Idioms From Heaven

Many of our most popular idioms that endure to this day stem from the Good Book – or rather, the 66 great books that make up The Holy Bible. Somehow – miraculously – dozens of these colloquialisms from millennia ago have survived multiple translations and innumerable cultures through time to remain in common use today. Idioms From Heaven collects, dissects and shares this pithy wisdom to edify and educate all.

Alpha and Omega

Amazon.com box with logo, from http://indianapublicmedia.org/news/files/2011/07/Amazon-Box-940x626.jpg

The phrase “from A to Z” encompasses everything in the entirety of a known and finite range; in other words, it captures the whole kit-and-caboodle. So much so that the Amazon.com logo, which includes both letters, draws a smirking smile that points, well, from A to Z.

It’s hard to guess if the Alpha and Omega of the original term is smiling about the commercial use of His namesake. The letters together, representing the first and last letters of the ancient Greek alphabet, is one of the many names for the Lord. This metaphorical use in Revelation introduces the great I Am as the Alpha and Omega — both the beginning and the end.

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”
— Revelation 1:8, Scripture from The Holy Bible, New International Version

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Many of our most popular idioms that endure to this day stem from the Good Book – or rather, the 66 great books that make up The Holy Bible. Somehow – miraculously – dozens of these colloquialisms from millennia ago have survived multiple translations and innumerable cultures through time to remain in common use today. Idioms From Heaven collects, dissects, and shares this pithy wisdom to edify and educate all.

Armageddon

Nuclear blast, from https://www.ready.gov/sites/default/files/documents/files/Terrorism%20Section%20Content%20Nuclear%20Blast%201.3.0.0.jpg

If you came of age during the Cold War, you knew Armageddon as a thing: the cataclysmic end of the world and of all people, civilization and life as we know it — notably due to nuclear war or some other man-made disaster.  Or a bad Bruce Willis sci-fi action movie, perhaps.

More accurately; indeed, biblically, Armageddon isn’t a thing, but rather, is a place: perhaps a mountain or plain near the ancient city of Megiddo.  At this location, according to interpretations of Revelation, the battle to end all battles at the end times will take place and Satan and his demonic army will be defeated at the hands of God’s angels and the forces of good. The end-times event gets its name from the location it’s set to occur.

At the advent of horrific atomic technology capable of death and destruction on a supernatural scale, our World War III prophesies naturally took on the same name. While this final battle is sure to be scary for those still here to bear witness, it nonetheless will herald the beginning of the end, toward a new day, a new Heaven and a new Earth for all God’s people.

“Then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.”
— Revelation 16:16, Scripture from The Holy Bible, New International Version

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Many of our most popular idioms that endure to this day stem from the Good Book – or rather, the 66 great books that make up The Holy Bible. Somehow – miraculously – dozens of these colloquialisms from millennia ago have survived multiple translations and innumerable cultures through time to remain in common use today. Idioms From Heaven collects, dissects, and shares this pithy wisdom to edify and educate all.

Adam’s Apple

adam and eve in the garden from http://revelationrevolution.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/adam-and-eve.jpg

For men, that lump in your throat — along with a missing rib — are distinct features that come to us courtesy of Adam, the first man of creation. The actual apple that tempted woman, man and mankind is instead thought to have been a pomegranate, an apricot, a fig or some other fruit more common to the Fertile Crescent than apples were in antiquity. However, the Bible is mute on the specifics of the matter, as disclosed in Genesis 3.

Anatomists attribute Adam’s apple not to a lodged piece of fruit — or guilt — choking us as yet another consequence of our original sin, but rather, to thick cartilage that protects the larynx, or voice box. Contrary to common belief, women have lovely lady versions of these lumps, too — would we call theirs Eve’s apples? Let’s not … The fairer variety typically don’t grow as large, protrude at a slightly different angle, and women generally have a higher body fat percentage than men, which affects how their apple appears. A man’s larger voice box gives him a deeper voice, but also a more prominent Adam’s apple. To round out your body of knowledge on the topic: the Adam’s apple is found in non-human species as well.

“When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.”
— Genesis 3:6, Scripture from The Holy Bible, New International Version

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Many of our most popular idioms that endure to this day stem from the Good Book – or rather, the 66 great books that make up The Holy Bible. Somehow – miraculously – dozens of these colloquialisms from millennia ago have survived multiple translations and innumerable cultures through time to remain in common use today. Idioms From Heaven collects, dissects, and shares this pithy wisdom to edify and educate all.

(I Don’t Know Him From) Adam

Nick, It's a Wonderful Life
If someone tells you she doesn’t know a person from Adam, she’s telling you she doesn’t know him (or her, of course). More liberally, it’s possible that she’s heard of him or has even met him virtually; she just has no first-hand knowledge of him and wouldn’t recognize him in a crowd.

The Adam in this axiom is, of course, the first-created man, introduced to us — and into the world — in the Book of Genesis. In the expression, the comparison is to this historical Adam, who predates us to such a degree that no one can say for certain what he looked like, even though he’s familiar to us by reputation. In this same sense, being the archetypal human being, Adam represents all mankind, and she simply can’t distinguish the person being discussed from anyone else amongst the 9 billion of us traipsing about the Earth today.

A variant to this expression has perhaps passed into history, though the sentimental amongst us can still listen for Nick, the new owner of Martini’s tavern, tell the never-was George Bailey,“I don’t know you from Adam’s off-ox,” in the Christmas classic “It’s a Wonderful Life.” The off-ox is the one behind the first ox relative to the driver, and thus, is least visible — and thus difficult to discern from any other ox.

“Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”
— Genesis 2:7, Scripture from The Holy Bible, New International Version

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Many of our most popular idioms that endure to this day stem from the Good Book – or rather, the 66 great books that make up The Holy Bible. Somehow – miraculously – dozens of these colloquialisms from millennia ago have survived multiple translations and innumerable cultures through time to remain in common use today. Idioms From Heaven collects, dissects, and shares this pithy wisdom to edify and educate all.

Idioms From Heaven

As I read the Bible, I’m awestruck by the many phrases, terms, aphorisms and expressions that I read that are in the contemporary colloquial, but that clearly had their origin in the Bible.  Idioms From Heaven unpacks these by describing where they originated and how current use is similar or different from original use.