Hi, Eric - for anything Biblical-interpretation related, I trust Aaron Abke - you are probably familiar with him, he is prominent in the "calling out the BS" community. He has a degree from Oral Roberts U but has since balanced his Christian upbringing with blazing insights into the Bible that seem to come straight from Source. His Youtube channel alone is a gold mine!!!
"The template for autocracy, courtesy of the Demiurge."
Demiurge being a being responsible for the creation of the universe.
(in Platonic philosophy) the Maker or Creator of the world.
(in Gnosticism and other theological systems) a heavenly being, subordinate to the Supreme Being, that is considered to be the controller of the material world and antagonistic to all that is purely spiritual.
So this guy “The Lord”, the real big God’s side kick, who controls the narrative of the material world, is a known antagonist?! That explains a lot.
My version of the King James has decidedly different and simpler “lyrics” for this entire passage you quoted.
It is easy to see how these current atrocities in the land called Israel would inevitably occur if one believed these words with the fear prescribed to embody this recipe for salvation.
Who wouldn’t wanna be the chosen ones. If I believed what they believe, I would go along with the slaughter, wouldn’t you?
What more would this God have us do then? Tune into the place of knowing in the quiet stillness that is God in each of us? Here we wrestle the antagonist that was made for us to wrestle?
I always engage when folks like Mormons or JVs stop me on the street or knock on my door (I sat on my porch a dozen times with elder sisters Betty and Bonnie and discussed Jehovah) mostly to drop my two favorite ideas: my skepticism that evil is real and that Christ came here to show us we can All be Christ like.
There is no doubt in my mind that the scripture is full of paradox and gaslighting and wonder and magic and human stories of soul searching and serendipity and is largely symbolic, not literal. The fact that it has been under perrenial discussion regarding who gets to make the rules for the perception and ritual of their shared Abraham is what is insane to me. To truly consider the fact alone that it is a book written by human men should inform us that it will have implicit bias.
Like I would say to Betty and Bonnie I have no doubt there is a God, I just won’t call God Jehovah. I don’t mind the not knowing. How could I possibly know.
Love is indifferent.
This is not a pacifists excuse, however. It is a way of being free of fear in the mind so as to see and act clearly in the moment. I don’t know what the fuck is going on. People do a lot of things in the name of the big G that seem insane to me. If I can keep my heart and inner knowing consciously connected to Source I am better for it.
Well, it says they will do well if they keep His Commandments, the mitzvahs.. which include:
Not to oppress the weak—Exodus 22:21
Not to take revenge—Leviticus 19:18
Not to bear a grudge—Leviticus 19:18
Although it also includes 'To burn a city that has turned to idol worship'—Deuteronomy 13:17... Palestinians pray to the God of Abraham and even if one argued there was a defilement of the teaching with Islam, even still, a connected mitzvah says, 'Not to derive benefit from it'—Deuteronomy 13:18... There is much financial gain that has been accumulated the the Palestinian project. A terrible amount.
But it's the same, single God of Abraham, so, a moot point. And Israel isn't burning Buddhist cities.
Most of the Israeli people I met when I was there last year hated the way Netanyahu was pushing into the settlements. They thought he was flexing because of his perceived weakness with his failed attempt to hobble the courts and widespread criticisms. They knew something bad was going to happen. Their voices would lower when they spoke about it. A Jewish friend wouldn't join me in Jerusalem because she said it 'wasn't right'...
Same with the Palestinian family I stayed with in Jericho. My host literally said that Netanyahu was throwing his own people under a bus for his own ego. That was in August of last year. The expansion into the settlements was out of control, and repression of indigenous Palestinians, tearing down homes and family gardens because of an added bathroom that never received a permit-- though people apply and wait years to no avail.
They lost a close family friend on his wedding day because he was rushing across a street to pick up the flowers and reached into his pocket to answer a phone call.
It's shocking how much the bible is (still) used to push agendas. And terribly cynical; if they truly believed what it says they'd behave quite differently.
There are many beautiful Israeli people who hate what's happening.
