How is this any different than someone who can quote any obscure verse from Habakkuk? Or someone who knows how many times the number 40 appears in Scripture (86) and the only one of Christ's miracles to appear in all four Gospels. (feeding the five-thousand)
The truth is, being a regular geek and a Bible geek is a pretty closely overlapping Venn Diagram. The only difference is subject matter that causes us to geek out. While science fiction geeks will pore over internet articles dissecting their latest television craze, Bible geeks will delve into every new Bible commentary. And both will bore you to tears with what they've learned. Trivial means unimportant, and trivia is thus unimportant knowledge. At least, to most people it's unimportant. For geeks of any stripe, it's very important.
When you watch a movie with a regular geek, they'll annoy you by either quoting the entire movie as you're watching it, or pointing out all the little trivia tidbits you didn't really want to know. Don't even think about watching one of the Harry Potter movies with them unless you want to know precisely how the movie differs from the book, down to specific lines of dialogue that they altered or removed.
Bible geeks will cause every Bible study to grind to a screeching halt as they point out what it says in the original Greek. They'll whip out that concordance and flood the discussion with twenty verses on the same theme, and if they've got the app, and you know they do, they give you every single translation for those 20 verses.
Of course, being a geek is more than just knowing trivia, it's also having about the most absurd and obscure arguments imaginable. Geeks argue over who is the best animated voice of Batman (Kevin Conroy, and if you disagree you're wrong) while Bible geeks have been debating what Paul meant by a thorn in his flesh for two millennia. Outsiders don't get it, but for geeks, these knock down, drag out fights over the tiniest detail is what gives life meaning, especially when we get to prove someone wrong.
However, we geeks are also troublemakers because we love asking difficult questions. When we watch Lord of the Rings, we wonder why they just didn't get one of those giant Eagles to fly The One Ring to Mordor. We're even worse when it comes to any movie involving time travel, because there's going to be a paradox somewhere and we just have tell you where it is. It makes us annoying to hang around, because we'll ruin all of your favorite movies.
Bible geeks are even more dangerous. They'll ask you how many angels appeared at Christ's empty tomb. Was it one, according to Matthew and Mark? Or was it two, according to Luke and John? Don't even get them started on Cain's wife. What they don't understand is that people in the church don't like it when you point out the plot holes.
So it's hard to be a geek of any stripe, but we soldier on. We know that somewhere, somehow, someone will want to know which episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer featured Amy Adams, or what a cubit is, and we'll be there. Such is our lot, and we wouldn't have it any other way.
If you want to see more of my geekiness, check out Guardians of Suncast Dale, a satirical fantasy adventure on Nook and Kindle. My Christian Scripts also approach faith from a clearly geeky angle. (Both acute and obtuse.)
No comments:
Post a Comment