Excuse Me. The Cattle Were What?

One of my contributions with these modest little musings is to continually ask the tough questions. While listening to  “Away in a Manger” my inquiring mind kicked in. You likely know verse three of the song. The cattle are lowingThe poor Baby wakesBut little Lord JesusNo crying He makes As I listened an important series of difficult and probing inquiries popped into my head. I can’t answer the last question but I can help with the others. Lowing is defined at dictionary.com as “the characteristic sound uttered by cattle; a moo”. So little baby Jesus was awakened by the characteristic sound uttered by a cow. That would not have flowed well in the lyric so I understand using lowing. The next part of the song is disturbing to those of us who are or have been parents. If any of the babies who grew up in our household were awakened by cattle lowing they would be squalling (defined as “the characteristic sound uttered by a ticked off baby; a scream”).
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When Thomas Jefferson Tried To “Fix” The Bible

Thomas Jefferson is an enigma for many. Political enemies in his day accused him of being an atheist yet he started the statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom with the phrase, “Almighty God hath created the mind free.” He certainly would not have been invited to speak at an evangelical conference to share his view that most clergymen are “soothsayers and necromancers.” You likely have a bigger brain than I do but I will confess that I had to look up necromancers. It literally means one who interrogates the dead. Okay. Not sure what church Jefferson was frequenting. Jefferson believed that Bible needed to be fixed. He took out his scissors and cut out the parts of the Bible that he didn’t believe. He excised the virgin birth, all of the miracles and the Resurrection. He cobbled together a book he titled “The Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth”. His clippers removed every miracle while leaving teachings about helping the needy
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