This is the god of the old testament, The vengeful, at times petty, angry god., who was concerned about laws and sin and punishment. Jesus came and said, "wait a minute guys, you got God all wrong. God is loving and says love your enemies. If someone takes your coat offer him your shirt also. God loves all people even those you consider unclean so i hang out with the heathen and tax collectors. We are here to share, get along, turn the other cheek and love. "
Please read that sentence in context. Jesus was telling a story about a nobleman who went away and left money with servants to invest. So if I were to say quoting dr Fauci, " you must get your vax" did Alice tell people to get vaccinated?
You’re right that that was Jesus speaking for the King of his parable rather than Jesus speaking directly. But, the parable is to correct “the people [near Jerusalem who] thought that the kingdom of God was going to appear at once.” (Luke 19:11) So it’s a parable to tell the Jews to continue making money with money rather than doing nothing, (notably missing is any suggestion that they should create wealth with hard work and newly built products), lest they get punished by God—just like Yahweh said in the following verse.
Deuteronomy 15:6
“For the Lord your God will bless you as he has promised, and you [Jews] will lend to many [Gentile] nations but will borrow from none.”
In Deuteronomy 6:10-12, Yahweh proudly tells the Jews that he will give them “a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant”
Isaiah 10:13-14
“For he [God] says, ‘By the strength of my hand I have done this, and by my wisdom, because I have understanding. I removed the boundaries of nations, I plundered their treasures; like a mighty one I subdued their kings. As one reaches into a nest, so my hand reached for the wealth of the nations; as people gather abandoned eggs, so I gathered all the countries; not one flapped a wing, or opened its mouth to chirp.’”
And it’s important to know that Jews believe that God works through his “saints” as is explicitly said in the following verse from the Dead Sea Scrolls.
“The God of Israel has decreed war against all the Gentiles, and by the saints of his people he will act mightily.” (War Scroll, Col. XVI, line 1, from the Dead Sea Scrolls, cited by John M. Allegro in his book, The Chosen People, p. 252)
The king in Jesus’s parable said, “You knew, did you, that I am a hard man, taking out what I did not put in, and reaping what I did not sow.” (19:22)
The king is metaphor for Yahweh. So your analogy, of you quoting Fauci saying to get vaccinated, and me attributing the message to you is mistaken. A better analogy is to Deborah Birx quoting Fauci, which would have the same meaning as Birx saying it herself. The hated king is Yahweh, and he’s hated because he’s evil. Jesus affirmed the Old Testament many times in many places in the Bible.
Well, if it's King James, we know it's advertising, so why bother? But in general, I always suggest a good deep look at Joseph Campbell and Jung (with the proper understanding, which may not exist anymore) whenever one wants to start with religion, because the basics are so fucked up (the only categories of thought being believers and atheists) that it's really just waste of time, not to say the further propagation of the misunderstandings. Sorry, my English is a bit off today. Too cold. It's 14C outside. Who can live like that, for fuck's sake??
Dear EFC, have you been listening to the translations of Ammon Hillman? Dr. Hillman studied drugs in antiquity. Turns out that centuries later, the same terminology is all over the Bible. It is about drugs - and mythology. Not history. Best.
Although the word Israel is not mentioned in that passage, what it refers to is the idea that there is only one God above all, which is what Israel means. In other words, Israel was never a reference to a country, it was always a reference to a belief system.
Caught this late, but answering you anyway. These verses are part of the Pentateuch, which to me having read pieces parts seem to be designed to assert the divine right of kings above all else. The rulers of Israel and Judah are to be unquestionably obeyed, even though before the exile they still kept concubines, sacrificed animals, and made costly mistakes. They were still selected through divine intervention, as it were, so in spite of their shortcomings in not always heeding the word of Yahweh, they still as rulers of Israel in particular are considered as absolute in Gods favor. The common man does not fare so well and may even be put to death for making a mistake, especially in service to a ruler but that's moot, in the Pentateuch.
The thing is, Moses apparently never led anybody out of Egypt; there was no exodus, only a shift from polytheism to monotheism (the parting of the Red Sea) along with associating the king with the direct favor of Yahweh. Moses may have belonged to the Hyksos that ruled in Egypt for a time but were of Canaanite lineage. At least since the time of Pharaoh Akhenaten in Egypt there was a gradual movement around the Mediterranean elite to associate divine right of kings with monotheism, as the two institutions worked well together for the consolidation and welding of power.
