His Name Is John

I am struck by the account in the Bible in the first chapter of both Luke and Matthew where Zacharias is made speechless by the Angel Gabriel for doubting that his aging and “barren” wife Elizabeth could be having his child.  Later on it mentions that when the child is born, everyone is arguing about Elizabeth telling them his name will be John.  Nobody in the family is named John and so they turn to Zacharias and ask him what the name should be by ‘making gestures and signs.’

Now the first thing that comes to mind is why are they making gestures and signs?  Why didn’t they just ask him?  He’s not deaf, he is without the ability to speak.  Now I suppose Gabriel maybe overdosed him a bit when he zapped him and took out his hearing ability as well, but I’m more inclined to think that it’s something else.  Some of these people at the circumcision were possibly not locals or even relatives who had been around him for the last few months.  They have a guy who can’t speak, and since most deaf people don’t learn to speak (or speak clearly) they talk and ‘hear’ with gestures.  I have a lot of experience with this since I have several deaf friends and my daughter is a deaf sign interpreter.  Most deaf people don’t speak out loud a lot.  So many people would be used to a person who couldn’t speak ‘talking with gestures’ and would fall into the trap of communicating with him that way.  It’s also possible that the signs and gestures were after he was asked out loud, and he was trying to communicate the name to them with gestures, and they wound up gesturing back until Zack finally gets frustrated and asks for a piece of paper to write on.

It’s just one of the more interesting ‘inconsistencies’ that non-believers like to point out when they are discounting the truth of the Bible.  One of the things I learned as a police officer is that testimony is often inconsistent in little ways when it’s perfectly true…it’s actually one of the things that immediately made me suspect it was truth.  When things are identical it is often because they are rehearsed fabrications by a group to sell a lie.  Now, I’m not saying that gross inconsistency is a sign of truth.  However, little inconsistencies can often be explained by circumstance, culture, point and time of viewing and hearing an interaction, and so forth.

So take those curious little things in the Bible for what they are…more proof that the account is accurate.