11-28-12 In the Beginning Was the Word

I'm no Bible expert but I know of at least two books in the Christian Bible that start with "In the beginning. . . " One is Genesis and the other is John, in the New Testament. This photo (yes, I took the picture!) shows the first line from the Koine Greek New Testament, which I still have from my college days.The inspiration for today's photo is a diesel student of mine named Connor, whom I have in a communications class. In short, he said a few days ago that he thought I would make a good diesel mechanic because, as he said it, "You read. And people who can read can do anything."All of that got me thinking of the empowerment of precise language and fluent literacy. It also made me realize that with the right words, we can explain most everything that humans can sense and experience, including the diagnosis and repair of a diesel engine.John was talking about God when he refers to "the word." But the last word in my photo is "logos," which translated means "word." But it is also the basis of our word "logic." So maybe that was one of the manifestations of God: order, instead of chaos and clear explanations instead of confusion?As the voice of Stephen Hawking says at the beginning of the Pink Floyd song "Keep Talking,"

"For millions of years mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happenend which unleashed the power of our imagination: we learned to talk."

And if you made it this far in today's post, you must be fairly literate. :-)