The verses you list are quite neatly concerned with granting Jews the right to their original homeland after the Exile. Therefore devote sectors of the Jewish government and some religious leaders may feel quite justified to apply them today, to the current carnage going on between Israel and lands assigned as Palestinian but not granted any sovereign rights by Israel. The same set of verses would also be useful for any king or country around the Mediterranean under the influence of Judaism or Christianity, that would be looking for religious justification to use in seizing back lands once held in a previous time.
The Jews as they are known today did not always rule the coastal areas of present day Gaza strip and modern Israel, but Phoneticians and Canaanites did. Current anthropology findings even suggest that the original occupants that built the first formal building structures long ago were Aryan, not of Semitic heritage at all. The current DNA findings for Palestinians are 50% Canaanite and the rest Greek or Phonetician. Israelite DNA came in as 50% Canaanite and mixed other heritages such as Russian, Arabic, Sephardic, Ashkenazim, etc.
Seriously Eric, I think we need to be careful interpreting the Bible. Kind of a sensitive time to bring this up. I refer everyone to Karin Armstrong for serious study.
I love that, Eric! Also, we have some folks who want to display the 10 commandments everywhere, but actually following them has never crossed their minds.
This is a prophesy by Moses before Israel entered the Promised Land as to what will happen to them in the future, Assyria took Israel into captivity and then later Babylon took Judah into captivity and this told of a future time when the people would pray and seek God and he would return them to their land and it happened just like that when the Persians let them return under Ezra–Nehemiah. The circumcising of the heart just means that God changed their hardened hearts which were hardened against God causing their disobedience and exile to hearts obedient to God and he blessed them and returned them to the Promised Land. Prophesy totally fulfilled and does not apply to us or the Israel of today or anyone else.
This is state and socially sanctioned genital mutilation, by the way.
And how does this physical trauma affect men in the long term?
This is a question I have not had the bandwidth to begin to explore. I imagine it has incredible spiritual Implications, be it the hearts of our people or foreskins of our warriors.
Circumcision was to represent authentic faith in God. Circumcision of the heart represents the spiritual change of heart (as opposed to physical circumcision) that occurs when the spirit of Christ enters. Today, there is neither a religious nor medical justification for circumcision- the practice is a remnant of old Jewish law which Judaism stopped following shortly after Christ's life on earth.
In Judaism there is the idea of the Evil Inclination.
We all have a God given soul, but man has an evil inclination. It is innate in us, and it is a daily battle to not give in to it. Not to give in to temptation.
The more we move away from God and his guidance of how to live, the more likely we are to do evil, and to sin. When we rely on man to explain the mysteries of the universe, when we create idols, we turn away from our Godly soul, we will suffer hardships.
The passages 1-10 in Deuteronomy come after what can/will happen to the Nation of Israel when they do not obey the commandments, turn away from God and His ways becoming baseless people.
According to the Ramban,(a Sage: born around 1194 in Gerona, Catalonia, and died in 1270 in the Holy Land, specifically in Jerusalem).
these 10 passages are referring to a time when the Messiah will come. Not the present time, but a future time. These passages are explaining that after the Nation sins, and turns away, they will have the opportunity to repent, to return, and all will be well in the entire world. It is showing the eventual repentance and redemption.
Circumcising the heart means that God will assist you to overcome the hurdles that the Evil Inclination always places in our way, once you have purified yourself.
When the Messiah comes the profound change will occur and man will lose the inclination to do evil. The circumcision here is the removal from humanity of the natural desire to sin.
The effect is to separate boys from their mothers, who are supposed to protect them from this kind of insane pain. Male genital mutilation is the essence of what female advocates call "the patriarchy." Further, it completely rearranges men's relationship to their sexuality, cutting off hundreds of thousands of nerve endings. The foreskin is as sensitive as the clitoris. So just ask yourself what the effect would be of snipping off the clits of all three-day old girls (without anesthesia) and you will have your answer.
Let's not get too silly and conflate an old religious practice with modern woke ideology. Biblically, circumcision was demanded as an indication of one's genuine faith in God, nothing more. Why Christians ever adopted the practice is a mystery- my guess is because Christian teaching within most churches more closely resembles warmed over Judaism with its focus on sin, condemnation, and confession, rather than biblical Christianity which teaches freedom from those very things through Christ's death and resurrection. Christ had only one commandment, to love one's brethren as he first loved us.
