You know that sometimes when Ma wakes up in the middle of the night she has revelations. Well she had one on Thursday but we saved it for today because it’s religious. Some of you might even say sacrilegious! Please don’t be offended she is old and means no harm!!
Anyway to understand this you will have to read quite a bit of background. See Ma grew up in the Church of Ireland and in their Book of Common Prayer there is the Rite of Holy Communion.
Now Ma attended church every Sunday since she was born so she became very familiar with the text. Within the service the priest can choose from different sayings taken from the New Testament and one of these is First Timothy 1;15. Ma knows them off by heart.
So for some reason this came into her head and then it struck her. Oh my lands this is so similar to the first sentence in Pride and Prejudice. She as you know is much enamored by the tale and also knows a lot of it by heart.
Why oh why had she not thought of this before? She couldn’t wait for morning she had to google if anyone had ever published anything on this idea! Well NO THEY HAD NOT.
So I now have the privilege to reveal this discovery to you. Compared if you will the two texts side by side!
Here is the piece from Paul to Timothy as stated in the 1962 edition of the Book of Common Prayer and below it the first line of Pride and Prejudice!
Can you spot the similarities! They have the same number of words exactly and they both speak of truth and global understanding and they both have hero a single young man!
Ma is now convinced that good old Jane Austen who incidentally was a Church of Englands priests daughter hit on her famous line while sitting thinking in church.
So now that you have recovered from your faint and are willing to continue reading. Here is the big question. Did Jane model Darcy on Jesus?
Ma had to google this also and it seems that some have suggested this previously but never in the context of Timothy only on Darcy virtues of love and forgiveness!
There, don’t ever say we don’t give you epic topics to reflect on. Bet you’ll be tossing this around in your mind for weeks. Ma may look into doing another Ph.D on the subject.
Blessing#2690-Food for Thought
Booming Banter 