I came upon something really odd today and couldn't help but share it with you all.
So I have a weakness that not many know of - call it my own personal kryptonite if you will.
I like superheroes. (This is not the odd thing I mentioned. I'm getting there - don't worry!)
Not all superheroes, and I'm not a comics geek by any means, but I do like movies about them. Maybe more on this later. Anyway, I saw part of Captain America: Winter Soldier the other day. At the end of the movie, the viewer is treated to a picture of a headstone.
Being the person I am, I naturally looked up the Bible reference, Ezekiel 25:17. It's a quote by God to Ezekiel.
"And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them." (KJV)
Okay, unusual choice for a headstone, but I wasn't too surprised, given the nature of the person for whom the stone was intended. I was a little confused by "The path of the righteous man..." bit on the stone, but figured there was an in-joke I was missing.
So I googled it.
And I found two different types of results.
Half of the results were from various online Bibles, and read like the quote I just gave you. The other half referred to a quote starting "the path of the righteous man," just like the headstone.
What???
I double and triple checked the scripture reference. I read the whole of Ezekiel chapter 25 to see if I was missing something. Nope, no mistakes on my part.
Strangest of all, nobody online appeared to have any idea that the Ezekiel 25:17 they were quoting was not the Ezekiel 25:17 in any Bible translation I could find. About the only thing the two quotes had in common was the word "vengeance." Here's the other one.
"The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee."
See what I mean?
Anyway, turns out pseudo-Ezekiel 25:17 is actually from the R-rated 1994 movie Pulp Fiction. Made up by director Quentin Tarantino and the actor who delivered the line, Samuel Jackson, this so-called "quote" is a mishmash of biblical-sounding language being passed off as a Bible verse.
Does that make anyone else mad? It annoys me severely. The two quotes don't even mean the same thing! Well, the meaning of the Tarantino quote is apparently debated during Pulp Fiction, but it runs along the lines of the speaker delivering vengeance as they see fit. On the other hand, if you actually read Ezekiel 25, you'll see that the Lord is angry at the Philistines for taking vengeance into their own hands. As a response, he warns that vengeance is God's prerogative alone, and he will rebuke them for their presumption and wickedness.
I could go on with that train of thought, but I won't. People choose to interpret the Bible in many different ways, and I don't want to get into a fight about it.
My main pet peeve about this whole situation is that in 1994 some filmmakers decided to pass their own philosophy off as a Bible verse. I have no problem with them stuffing their movie full of their ideas - it's their movie after all - but it bothers me that they deceitfully attributed it to another source, especially the Bible! If I did that in a research paper, I'd lose points. It's like reverse plaigerism, in a way.
I found this whole situation very odd. Embarrassing too, that so many people seem to accept this mythical quote without a second thought. Very few people in my Google search even seemed to notice the discrepancy. (Kudos to those who did, by the way!) Does nobody else look up scripture references these days?
Finally, I'm embarrassed for the directors of Captain America: Winter Soldier. Did they not notice that they were referring to a twenty-year-old movie quote that never existed in the Bible? Or did they actually mean to put the Ezekiel verse in and messed up? Maybe they thought that nobody would really look up the reference? Or maybe they gave the job of designing the headstone to some hapless crew member with a passion for old R-rated movies and no Bible. I don't know. But it is very odd that they would let it slip through like that.
Or maybe...
No, it couldn't be.
Maybe it's a secret message.
Maybe since the quote is mythical, it's a message meaning the death itself is mythical and the dead person could still be alive!
I think that's giving them too much credit, personally.
