September 14, 2006God helps those who tie ropes around their ankles
A surefire method for drawing chuckles from a crowd of longtime believers is to reference the widespread belief among the less biblically initiated that Ben Franklin's aphorism "God helps those who help themselves" is found in the Bible. Of course, because we all know better, we feel obligated to be slightly amused at the ignorance of others.Same setup, different content: for whatever reason, I am greatly amused by the popularity of the belief that OT priests, on the Day of Atonement, tied ropes around their ankles before entering the Holiest Place, so that if the bells attached to their garments stopped ringing, those outside would be able to retreive the body of the (presumably unclean) priest who had angered God.
'T ain't so. Or, at least, there's no evidence that it was so.
Check out this article and this article. Both articles rightly note that the specifications for the priestly garments did include bells. However, the whole rope-the-dead-priest story has no scriptural support. In fact, it doesn't seem to have any historical support until the Middle Ages. No Talmud, no Mishna, no Josephus. Furthermore, the second article to which I linked points out that the priest, when entering the Holiest Place, would have already removed the outer garment with the bells on the hem, which would, I suppose, make listening for those bells a bit more challenging.
Now, I must admit that there was a time that I not only believed this story, but also believed it was in the Bible, until I was informed otherwise in a class with Dr. Michael Barrett at BJU. I don't remember the class or the context in which the issue came up; I just remember being stunned that a story that we all just knew was in the Bible simply wasn't.
To be honest, I'm not trying to make some big important point in posting this ("See, this just goes to show how biblically illiterate/gullible/insert-your-own-criticism-here we are!"). I just wanted to pass along my amusement. To be clear, however, I do want to say this: I'm not mocking anyone who believed this or who has taught it. That truly isn't why this amuses me. What amuses me is thinking about how a story like this has become so embedded in our mental canon that we're all just befuddled when we hear it challenged the first time.
And, quite frankly, it's almost tempting not to post it, as it's way more fun to tell people in person, just to watch their reactions. So I'll pass along that privilege to both of my faithful readers.