For example, the feminist movement has turned nearly all children against their fathers, who are alienated from the household and seen largely as criminals rather than as the people who support the family financially. My mother, along with her feminist friends, sister and cousins, poisoned my relationships with my male relatives and with men generally. Further, I was taught that women are all-righteous, all powerful supreme beings who also must be fawned over and treated like perfect little ladies, cloak thrown over a puddle for them to walk on. I don't think you come from a liberal urban upbringing like most of us here on the coasts. But outside of fundamentalist religion, this is how men are treated. And that goes right along with snipping off their penis.
I was raised by a very traditionalist and artistic mother in Indianapolis and received a pretty liberal education. My family was always straddling the poverty line (sometimes we got free lunch, sometimes it was reduced), but she knew how to buy real estate and I grew up in the old farm house of what is an upper middle class neighborhood a mile from Butler University. The public schools were incredible in the 70’s and 80’s and I received a top notch education largely due to our zip code and my high standardized test scores.
I grew up resenting my mother’s subordination to her husbands. She was always self sacrificing for them and her 8 children. She honestly loved us all unconditionally.
Mothers have a lot to answer for. Women who are unprepared for motherhood, or who think they can juggle it with a professional career, do a lot of damage to children. Women who resent motherhood are extremely toxic. Many of us were raised by narcissistic mothers who made it all about them. Look carefully at who is blamed. Check out the constant vitriolic 24x7 attack on what assholes men are (and nothing else). Our "liberal" society now thinks the only good man is a trans woman.
Usually mothers are held harmless for the damage they do to their children, or the damage is said to be nonexistent. But to see that the feminist goggles must come off. Women do most of the child-rearing. That makes sense, since men build all of the bridges and tunnels you drive on. So if we are wondering where men come from, we need to look to the women.
I agree with MOST all of that. (The part of mothers being largely held blamesless is not an accurate statement, in my opinion as a mother.)
And yet there is a terrible loneliness and impossibility that individual women have been saddled with being responsible to do without the support of a village. The social isolation of mothers, the lack of support of the culture, the shadow work of housework and emotional lifting for everyone around her, the ideas of perfectionism, the guilt implicit in fucking up your kid if you do anything wrong... it goes on and on. There are plenty of fucked up moms out there- I am just looking at the parental fallacy that even as adults we get to keep blaming mommy for fucking us up when she often times needed some help herself. Honestly, it is another way feminism has abandoned women.
Yes, a tricky topic. Jobs are easy to find- and few jobs even require long hours or physical labor. So, the man's traditional role is easier than ever. But, how does a young woman today "find" a man who will love and respect her? Young men are notoriously poor at thinking with their upper brains- and under current cultural sex norms, what is to prevent young men from thinking with their lower brain, get what they want from a young woman, and then dumping her when convenient? Was "free love" not a boon to men and their desires? I have sympathy for women as they likely enjoy sex as much as men. But, in the dating world, a man not willing to wait is a man unlikely to make for a good husband and father. But, holding out is no guarantee- my mom followed that course, but ended up in a loveless marriage. Women have a more difficult role than men, and men being the often prideful characters they are, makes a woman's position even more precarious.
That's funny. I am personally highly favorable to moms whom I know personally, as long as they respect their children and as long as the baby daddy doesn't call the police on my little dog for nothing (as happened the last time I dated a mom). I deeply respect mothers and their efforts and would be supportive of any who took me as a friend. I love children and see them as my teachers. So tell me, where are all these lonely moms? Why am I not taking the kids out on Saturday afternoon just for the fun of it? I am friendly and accessible — and emotionally available. I think there is something else going on.
A LOT of people don't wanna get involved in other peoples lives. A LOT of people don't wanna help guide the little ones they run into because it is not their job. A LOT of people wanna judge the behavior of the children and project weird adult motivations onto them and their parents. A LOT of people still expect children to be seen and not heard, or better yet, just not seen at all.
I am not dismissing your points when I say that as a non-parent you may not have the aperture to see what I am pointing to. There is a weird veil in our culture that is between individualism and parenting. It's like a limited hangout that is suddenly opened, a world you didn't know was happening along side society that many of us were unprepared to navigate due to the separation of people from each other in the ways we live.
