JANUARY 2020
Welcome to January 2020, and the first edition of the tenth year of our humble web journal, The Eclectic Kasper.
This month we explore how Jesus’ miracle of turning water into wine has ramifications on the debate about the age of the earth. We speak our truth about truth, and continue our commentary through the book of Romans.
Additionally, we’ll fill you in a bit on why editions of The Eclectic Kasper were so few and far between in 2019.
But we have a great year ahead, and lots to say. We know that you will have some things to say, as well. Send your concerns, critiques and compliments on any of our articles to feedback@eclectickasper.com.
Also, you can post your thoughts and responses on our The Eclectic Kasper Facebook page, and if you haven’t yet, please give that page a “like” so that you can participate more easily in our eclectic dialog.
Thanks for reading and stay eclectic!
CULTURE/ SOCIETY: Speaking My Truth to Truth
The conclusion to this last season of Survivor featured several instances of people discussing what they referred to as “my truth.” There had been some “metoo” moments in the last episodes, and some of the woman were given a chance to give their perspective on the issue. But again, it was framed as being “my truth” or “her truth,” an odd phrase that disturbingly has entered our vernacular.
This was an interesting juxtaposition for me because the very next Sunday after I watched the Survivor finale, our church was in a passage in Revelation where Jesus is called the “faithful and true Witness” (Rev 3:14). Elsewhere, Jesus says that He is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).
Can these various forms of “truth” co-exist? Or are we using the same word to refer to completely different phenomena?
Truth has had a tough career over the last few decades. Centuries ago, many in Western civilization adhered to the Christian worldview, or a body of truth and explanations for origin, meaning, and destiny. Of course, not everyone did so, and not all who claimed to be Christians held to the exact same ideas. Nevertheless, the basic premises of Christianity were held by many. But not only that, there was a more widespread acceptance that truth came from God, and it was our task as people to align ourselves with His truth.
This worldview began to be increasingly undermined, to both good and bad effect. The veracity of Christian truth was assaulted in the eighteenth century by many Enlightenment thinkers. It continued to be damaged in the nineteenth century by the rise of German higher criticism, Darwinism, and aberrant religious groups, especially in America. Throughout the twentieth century, the Christian worldview continued to be challenged by atheism, evolutionism, and by the worldviews of many other religions, like Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Mormonism.
Despite this, nobody has their own truth. Truth exists independently of people. I understand that this is a topic that has been debated for millennium; we have watched Western civilization ping-pong back and forth from Platonism to Aristotelianism, and between objectivity and subjectivity. But let me just streamline that conversation and reassure you that truth does exist, and it exists whether or not I affirm it, believe it, or know it.
Truth is very much like gravity; you don’t have to believe it, or accept it, or like it, but it operates anyway. In fact, it operates completely independently of your knowledge of it or your feelings about it. Gravity doesn’t affect different people in unique ways. It affects all people in mathematically and scientifically predictably ways. Similarly, there is no “my truth,” or a set of facts and truths that pertain uniquely to me. There is no “your truth”; there is just “truth,” and then there is your ability to align with it whether you like it or not.
Again, this is not so much a problem with concepts, but a problem with terms. Truth is something that is objective, and independent of my opinion of it. What we now call “my truth” or “your truth” is what we formerly referred to as my perspective or your opinion. And in order for communication to improve, we need to acknowledge the difference between these: If you have something to say, then just call it your opinion, or your perspective. It may or not be true and accurate to reality. It may derive from what you want to be true, or what you suspect to be accurate. But you saying it does not make it true. Have the courage to acknowledge that you may be wrong rather than falsely labeling something “my truth” in a vain attempt to legitimize it.
Another problem is that personalizing truth cheapens truth. “My truth” means that I only acknowledge truth that I like or facts that support my views. This is an epistemologically irresponsible way to discuss topics and debate issues, and it is a selfish and hypocritical way to live.
Expanding this principle from an individual to a group or a community doesn’t help. Every race and ethnicity and religion can’t have its own truth. These “truths” and facts will collide and demonstrate that one is false while the other is true, or that both are false. They can’t both be contradictory and also both be true. Ethnicities and genders and other demographically-oriented groups may have their unique take on life, but they don’t have some exclusive access to their own truth.
