the other two. The story gets even more ridiculous when one considers that only the cross beam was portable. The vertical posts were left in the ground to be reused for subsequent executions then discarded and replaced when they became too messy or splintered at the point where the crossbeam was attached.

Basically, these local hucksters were able to sell the mother of the Roman Emperor a plank of wood. They probably made a fortune from it. It is unfortunate that this plank of wood was not authentic. It could have come in handy for the Christian Knights Templar a thousand years later. During the Crusade wars of the 11th century they rode out to battle a Muslim army and brought with them part of this wood. Unfortunately, the Templar army was destroyed, the wood captured by the Muslims, and ransomed back to the Christians many years later. The morale of these stories is that Christian gullibility knows no bounds and there is money to be made from their foolishness. No one knows this better than the online Casino website Golden Palace, which paid $28,000 for a 10 year old grilled cheese sandwich that bore the image of the Virgin Mary. The publicity they received from this purchase far surpassed the money they paid for it. The sandwich even had a bite taken out of it.