Book of Deuteronomy Trivia

Brain Snacks: Tasty Tidbits of Knowledge

Let's talk lifespan. Moses lived to be 120 years old, and in Genesis 6:3, God said that 120 years was the maximum for humans. Go Moses! Psalms 90:10 says that a regular lifespan is 70, or at best 80. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it's 77.9. Way to be accurate, Bible.

In 2003, a federal court ordered the removal of a Ten Commandments monument from the state courthouse in Alabama, arguing that the monument violated the separation of church and state. Opponents countered that Mosaic law is the foundation of the U.S. legal system. Whatever the case, the Ten Commandments are still making a splash.

How's this for a misunderstanding: Remember how Deuteronomy 6:8 states that God's commandments should be bound around the hands and forehead? Well, a flight from New York to Kentucky was diverted to Philadelphia when a Jewish teenager took out his tefillin to pray. Some people on the flight thought the young man was strapping a bomb to himself. Eventually, everything was cleared up, but a good, solid reading of Deuteronomy might have prevented the whole fiasco. Just saying.

Quick! What rhymes with Deuteronomy? In T.S. Eliot's poem "Old Deuteronomy," the poet uses the words "physiognomy," "economy," and "gastronomy." Not spot on, but we have to give him credit. Can you think of any more?