Jared posted a couple myth busters a few days ago (link defunct). The word sincere, he explains, did not come from the marketing language of Roman potters, as you may have been told, and Jesus actually talked about heaven more than hell, though he talked about hell a good bit.

Along that lines, I have a good source on an illustration I’ve read a few times and appears to have grown into a fish story. Jonathan Edwards, one of America’s best theologians, had many godly or otherwise productive children, grandchildren, and so on. Comparing his family to that of another man who lived at the same time is meant to illustrate the fruit of a godly life. Here’s the account from an article by Leonard Ravenhill:

A thin crust, a very thin crust of morality, it seems to me, keeps America from complete collapse. In this perilous hour we need a whole generation of preachers like Edwards.

“O Lord of hosts, turn us again; cause Thy face to shine upon us, and we shall be saved.”

Contrast this great man of God with his contemporary. I quote from Al Sanders in Crisis in Morality!

Max Jukes, the atheist, lived a godless life. He married an ungodly girl, and from the union there were 310 who died as paupers, 150 were criminals, 7 were murderers, 100 were drunkards, and more than half of the women were prostitutes. His 540 descendants cost the State one and a quarter million dollars.

But, praise the Lord, it works both ways! There is a record of a great American man of God, Jonathan Edwards. He lived at the same time as Max Jukes, but he married a godly girl. An investigation was made of 1,394 known descendants of Jonathan Edwards of which 13 became college presidents, 65 college professors, 3 United States senators, 30 judges, 100 lawyers, 60 physicians, 75 army and navy officers, 100 preachers and missionaries, 60 authors of prominence, one a vice-president of the United States, 80 became public officials in other capacities, 295 college graduates, among whom were governors of states and ministers to foreign countries. His descendants did not cost the state a single penny. ‘The memory of the just is blessed’ (Prov. 10:7).

To us this is the conclusion of the whole matter.

This is a better account than the one I’ve seen more often, but the details are not as accurate as they should be. According to the March 8, 1902, issue of The School Journal, the numbers vary a bit.

Suffice it to say, “The almost universal traits of the ‘Jukes’ were idleness, ignorance, and vulgarity. These characteristics led to disease and disgrace, to pauperism and crime. They were a disgustingly diseased family as a whole. There were many imbeciles and many insane.”

There’s much more to say about the Jukes and Edwards families and what they may teach us about discipleship or public education.

In the version of the story I have, Jukes’ name is claimed as the origin of the word juke, meaning “to fake or deceive.” No, it wasn’t. It’s from a word meaning “wicked, disorderly” in a Southern English creole.

This is not so much a busted myth as a clarification. I hope I have edified you.