For example, I have been actively asking many men I respect and admire, men who are friends of mine, to mentor my son, even before his Dad (a heroin addict, in and out of our lives) died just before my son turned 15. What I am asking is for them to basically befriend him, what many hear is "help me raise" my son. Virtually no one has shown up for this kid. I am not asking for pity, and I work hard at not victimizing myself anymore. Luckily for my son, I have a very strong masculine streak and have made my mission to encourage positive masculinity, but I can't teach him about "being" a man. When he decided to start training in boxing I do everything in my power to support him and am glad to have found a sport that is famous for it's mentorship. It's been a god send for him.
for the answer to that, see above. I may be too generous with my love. And the other answer is, I'm not the guy with a million bucks who will save them. And having me as a friend will ward off "that guy."
Hi, Eric - for anything Biblical-interpretation related, I trust Aaron Abke - you are probably familiar with him, he is prominent in the "calling out the BS" community. He has a degree from Oral Roberts U but has since balanced his Christian upbringing with blazing insights into the Bible that seem to come straight from Source. His Youtube channel alone is a gold mine!!!
https://www.aaronabke.com/
https://www.youtube.com/@AaronAbke/playlists
I also think Marty Leeds might have some good insights?
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjcYXazpAS5g9uUEeQMAC4Q
Sincerely, Kimberly
CHARLIE LEMAY VIA EMAIL:
"The template for autocracy, courtesy of the Demiurge."
Demiurge being a being responsible for the creation of the universe.
(in Platonic philosophy) the Maker or Creator of the world.
(in Gnosticism and other theological systems) a heavenly being, subordinate to the Supreme Being, that is considered to be the controller of the material world and antagonistic to all that is purely spiritual.
So this guy “The Lord”, the real big God’s side kick, who controls the narrative of the material world, is a known antagonist?! That explains a lot.
My version of the King James has decidedly different and simpler “lyrics” for this entire passage you quoted.
It is easy to see how these current atrocities in the land called Israel would inevitably occur if one believed these words with the fear prescribed to embody this recipe for salvation.
Who wouldn’t wanna be the chosen ones. If I believed what they believe, I would go along with the slaughter, wouldn’t you?
What more would this God have us do then? Tune into the place of knowing in the quiet stillness that is God in each of us? Here we wrestle the antagonist that was made for us to wrestle?
I always engage when folks like Mormons or JVs stop me on the street or knock on my door (I sat on my porch a dozen times with elder sisters Betty and Bonnie and discussed Jehovah) mostly to drop my two favorite ideas: my skepticism that evil is real and that Christ came here to show us we can All be Christ like.
There is no doubt in my mind that the scripture is full of paradox and gaslighting and wonder and magic and human stories of soul searching and serendipity and is largely symbolic, not literal. The fact that it has been under perrenial discussion regarding who gets to make the rules for the perception and ritual of their shared Abraham is what is insane to me. To truly consider the fact alone that it is a book written by human men should inform us that it will have implicit bias.
Like I would say to Betty and Bonnie I have no doubt there is a God, I just won’t call God Jehovah. I don’t mind the not knowing. How could I possibly know.
Love is indifferent.
This is not a pacifists excuse, however. It is a way of being free of fear in the mind so as to see and act clearly in the moment. I don’t know what the fuck is going on. People do a lot of things in the name of the big G that seem insane to me. If I can keep my heart and inner knowing consciously connected to Source I am better for it.
Well, it says they will do well if they keep His Commandments, the mitzvahs.. which include:
Not to oppress the weak—Exodus 22:21
Not to take revenge—Leviticus 19:18
Not to bear a grudge—Leviticus 19:18
Although it also includes 'To burn a city that has turned to idol worship'—Deuteronomy 13:17... Palestinians pray to the God of Abraham and even if one argued there was a defilement of the teaching with Islam, even still, a connected mitzvah says, 'Not to derive benefit from it'—Deuteronomy 13:18... There is much financial gain that has been accumulated the the Palestinian project. A terrible amount.
But it's the same, single God of Abraham, so, a moot point. And Israel isn't burning Buddhist cities.