Also, if we personalize it, and call it “my truth,” we then get to pick which “truths” we like. People were very interested in Christine Blasey Ford’s truth, but not Brett Kavanaugh’s truth, even though, in the end, his truth turned out to be more accurate than her truth.
Also, truth is not based on feelings, speculations, or impressions. It is based on fact, and if someone doesn’t have facts that can be clearly articulated, then the rest of us have the right to question the legitimacy of that individual’s alignment with truth.
As we are bombarded with statistics and assertions and opinions during this election year, make sure you avoid the trap of assuming that truth is subjective. If you believe something is true and you believe it by faith, then just know that it may be hard to factually convince someone that your faith is true. If you have an opinion, then state your opinion, but don’t confuse the issue or insult reality by calling it “your truth.” Be content to know what you know, but have a hunger for pursuing truth that is based on facts and not just on the talking points of a social group or political party.
So, what do you think? Has this “my truth” and “your truth” terminology helped in discourse or has it served to marginalize truth? What are your thoughts, questions and responses? Send them in to feedback@eclectickasper.com. We will publish good feedback anynomously in a future edition.
THE AGE OF THE EARTH: Water Into Wine, or, Making Age When You’re Out of Time
This debate about the age of the earth doesn’t even pit creationists against evolutionists.
Rather, on one side is a relatively small group of people referred to as young earth creationists. They affirm a more literal chronology in the first several chapters of Genesis and believe that the earth is a few thousand years old, between six and twenty thousand. On the other side is a variety of people from different camps who reject this chronology, including day age theorists, theistic evolutionists, as well as atheistic evolutionists. This camp believes that the world is billions of years old. Those in the old earth group who also believe in God assert that God used evolutionary processes to create animals, plants, and people.
You can find the complete list of articles that we have written about this debate here in our “Eclectic Archive.”
Young earth creationists argue that God created the earth in six literal days as portrayed clearly in Genesis 1. But part of the brilliance of this process is that He created everything with the appearance of age, or, as some like to say, with “functional maturity.” The Lord didn’t just create seeds, but fully-developed trees and shrubs; not just eggs, but mature birds; not babies, but fully-grown people.
And those two original people were created with the appearance of age. That is, though they were only a few hours old, they could think, reason, talk, walk, and apparently reproduce like people who had been alive for twenty or thirty years. When they were actually only hours old, they looked like they were twenty-years-old or so, and had many of the properties and attributes of someone who had already lived for several decades.
In some of those previous articles, we discussed why we don’t believe that this makes God deceptive. We similarly create things with the appearance of age like furniture, or replica swords, or a set-piece for a stage play. The main reason why creating the world with the appearance of age doesn’t make God deceptive is that He revealed very clearly how and in what time frame He created everything in Genesis 1, and He noted again later that this period of creation took six days (Exod 20:11 and 31:17). In fact, it would make Him a liar if He claimed that He created in six days, when it actually took billions of years.
This has profound implications on many scientific aspects of the creation vs. evolution debate. I believe that rocks can be radiocarbon-dated to seem like they are millions of years old even though they are actually only thousands of years old. God is so brilliant that He can create something that already has all the properties and attributes of age, even though it was actually just a few days old. Again, this is like how we create set pieces for a stage play, or a costume that may appear to look tattered and battle-tested even though it is new and had never been in a battle.
Or to put it more simply, God doesn’t need time to create age.
A fascinating event early in Jesus’ ministry demonstrates that Jesus also doesn’t need time to create something that is fundamentally defined by its age.
John’s gospel begins with clear affirmations of Christ’s deity. John 2:1-12 then describes what may be Jesus’ first miracle in His public career. He and His family are invited to a wedding in Cana of Galilee. The wine runs out and Jesus’ mother Mary urges Jesus to step in and help. Jesus does, and converts several pots full of water into actual wine.
Some people in the fundamentalistic churches that I grew up in tried to convince us that the alcohol content of wine back in the first century was far less than alcohol today. While there may be some truth to that, there are also plenty of passages that clearly indicate the potency of alcohol (Gen 9:21; 49:12; Prov 20:1; Isa 5:11; 28:7; Eph 5:18). Jesus did not turn water into mere grape juice, and to assume so does a disservice to this episode on many levels.
That said, alcohol needs time to become alcohol. The fermentation process takes months and years, and apparently, the longer you wait the better and more mature it tastes.
