By DAVID YOUNT, Scripps Howard News Service

According to Genesis, God made woman by borrowing Adam's rib. A new book contends that women, in an attempt to gain equality between the sexes, have stolen men's spines.

If the ancient Romans had paid attention to the subversive letters St. Paul was writing from prison, they would have withdrawn his mailing privileges.

As a token of his devotion to the species, a dog lover has constructed a chapel for canines on his 175-acre property near St. Johnsbury, Vermont. It boasts stained glass windows and life-sized pew carvings depicting various breeds. The statue of an angel-winged Labrador retriever serves as a silent sentinel.

One of the requirements for graduation from my small Midwestern college was regular chapel attendance. By the 1950s, students were no longer expected to worship together but only to attend a weekly hour-long lecture from a distinguished visitor on some high-minded subject.

Every day was Father's Day for Jesus of Nazareth."Didn't you know I must be about my father's business?" he asked his mother, who thought she had lost her young son in Jerusalem, only to discover him in the temple, conversing with his elders about the heavenly Father of them all.

It's June again, the odds-on favorite month for weddings in America. More than 2 million American couples will pledge their troth this year -- most of them for the first time.Judging from photos on the wedding pages of the newspapers, those smiling couples in gowns and tuxedos are not only in love but persuaded that their marriages will last.

Americans typically disapprove of preachers telling their congregations how to vote in political elections. Our constitutional separation of church and state honors Jesus' directive to "render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."

Much of what we know about human anatomy and ancient civilizations can be credited to tomb raiders, who disinterred cultural artifacts as well as cadavers. Until fairly recent times the diggers were considered looters and criminals.

Truth may be stranger than fiction, but novelists work hard to ensure that their books are true to life.My wife, who writes murder mysteries set in present-day England, devotes a portion of our twice-yearly sojourns in the UK to exploring the sites where her adventures take place. Becky's imagination is buttressed by detailed fact checking.

Despite gains in reducing world poverty, 1 billion people continue to live on just a dollar a day -- the accepted measure of absolute poverty. It was not a famine that precipitated the new crisis, but the economics of the global marketplace.