Biblical references generally sail right past me. I’m lucky if I catch that it IS a biblical reference. But for those who grew up enmeshed in religion, a world of associations comes along with references like these.
My friend, raised in the Church of the Nazerene, is a walking Biblical reference book. Throw a name at him, or a verse, and he’ll shoot back the story. I quizzed him on Jephthah, because I thought it might be an obscure reference, you know, not Noah or Cain or Abraham or something since I’d never heard of. But either everyone knows Jephthah or he’s really good at Biblical references or both, because he brought it right out. Standard child sacrifice story except with no last minute reprieve and Jephthah has to kill his daughter because she’s the first thing he sees after promising God to sacrifice the first thing he sees. Boom.
The Judeo-Christian God can be a real shit sometimes.
The Hamlet Project 