Thus, to turn water into genuine wine, Jesus had to change the water into a substance that possessed the properties and attributes of age -- months or years worth of age -- even though He accomplished this in a matter of minutes or seconds. He, too, didn’t need time to create age.
John is clearly linking Jesus’ ministry with Genesis 1-2. John 1:1 echoes Genesis 1:1 except that it explicitly states Jesus’ role as co-creator and affirms that He is fundamentally divine like God the Father. Both John 2 and Genesis 1-2 feature a union of a man and a woman. In Genesis 1, God speaks and His will comes to pass; in John 2, Jesus also causes a miracle to occur with a simple series of commands (vv. 7-8). There may be a tie-in with the six waterpots in John 2:6 and the fact that God created the world in six days. At the end of Genesis 1, God declares that His creation was “very good” (v. 31). After Jesus’ miracle in John 2, the headwaiter or the master of the banquet declares with surprise that this is “good” wine (John 2:10). Thus, it is not unexpected that Jesus’ act of turning water into wine with the properties of age mirrors God’s “good” act of creating the entire world with the all of the properties of age.
We can rely on radiocarbon dating or measuring the thickness of glaciers to try to deduce the age of the earth. But those tools may fool us, especially when we recognize what Genesis 1-2 clearly indicates, that God created and formed nature with the properties of age and maturity. Scientific dating methods are not nearly as reliable as God’s Word, which gives us clear indications of the relatively young age of the earth despite its antique attributes. God made the world recently, but He made it with functional maturity graciously.
MUSIC: Great Classical Pieces, Part 1
A few years ago, we started a series about my favorite Mozart pieces; yes, in my mind that demands its own ongoing series. We highlighted the Overture of Don Giovanni in the July 2018 edition, and his delightful A Little Night Music in the June 2019 edition.
However, there are many other classical pieces that I like, and I thought it would be fun to mention a few from time to time and comment on them. Here are four for now, and we’ll follow-up with more in a future edition.
The 1812 Overture, by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. There are few songs as dynamic, enjoyable and powerful as Tchaikovsky’s magnum opus, The 1812 Overture. It was composed in 1880 at a time when overtures were no longer merely the beginning of a longer work, like an opera, but were sometimes created as a stand-alone piece.
The 1812 Overture begins with a soft and beautiful choral song (sometimes simply played by the strings) that introduces us to the main musical theme of the piece. This is followed by a more tumultuous segment that envisions the chaos of battle. About a quarter through the song the main theme plays again, softly, and almost timidly, preparing us for the dramatic build-up that will conclude the piece. Other dramatic sections intervene, and Tchaikovsky experiments with different variations of the main theme. The last quarter of the piece capitalizes on the main theme and highlights it at its most dramatic and triumphant, even utilizing cannons in its grand conclusion.
For some reason, Americans have come to associate this song with Independence Day, perhaps the use of cannons go well with fireworks. I have been to several Forth of July concerts that play this song, a composition by a Russian that we have co-opted as a tribute to our own country. But whatever country you’re from, The 1812 Overture evokes powerful feelings of triumph and patriotism.
The Allegro pastorale, “Spring,” from The Four Seasons, by Antonio Vivaldi. Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, published in 1725, is an apex of Baroque music, featuring both highly structured orchestrations as well as some delightful melodies. In fact, we highlighted a CD of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons in an article from the September 2017 edition. The entire collection consists of each of the four seasons being depicted by three songs, for a total of twelve individual pieces.
The Allegro pastorale is the third piece in the “Spring” section. It has one of the most enduring and buoyant melodies in Baroque music. About a third of the way through, the melody is played in a minor cord, lending some depth to this piece, and eventually returning to the major version of the melody as the piece concludes.
Along with the Spring Allegro (movement #1), the second Autumn Allegro (movement #9), and the Largo in Winter (movement #11), the Spring Allegro pastorale is one of the many delightful melodies that The Four Seasons provides to Baroque music. I have heard other works by Vivaldi, but unfortunately, in the constellation of great composers, Vivaldi is somewhat of a one-hit-wonder. That is not to say that he wasn’t very prolific, but there are just not many other pieces that he is known for. However, we are grateful for this concentration of talent in The Four Seasons, and especially in the Allegro pastorale.
