Is Jesus Famous for the Bed?
When I ask a group of students, "Who's famous for the car?" they say "Ford", then I ask, "Who's famous for the light bulb?" they say "Edison", then I ask, "Who's famous for the bed?" and most are stumped, and say they never thought about it, but once in a while a person in a group will quickly say/guess Jesus. And when I ask why they say that, they say, "Because of the manger!".
The Jesus Bed Connection
Think and remember. Before the word sleep became part of our vocabulary, the word dead was used, meaning not conscious. The word dead covered all the conditions for being found not conscious. People 2000 years ago, not yet having the word sleep, would have described what the carpenter Jesus was doing as raising the dead. With hindsight, through the study of history, we can now see and understand that Jesus was raising the sleeping, by giving them beds. The manger, praying before going to bed, and the spread of furniture with Christianity, all points to Jesus being responsible mass utilization of the bed, in the same way Henry Ford is famous for the automobile. Jesus was not first with the invention of the bed, but he was first to realize everyone needs to sleep up off the ground. In this way, Jesus gave us life more abundant, much more healthier.
Not conscious. The meaning of deceased is that you do not wake back up. Many times people are thought to be deceased, but to have them conscious again in the story,or life, means they were miss-diagnosed. A good eye, someone alert to the signs of life can show that the person was miss-diagnosed, but that hurts the reputation of the person who signed the death certificate. Although less frequent today, this still happens. Jesus got into trouble mainly because of the politics of maintaining reputations. This is why people used to have a "wake", because we are so prone to errors, even our health professionals.
What I have found, is that if you were to do historical research on the bed, and how we came to be using it, the accountings recorded in the New Testament then begin to make some sense, and can be found to be very helpful/useful in your quest for understanding. I'm talking history not religion.
The word dead was, and is, used to mean many different things. Radio went dead, batteries dead, wake the dead, etc. I think the word dead is used to mean many different things as found in the New Testament. From my studies of the Gospels, I can see the reasoning behind describing what the teacher/physician Jesus was doing as "raising the dead". Jesus would raise the intellect through teaching, raise the sick by getting them off the ground and into a raised bed where their energies could be utilized in healing rather than heating the ground, and when he quoted scripture the dead were raised. So I have no problem with people telling me Jesus raise the dead. But indications are that people that subscribe to, or go along with, the idea of Jesus raising the deceased, could be causing mankind's biggest problems.
The definition of the word deceased precludes its use in such a manner. The rules of language have made that not possible. It just shows people aren't thinking. The word deceased can only properly/correctly be used to describe a body's condition when consciousness is not possible again. If a person, is described by another, or others, as deceased, and then later that person is conscious again, the description had to have been an error. By definition, deceased people cannot be found conscious, as before. This is a rule some people seem to have problems excepting. The closest you can get is to raise people who were misdiagnosed as deceased. And the stories indicate Jesus was doing that also.
I am not saying Jesus was first with the word sleep, or with the bed. But that the New Testament has begun to present itself as an historical account of Jesus's efforts toward the mass-utilization of both the word sleep, and the bed. I think that from his studies of the Old Testament, Jesus learned this was important, and needed to be done/fulfilled.
In Mankind's vocabulary, as it has grown over the years, there was a time when the word sleep had not been introduced yet. And this is true for each word of mankind's vocabulary.
The New Testament teaches that 2000 years ago many people still were not using the word sleep yet. And many didn't think the bed was every important. But if you were trying to heal someone, then as today, the energy lost into the ground while sleeping on it, prevented, can be the difference between life and death.
"An individual in a bad society lives a bad life, an individual in a good society lives a good life." -Margret Mead.
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing." -- Edmund Burke
"Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language", by Ludwig Wittgenstein
Mark 9:26 And the spirit cried, and rent him sore, and came out of him: and he was as one dead; insomuch that many said, He is dead.
Mark 9:10 And they kept that saying with themselves, questioning one with another what the rising from the dead should mean.
Luke 9:60 Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God.
Matthew 7:14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
Alan
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