Christmas Eve

It's Christmas Eve today - Yippee!!!!!!!

As I was pondering a few hours ago it occurred to me that Eve is another of these multi-meaning'ed words (i.e. it is polysemous, to use the technical term).

In my Advent Blog this year we began our considerations with the concept of Jesus being the Word of God who spoke at the moment of Creation when the Universe exploded into existence out of nothingness. That Bang occurred 13 Billion years ago, or thereabouts.

Although the first humans arose around 100,000 years ago, a mere eye-blink in the cosmic timescale, that moment is also so far in the past that there is no historical record that describes it.

However, the writers of Genesis gave the mythical First Man and First Woman the names Adam and Eve.

These are names that are based on the Hebrew words for Man and Living. Interestingly, the Greek Old Testament, the LXX dating from around 330BC, begins by using the Greek word Anthropos for the Man, and then the transliteration of the Hebrew, Adam.

But for the woman, she is initially described using the Greek word Gunaika, meaning woman or wife. Later Adam gives her the Greek name Zoe, which equates to the Jewish word Eve, meaning 'living'.

Adam and Zoe just doesn't have the same ring to it - and it's no use for Rhyming Slang either!

But the word 'Eve' is also short for the word evening, meaning the day before the Main Day. So we also get Hallowe'en (for Hallow Even), and New Year's Eve (or Hogmanay, in Scotland, just to be different!).

So today is now Christmas Eve, the day before Christmas Day.

Christmas Zoe doesn't quite have the same ring to it!
Although I know some nice people called Eve(lyn) and other nice people called Zoe!

Or we could call it Christmas Living.

I like that name better.

For Jesus not only said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life (Zoe)." I just realised that Jesus described himself as Zoe - now there's a bonus for all you people with the same name as Jesus!

And another thought, if Jesus could be called Zoe, he could also be called Eve! No wonder women had such high status in the Early Church. Maybe women have an unfair advantage in today's church too. Us Men need to get more involved!

Jesus also said that he had come that his followers might have life, and have abundant life, lots of life, be full of life, overflowing with life (bringing us back to the Psalm 23 imagery of my cup being full and running over I wrote about a couple of days ago).

Christmas is for Living!
Let's Live It Up this Christmas.
Christmas - Get a Life!
Christmas is for Life - not just for Dogs!

These are slogans that would resonate with the Culture of Celebration that surrounds Christmas these days.

Which one do you like best? (if any!)
Can you think of any others on the same theme?
Or Eve(n) on a different theme!
Drop me a Comment! (Registration not required.)