“The Moldau,” by Bedřich Smetana. OK, this one is a bit obscure, but it is one of my favorite non-Mozart classical pieces. “The Moldau” was composed in 1874 by Czech composer Bedřich Smetana, as part of a collection of songs called Má vlast, which means, “My Homeland.” “The Moldau” portrays the Vltava River (known in English as the Moldau), which flows through the Czech Republic. The song similarly flows with grace and beauty. However, much of the song, including the main melody, is in a minor key, and lends a sad and sometimes longing feel to the piece.
Haunting flutes and pizzicato strings are featured in the beginning of the song before the strings sonorously champion the main melody. The song shifts to segments that are more heroic and even slightly militaristic. The segment that begins right before the midpoint reflects a woodland enchantment evocative of an innocent fairy tale. The main theme is introduced again, but then quickly gives way to a tumultuous section (about three-fourths of the way through). The main theme is then reintroduced in the concluding section, but this time, in a major key. The song resolves with a similar graceful feel with which it began, except for the dramatic two-cord ending. It is one of the most beautiful and flowing pieces that I know.
Superman March, by John Williams. By the mid-eighties, John Williams had already become a legendary composer with some of the most iconic tunes in film history. In fact, here in January 2020, he received his fifty-second nomination for an Academy Award (second only to Walt Disney, who received fifty-nine nominations).
We could focus on other of Williams’ work (in fact we have, such as our review of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace from the July 2011 edition). His work in the Superman franchise is often treated as second tier, but it is still epic.
The famous main theme suits the character well; strong without being pompous, heroic but not arrogant. The cords here are carefully chosen and skillfully deployed. I picked this song because it serves as an overture to the film, and thus, has other melodies from the film in it, as well. The main theme blends flawlessly into the “Love Theme” (“Can You Read My Mind?”). The main theme resumes to close out the piece, which ends conclusively, but again, without flourish or pomposity (in contrast, perhaps, to the grander ending of The 1812 Overture).
The main theme from the Superman March is so iconic that it was even used – too sparingly, in my opinion – in the Smallville TV series, and also in the recent Justice League movie. This is one of William’s most iconic and, yet, somehow underrated songs.
So, what are some of your favorite classical pieces? Let us know by sending us an e-mail at feedback@eclectickasper.com. We’ll mention your favorite classical pieces in a follow-up article.
ROMANS: Faith Comes First, Romans 4:9-12
I talked to a woman in a park about the Gospel recently. I must have specifically used the word “saved” at some point, because that’s where she pounced. After listening patiently to my concise presentation of the Gospel, she retorted that she was going to be saved in her own way.
I challenged her on this concept, the notion that we can save ourselves or customize our method of salvation. We cannot earn or deserve salvation, nor can we just make up our own way to achieve it.
We often get this backward about Old Testament individuals, and in getting that wrong, we risk misunderstanding how faith works today, as well. Was Abraham saved because he was circumcised? Was David saved by following (most of the time) the law? Could they make up their own methods to be saved, and then believe that those methods work?
Neither, as it turns out. In fact, one of the themes here in Romans 4 is that we are saved by believing first, and then we obey. We follow God’s commands and pursue God’s ways as a result of faith. Or, to put it more concisely, faith comes first.
Paul noted that Abraham was justified by faith before the Law was even written (Rom 4:1-5), and that David, not a perfect individual, was also saved by faith, not by Law or by works. In Romans 4:9-12, Paul gravitates back to Abraham. But wasn’t he saved when he was circumcised? In fact, aren’t Jews saved and distinguished by non-Jews by circumcision? Having mentioned the blessings of salvation and forgiveness in vv. 7-8, Paul asks in v. 9 if these blessings are only for those who are circumcised. As he had in v. 3 (and will again in v. 22), Paul quotes directly from Genesis 15:6: God justified, saved, and blessed Abraham because of his faith, not because of his works, compliance with the Law (which had not been produced yet), or his circumcision.
A Jewish reader may protest, however, that Abraham’s faith and his circumcision were part of one grand act of becoming acceptable to God and receiving salvation. Faith plus circumcision was Abraham’s way of salvation, right? For many of the first century Jews, their faith in God, their Jewishness, and their circumcision were seen as mutually reinforcing realities of their identity.
