An Academic And Dumbo...

In one of Disney's classics, Dumbo, we have one of the characters reciting something akin to this:

I have seen a dragonfly, I have seen a horsefly, aye, I have even seen a housefly, but I have never seen an elephant fly!

Spot the odd one out.

Yes, you have quite likely got it right. The housefly of course! Dragons quite likely existed in real life in the past. After all, the Chinese take it so seriously in their New Year celebrations. And St George slaying the dragon, a patron saint of England, is he not? Or was he born at Cappadocia in Turkey around the third century AD and lived all his life around that vicinity? And a beast also identified as a dragon by the apostle John in the Bible.

Then there is Pegasus, a winged horse on which an ancient Greek hero Bellerophon tamed and rode upon to slay some weird creature, the Chimera. I have a hunch that the shoulder muscles of a typical horse are not adapted to carry a pair of wings. Moreover, to get such a large animal off the ground, wouldn't it need a large hydrogen sac under its spine? Then with the gas generated by bacteria living inside it, together with a skeleton built of light, hollow bones, like that of any bird? Surely, it was this bacteria-generated hydrogen in a large sac and a light-structured skeleton which enables the dragon to fly. As for the elephant, hmm, it's lucky enough just to momentary stand on its hind legs.

Oh, how I love to apply real-life science to popular myths! Who knows, it might prove that winged horses were a reality in the past, and perhaps there might even have been a pair in Noah's ark!

Dumbo was different though. He managed to train his huge ears, characteristic of the African Elephant species, to make them aerodynamic enough to fulfil the imaginations of young children. And also successful enough to enable Disney's theme parks in both California's Santa Ana and Florida's Orlando, into very profitable businesses aimed in entertaining the family. As far as I remember, Disneyland in California did feature a Dumbo ride. However, I left Dumbo for the kids and went for the much gutsier Space Mountain indoor roller-coaster, indeed, making this fast ride the climax of the 1977 and 1978 visits.

As for the housefly, with the house being inanimate making it the odd one out...well, I'll leave that to your imagination. Except that through man's ingenuity, the flying house does now exist! Only it's owned or used privately by royalty or the mega-rich. Passenger aeroplanes have known to be bought and had its interior renovated to function as a self-contained suite, and the owner or the hiring passenger can live in it as comfortably whilst at 35,000 feet, or 10,670 metres high in the air.

The Greek hero Bellerophon astride his winged mount soaring into the air would be of special interest to TV presenter and author Prof Michael Scott. This is one fellow I happen to admire. This Warwick University Professor of Classics and Ancient History holds a PhD, an M.Phil and a BA, along with twelve academic awards, including the National Teaching Fellowship which is the highest award any academic can get. He wrote seven books and made contributions into four encyclopedias. He wrote several reviews including into national newspapers, along with 22 academic papers and thirteen different articles. He also delivered 17 lectures and 12 tutorials.

Wow! What a Big Shot he is. Yet what was it which brought out my admiration of him? Basically, his down-to-earth personality which excludes snobbery. Being "stuck up" - this "them-and-us" characteristic of such educated people was absent, making him instantly likeable. This is endorsed by the casual dress he always wore when presenting his documentaries on television, such as one programme shown only last night which was shot in Cairo. Never seen in a suit and tie, but instead appears with his shirt unbuttoned, and thus identifying himself as one with the rest of us.

And earlier this year, just before the Coronavirus breakout, not only I had the privilege to attend one of his lectures at the University of London on the ancient Roman city of Herculaneum, but also to ask him personally a question on what has become of the upturned hull of a boat that was found there.

He was stumped. He couldn't answer my question. And for such a learned man such as he, I was quite mystified. Fortunately, an archaeologist was nearby who also heard my question and answered it for me. For the record, the Roman boat was carefully excavated and is now housed in a museum nearby.

Prof Michael Scott.

Maybe I have betrayed my own ignorance in that room, rather than that of the professor. I was unaware of the probability that Ancient Greek Classics is a different subject altogether from Archaeology. And I asked a question touching on archaeology rather than classics, even if the lecture was about what was excavated rather than fighting among ancient Greek gods.

