The mysteries of the Bible aren’t secret, but you’ll never hear about most of them in a sermon or regular conversation.
The flying scroll and the woman in the basket
Some of the weirdest imagery in all of Scripture is found in Zechariah.
One vision is of a massive flying scroll thirty feet in length. He then sees a woman sitting in a basket covered with lead who is personified as “Wickedness.”
Two women with the wings of a stork fly her away. It sounds more like something out of a current-day science fiction film than ancient prophecy. It’s a very mechanical-sounding description about transporting evil from one location to another.
This is a weird passage that even scholars have a hard time interpreting with traditional metaphor.
The literal giants on Earth
Long before Noah and the flood, the Bible mentions Nephilim. The popular theory says that the “sons of God” fathered children with women. Those offspring were giants.
We’re not talking about just above-average height men here. Scripture describes these people as great men of old. Centuries later, spies were sent into Canaan by the Israelites. They returned frightened, stating how they felt like grasshoppers next to the people there.
There always seems to be this idea of a different kind of human that once lived alongside us, yet the Bible never explains what happened to them or what they really were.
400 years of total silence
There is a gap of almost 400 years between the writing of the last book of the Old Testament and the first book of the New Testament. It’s four hundred years of God not speaking to his people.
No prophets. No new words. No direction on how to live in a world that was being taken over by Greeks and Romans.
It seems odd that God would remain silent for 400 years. It’s longer than America has even existed.
We gloss over the page turning from Malachi to Mathew like it’s instantaneous, but generations went by in silence that impacted the culture forever.
The Witch of Endor’s success
King Saul visited a medium during one of the darkest times of his life. He wanted to summon the spirit of the dead prophet Samuel, which was against everything he had previously outlawed.
It’s tempting to think the medium was conning Saul. But notice, the Bible says she succeeded and was frightened when the real spirit of Samuel answered. He did not return as some evil demon or deceit. He foretold Saul’s death accurately.
It’s pretty incredible that Samuel even spoke to her. But, if it were a real possibility to speak with the dead, why didn’t others try to do the same thing?
We never hear of this occurring again in the Bible. Maybe this was God allowing it for a reason. To get back at Saul and prepare him for what was about to happen.
The man who never died
You’ve probably heard of Enoch but Melchizedek is a much stranger story from the book of Genesis. Out of nowhere, he appears, designated as a “Priest of the Most High God,” blesses Abraham, then vanishes just as mysteriously.
Later on in the New Testament, he is described as having no father, no mother and no beginning of days or end of days. To me, that reads less like a person and more like an immortal.
To this day, there is controversy over whether he was a Christophany or some form of supernatural being who existed outside of time.
The “other” books mentioned in the text
Did you know that there are books quoted in the Bible that we don’t have. Do the titles “Book of Jashar” and “Book of the Wars of the Lord” ring a bell?
Apparently, they were historical documents that were considered reliable by the writers of Scripture and their contemporaries. We have the quotations and we have the citations, but the source material has been missing for an entire millennium.
The resurrection of “the Many”
Just after Jesus died, Matthew gives us one of the craziest, shortest verses in the Gospels. The tombs were opened and “many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised.”
This was not a vision. This was not a parable. Those were real bodies walking the streets of Jerusalem.
It’s one of the most miraculous things in the New Testament. You rarely hear about it. Pastors and scholars tend to breeze over this miracle because it defies our expectations of Scripture and has too many unanswered questions.
The mystery behind the scapegoat
On the Day of Atonement, every year, the high priest would sacrifice two goats. One goat was sent off into the wilderness for “Azazel.”
While most English translations simply call it “scapegoat,” the Hebrew implies that it was being given to someone or sent off to the desert depths. By letting it go, the community cast their sins and misdeeds away from themselves.
Who or what was this mysterious Azazel? Enormous mystery surrounds this character, with some old writings claiming him to be a fallen angel or desert demon.
The Ark of the Covenant’s disappearance
The Ark was said to have split waterways, brought down fortresses, and held God himself. And then, just like that, it disappears from history.
King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon burned and looted the temple, but there is no mention of the Ark of the Covenant.
A popular theory suggests it was stashed away in a hidden cave. Others believe it was transported to Ethiopia. Many theorize that it was destroyed with the temple. We’ll likely never know.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
10 remarkable facts about Mary, the mother of Jesus
Mary’s easily one of the most important people in all of biblical history, and here are ten remarkable facts about her that you may not know.