There is just one problem with overlapping Abraham’s faith and his circumcision, as Paul points out in Romans 4:10: his faith and justification came first, far before his circumcision. Abraham was uncircumcised when righteousness was credited to him, not circumcised. In fact, circumcision wasn’t mentioned until Genesis 17:10, a full two chapters after Genesis 15:6, the point of Abraham’s conversion by faith in God and His promises. Abraham was circumcised ten or fifteen years, or perhaps even longer, after he was saved (Gen 16:3, 16; 17:1).
There are two implications of this to Paul’s divided audience of Jews and Gentiles. First, one does not have to become circumcised to be justified. This question of whether one has to convert to Judaism before becoming a Christian is definitively discussed in the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15. Second, one is not justified just because one is circumcised. Circumcision and Judaism is not a guarantee of, nor entitlement to, eternal life.
Many people today similarly misunderstand this concept. They have heard their whole lives all about salvation by grace through faith in Christ. Yet they still think that they are saved because they got baptized as a baby or as an adult, or because they went through the youth group, or because they grew up in church. You can’t get to heaven by being in a shepherd or angel in church play as a kid, or being in choir, or by the accumulation of sermons that you hear over a life-time. No ritual will save you, whether circumcision or baptism. Frequent attendance to church or or close proximity to Christians will not save us either; we are saved by faith in Christ, not by Law, works, or osmosis.
In v. 11, Paul makes the case that circumcision was the result of faith, the sign of faith and justification, not the cause of justification and righteousness. Abraham did not become a believer and was not justified when and because he was circumcised, but he was circumcised after and as a result of faith in God and in His promises.
Abraham, then, can be the father of faith not only to the circumcision but also to the uncircumcised. That is, since circumcision followed faith rather than being the cause of it, now, too, people do not need to be circumcised in order to be a believer and in order to claim Abraham as a spiritual ancestor. Justification comes to people through faith first, independently of whether they are circumcised or not.
Those who trust in God’s grace by faith, whether circumcised Jews or uncircumcised Gentiles, can follow in his spiritual footsteps. The Greek word stoicheo means “to walk, live” or “to conduct oneself” in a certain manner. It is used to indicate living out a certain ideology or of specific principles elsewhere in the NT: Acts 21:24; Gal 5:25; 6:16; Phil 3:16. Paul here says that though not circumcised, Gentiles can adhere to the principles of Abraham through faith in God.
Salvation, therefore, is not about customizing our own way to forgiveness, or earning our own way to eternal life. Nobody, through circumcision, or heritage, or background, has a “head start” on receiving salvation. And no amount of our works or efforts will impress a completely holy God into granting us forgiveness.
Paul has been clear in Romans, and the authors of Scripture are clear elsewhere. Faith comes first. Then, having believed in God, we pursue obedience, holiness and accomplishing the works that He has purposefully set before us (Eph 2:8-10).
Commentary on Romans
See other articles in our ongoing verse-by-verse and passage-by-passage commentary on Romans here in our “Eclectic Archive.”
THE ECLECTIC KASPER – A Review of 2019 and a Preview of 2020, or, What the Heck Happened to The Eclectic Kasper in 2019!?
by Matt Kasper
It is hard to believe that we are beginning the tenth year of publishing this web journal. It feels like we just completed the January 2011 edition and uploaded it with great trepidation, not knowing where it would take us. Of course, it didn’t really take us anywhere, or take off, or take up, or take, or anything. But that’s OK; we’re still writing and some of you are still reading, and that’s good enough for me!
As you may have noticed, last year was our lightest year of putting out editions of The Eclectic Kasper because it was one of the busier and more complicated years of my adult life.
Much of the winter months (January – March) were consumed with studying for and taking my comprehensive exams (comps) for my PhD program. These consisted of three days spread out over the course of a week in which one has to write essays for eight hours in one’s historical fields. My major field of study is Early Modern Europe, and my minor fields are Germany/ Modern European Cultural and Intellectual History and the second one is U.S. Cultural and Intellectual History. Also, during this twenty-four hours’ worth of essay writing, we are not allowed to use books or notes; everything that we write for these three days must be information about history and about the research from other historians that we have locked in our noodle.
But that’s not all: there was also a follow-up oral exam in front of a select group of professors. I didn’t do that well in orals, but I did well enough on the written essays that they passed me anyway. This process ended in late March, but I feel like it took me the rest of the year to recover from the trauma of comps; and I think that is one reason why I didn’t put out more editions of The Eclectic Kasper. Now I’m ABD; I just have to finish writing a dissertation (my topic is the influence of apocalyptic thought during the early phase of the German Protestant Reformation), and I hope to finish my dissertation and graduate by May 2022.
