"If you see this..." he went on, flipping through various passages in the Bible, giving me the reasons why the Bible is factual, as opposed to a story written by a little jew.

One of the passages he elaborated on at length was that of the piercing of Jesus' side, in the gospel by John. In the gospel, "blood and water" flowed out of the wound.

"If you just read that, you might be wondering how it can be blood and water. If you pierce somebody, that person should just bleed -- it should be simply blood that flows out of the wound. But in the Bible he specifically mentions blood and water. How can this be, right? Doctors have been asked about this, and the reasoning is that when a person dies, blood and plasma separates. When Jesus was pierced, the blood that flowed out of the wound was plasma, which is water-like, and blood, indicating that Jesus had really died on the cross.

"Why would somebody who was trying to convince others about the validity of events write 'blood and water' when he could have simply written 'blood' and be more convincing? Obviously John wrote what he saw, paying close attention to the details and being as factual as he could. Back then they wouldn't have known about the separation of blood and plasma, but he wrote what he saw. 'Blood and water' clearly proves that what has been said in the Bible is the truth."

After I had heard this and other similar arguments for the validity of the Bible's historical truth, I was very tempted to stand up walk off. The ease with which he used the word "prove" was too much for me to bear. One cannot prove that everything in the Bible is true because of the attention to details in the crucifixion, as much as one cannot prove that ghosts exist because of Shakespeare's gift in making his characters in Macbeth seem so real.

I was also tempted to rebut him, but knowing how sensitive people are to matters on religion, I contained myself and shut up. I nodded my head courteously and stared out into the oven conditions in front of me. It was at this point I was asked to take up position in the parade square, so I excused myself and walked off.

I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl. Job 31:1