I was a church going kid; methodist at the time; and I remember being into the Psalms for a while. When I came across:
The years of our life are threescore and ten,
or even by reason of strength fourscore;
yet their span is but toil and trouble;
they are soon gone, and we fly away.
when I was like 9-10 years old, and I translated the 3 score and 10 and fourscore into 70 and 80 – I was like, WHAT!? but my teachers are telling me people used die at 30 years old everywhere.
Definitely cognitive dissonance for me at the time. Of course it was unclear teaching on their part; but that was one of those cases where I went, “Oh, lookie here; Bible 1 – School 0 on that mark.”
I’m agnostic now (entirely – I don’t know if there is or isn’t, and both options are fine with me) – but it helped start a lifetime of questioning teachers and also seeing that there might be _some_ good truths to be found in any document, if you just look at it the right way.
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