The spring months seemed to be consumed with the graduation (mid-May) and wedding (late June) of my eldest son, Joshua, who has contributed some articles and graphics to this web journal over the years. While I was on the distant periphery of wedding prep, it is still an emotional roller-coaster to have your first kiddo married off.
We came back from a busy wedding weekend and thought that we were going to settle into a quiet routine for the rest of the year. But two weeks into July, we witnessed a storm that brought down several large trees in our back yard. For much of the rest of July, family time in the evenings and weekends was consumed by cutting, chopping, and sorting wood under the relentless Southern sun.
A good chunk of one September weekend was taken with building a wood shelf to hold the wood from our backyard. Much of September and October were taken up with a re-fi on our house that grew in complexity over time. We experienced other disappointments as well as some attrition of other groups that we are associated with. With great effort, and perhaps more out of obligation than desire, I creaked out a November edition of The Eclectic Kasper. I had every intention of cranking out a December edition, as well; but alas, December came and went. Suffice it to say, I am glad that 2019 is behind me, and I genuinely praise and thank the good Lord that He saw us through the year academically, financially, and emotionally.
I’m genuinely grateful to the Lord for calendars, because the otherwise arbitrary shift from December to January and from one year to the next provides a genuine psychological and emotional opportunity to reboot and start anew. I’ve never been much of a new-year’s-resolution kind of guy, but now that some of the unique life events in 2019 are over, I have made some resolutions regarding how I want to proceed in 2020.
I am redoubling my efforts to increase the quality and quantity of time that I devote to lesson and sermon prep. I have found out some ways to structure my time so that every week I devote time to working on my dissertation, and I have made a renewed effort to spent more quality time with family and friends, also.
And in addition to those aspirations, I have resolved to get back to one of my favorite activities, specifically, writing articles for and providing editions of The Eclectic Kasper.
My aspiration for 2020 is that our articles will feature more diversity of topics, shorter articles, more reader feedback, and more guest authors. The first eighteen months of writing this web journal in 2011-2012, we came out with an edition every month; exhausting, but worthwhile. I have come to grips with the fact that it is OK to skip a month occasionally, however, I want to do better than the four editions we produced in 2019. We’re shooting to produce at least eight or nine editions in 2020. This is good because with such a momentous election year, we would like to be able to comment on the process as it moves forward.
In fact, faithful readers will notice that over the last few years we have swung away from political articles and provided more articles about social and cultural critique. This year will probably represent somewhat of a shift back toward political articles, but we think that the ongoing social critiques are important, too.
Also, we would like to publicize these more, because we think that there is some valuable material here. If any of you would like to help with promotion of our web journal, or specific editions or articles, please let me know; send me a wave at feedback@eclectickasper.com.
In the introductory comments to each edition, we often end by saying, “Thanks for reading, and stay eclectic!” That’s not just a tagline, but a legitimate and heartfelt reality. I am genuinely grateful when people read our articles, “like” one of our Facebook posts, and ask when the next edition will be available. Just when I feel the temptation to give up producing this web journal, someone else mentions that they read and enjoyed one of our articles, and that reinvigorates my desire as a rogue writer.
Also, we genuinely hope that you will stay eclectic. That is, we hope you will be interested and intrigued by our diverse array of topics, including, but not limited to Bible, history, Christology, politics, Firefly, Mozart, and Avengers. And we always love your input, feedback, and questions that you have about any of our articles.
We are looking forward to an interesting and eclectic year. Thank you for your support, for your interest in our humble little web journal, and for giving us the impetus to inform, educate, and entertain you through written word.
QUOTES FOR CONTEMPLATION: The Brevity of Life
There are a variety of ways to deal with the reality that life is short. Several years ago, Nike had a logo that said, “Life is short; play hard.” Many Bible authors struggled with the brevity of life, even likening it to fading grass and wilting flowers (Psalm 90:5-6; 103:15; Isaiah 40:6-8; James 1:10-11; 1 Peter 1:24).
Toward the end of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the title character faces the reality of a life cut prematurely short. However, it is not his own, but that of that of his wife, Lady Macbeth. In response to the news of her death, Macbeth utters some of the most famous, and most despondent, lines of the play:
She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
- William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act V, scene v
