What Whoopi Goldberg and Hollywood Squares Taught Me About Biblical Illiteracy
I was sitting on the couch, watching Hollywood Squares. You remember the show, don’t you? It was basically Tic Tac Toe, but with a celebrity trivia spin to it. There would be 9 celebrities set up in a 3 x 3 square. The contestant would pick one of the celebrities, and he/she would have to answer a trivia question. Because most of them were allegedly comedians, they would usually start off with a funny answer off the top of their head, and then give a final answer. The contestant had to then determine if they were going to go with the celebrity’s answer (true) or not (false). If the contestant was right, they got the square. If not, the opponent did. Then the winner was, obviously, the one who got three in a row.
This particular day, the category was “Old Testament”. I was in college at the time, where I was majoring in Religion with a minor in Biblical Studies. I was pretty familiar with Scripture, so I was paying extra attention. Also, I’m a nerd.
Whoopi Goldberg was asked, “In what book of the Bible would you find the story of Jonah and the whale?”
Super easy, right? Of course, we had to wait for the joke answer, which didn’t seem very funny to me at the time: “The big old book of lies.” And then it was very clear that Whoppi had absolutely no idea. So, what did she do? She replied with the one book that a lot of people seem to know, the first book of the Bible, Genesis.
Wow. Okay, obviously wrong, thought the college-age Bible scholar who had been going to church for nearly 20 years. But, certainly, the guest would be able to catch the mistake. She didn’t.
She agreed with Whoopi, and I smugly thought to myself, “Well, you just lost this game, moron.” (I don’t actually remember if the game was on the line, but I do remember thinking that this person was an idiot for agreeing with somebody who OBVIOUSLY had no idea what the answer was.)
And then something happened that completely blew my mind.
“That’s correct!” shouted the host, “The story of Jonah and the whale can be found in the Book of Genesis in the Bible. Circle get the square!”
I was dumbfounded. I immediately jumped out of my chair and screamed, “What?!? What are you talking about?! Are you stupid!?” Because that’s what you do when you are a Bible nerd, and EVERYBODY gets the answer wrong.
In case you are wondering why I was so in shock and had such a violent reaction to a stupid game-show question, the story of Jonah and the whale is found in the Book of JONAH!!!!! It’s pretty easy, right? I mean, the answer is IN THE QUESTION!!!
But not everybody has read the Bible, Swish. Chill out.
And it’s true. Not everybody has read the Bible. Not everybody grew up going to church, hearing the stories, and sitting through Miss Susie’s Sunday School lessons on the flannel board. This was really just the first time I saw the depth of biblical illiteracy in America.
I’m in a different place now than I was back then. I’m no longer smug about my Bible knowledge. Perhaps that’s something that should come when we spend more time actually reading it and allowing ourselves to be transformed by the words within. Being humble and understanding seems like a pretty good character combo, sounds a lot like somebody else that plays a prominent role in Scripture.
When I started this post, I had intended to spend some time talking about the story of Jonah itself, which now I think I’ll do another time. I did a sermon series on Jonah several years ago and had quite the epiphany about it since I was really reading it in depth for the first time in my life.
Where I really want to land is here: be gentle with those who don’t know what you know.
Sure, it seems obvious to you. Because you already know it. But you didn’t always. There came a point in your life that you came to know the thing that you know so well now. Trust me on this, there’s a whole lot out there that you don’t know, and you are going to want others to be gentle with you about it when you find out for the first time.
Besides, the world is going to be a lot better place if we simply try to understand one another better, instead of diving into our snap judgments about one another.
Be gentle. Be humble. Teach, don’t deride. And the world will be a better place.