But I have found that believing in the fable of Bellerophon astride Pegasus is very different from believing in the historicity of Divine Creation. The latter is very relevant to day-to-day living. And daily dependency on God.

A few years ago, one of our church members, himself an academic and author, in a sermon touching on the first chapter of Genesis, he levelled its historicity to an ancient Babylonian fable, the Enuma Elish, telling on how the Universe, our earth and all life was created by a pantheon of warring deities, where jealousy and murder were involved. With himself being an academic, I wouldn't be at all surprised that many of his listeners had fallen into the trap, being a learned scholar, therefore his word being taken and believed on as authentic.

Here I believe that differentiating between the historicity of the Bible from ancient Babylonian, Greek and Roman fables to be vitally important for the credibility of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And faith in the Gospel can be stretched to the limit when earlier in the week, my beloved felt woozy, dizzy and experienced a headache. So she phoned a non-emergency medical call centre. After describing her recent breast cancer history, a clinician phoned back with a suggestion that either she has an infection in her middle ear, or terrifying enough, her cancer had moved to her brain, and as such, an ambulance will be sent to take her to the hospital.

Once there, I received a phone call with the news that she will be due for an X-ray on the next day and therefore will be kept in overnight. She has a mobile phone that is mistakenly set not to receive calls, but with it, she can only make calls. And so I was alone at home, unable to get to her nor to the hospital staff either. I was totally under the mercy of providence.

The next morning the phone rang. It was Alex, and I was prepared to hear the news of her discharge. But instead, she says that she was tested positive with Coronavirus, and will be transferred to the ward for patients with Covid-19. I was stunned with shock! Whenever imagination runs wild, this was one occasion.

Visions of my beloved entered my mind, Visions of her in an isolation unit with a ventilator down her throat, that dreadful phone call from the hospital bearing the news that she had passed away. I look around as I sat alone in our living room. Widowhood? No, I was not at all prepared for widowhood, and no one, no one, could ever replace her! Everything reminds me of her: all the little ornaments I bought for her throughout our marriage, the photographs of her and us on holiday, everything else which are specifically hers, all these are around me.

Have you ever felt that you want to cry and shed bucketloads of tears, but somehow can't? Indeed, that was how I was feeling - a twisted cord of emotions, yet the Endocrine system of glands responsible to get me to actually cry remains stubbornly inactive.

I contacted all five of our Elders by email to set up a prayer network within our church for Alex. Prayer. Prayer based on faith in Jesus Christ - his death by crucifixion, his burial and his resurrection after three days. And belief in Divine Creation as historical being so vital for the veracity of the Gospel and the power of prayer which arises from it.

It was a terrible day. Caught in an emotional vortex, I also suffered loss of appetite. It was in the afternoon when the phone rang again. Expecting the worst, Alex informed me that preparations for discharge were made. I felt a flush of relief, then a feeling of frustration when it was said that before she can go home, she is to have her X-ray done on the advice of the clinician. But being busy, as she had to get behind a queue of patients before her turn came up. This, along with a delay in transport home, it was into the night before she finally arrived home, more than 24 hours after her departure to the hospital.

Can a house fly? Nowadays it can. Inside a modified airliner.

Now we are both at home together. She's on self-isolation for one week, I'm on for two weeks. In the days to come, we both need to watch for any deterioration of health in either of us. The dread of the ventilator or even widowhood hangs above us like a dark cloud.

But there is one very important thing we both must understand during these difficult times. God is in full control. He knows what's in our hearts, how we think and feel our fears, sorrows, and anticipations. God is fully in control, and as I said to Alex, our God is not too small after all, neither can anything happen behind his back.

Right now, neither of us are displaying any symptoms. But neither are we sitting on our laurels. We are hoping that these next couple of weeks will pass without any incident.

But having faith in God is absolutely vital. And that included accepting the record of Genesis as historical. As for lowering the Bible to the level of myth, there is no edification in reading or listening to the stories found in the Enuma Elish. As a matter of historical fact, I think that Dumbo with his aerodynamic ears is far more edifying than any stuff found in those Babylonian myths.