Most of the Israeli people I met when I was there last year hated the way Netanyahu was pushing into the settlements. They thought he was flexing because of his perceived weakness with his failed attempt to hobble the courts and widespread criticisms. They knew something bad was going to happen. Their voices would lower when they spoke about it. A Jewish friend wouldn't join me in Jerusalem because she said it 'wasn't right'...
Same with the Palestinian family I stayed with in Jericho. My host literally said that Netanyahu was throwing his own people under a bus for his own ego. That was in August of last year. The expansion into the settlements was out of control, and repression of indigenous Palestinians, tearing down homes and family gardens because of an added bathroom that never received a permit-- though people apply and wait years to no avail.
They lost a close family friend on his wedding day because he was rushing across a street to pick up the flowers and reached into his pocket to answer a phone call.
It's shocking how much the bible is (still) used to push agendas. And terribly cynical; if they truly believed what it says they'd behave quite differently.
There are many beautiful Israeli people who hate what's happening.
This is the god of the old testament, The vengeful, at times petty, angry god., who was concerned about laws and sin and punishment. Jesus came and said, "wait a minute guys, you got God all wrong. God is loving and says love your enemies. If someone takes your coat offer him your shirt also. God loves all people even those you consider unclean so i hang out with the heathen and tax collectors. We are here to share, get along, turn the other cheek and love. "
Luke 19:27 Jesus said, “But those enemies of mine who did not want me to become king over them—bring them here and kill them in front of me.”
Please read that sentence in context. Jesus was telling a story about a nobleman who went away and left money with servants to invest. So if I were to say quoting dr Fauci, " you must get your vax" did Alice tell people to get vaccinated?
You’re right that that was Jesus speaking for the King of his parable rather than Jesus speaking directly. But, the parable is to correct “the people [near Jerusalem who] thought that the kingdom of God was going to appear at once.” (Luke 19:11) So it’s a parable to tell the Jews to continue making money with money rather than doing nothing, (notably missing is any suggestion that they should create wealth with hard work and newly built products), lest they get punished by God—just like Yahweh said in the following verse.
Deuteronomy 15:6
“For the Lord your God will bless you as he has promised, and you [Jews] will lend to many [Gentile] nations but will borrow from none.”
In Deuteronomy 6:10-12, Yahweh proudly tells the Jews that he will give them “a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant”
Isaiah 10:13-14
“For he [God] says, ‘By the strength of my hand I have done this, and by my wisdom, because I have understanding. I removed the boundaries of nations, I plundered their treasures; like a mighty one I subdued their kings. As one reaches into a nest, so my hand reached for the wealth of the nations; as people gather abandoned eggs, so I gathered all the countries; not one flapped a wing, or opened its mouth to chirp.’”
And it’s important to know that Jews believe that God works through his “saints” as is explicitly said in the following verse from the Dead Sea Scrolls.
“The God of Israel has decreed war against all the Gentiles, and by the saints of his people he will act mightily.” (War Scroll, Col. XVI, line 1, from the Dead Sea Scrolls, cited by John M. Allegro in his book, The Chosen People, p. 252)
The king in Jesus’s parable said, “You knew, did you, that I am a hard man, taking out what I did not put in, and reaping what I did not sow.” (19:22)
The king is metaphor for Yahweh. So your analogy, of you quoting Fauci saying to get vaccinated, and me attributing the message to you is mistaken. A better analogy is to Deborah Birx quoting Fauci, which would have the same meaning as Birx saying it herself. The hated king is Yahweh, and he’s hated because he’s evil. Jesus affirmed the Old Testament many times in many places in the Bible.
While the US war machine continues to make money for Blackrock/Zionists the forever wars will remain - thanks Eric for the effort to shed light
not sure what is to decipher?
29 leads into this.
i find the mention about those scattered to the heavens fascinating as i hadnt known that was in there.
Well, if it's King James, we know it's advertising, so why bother? But in general, I always suggest a good deep look at Joseph Campbell and Jung (with the proper understanding, which may not exist anymore) whenever one wants to start with religion, because the basics are so fucked up (the only categories of thought being believers and atheists) that it's really just waste of time, not to say the further propagation of the misunderstandings. Sorry, my English is a bit off today. Too cold. It's 14C outside. Who can live like that, for fuck's sake??
what mountains are you up in to have it be 14C in August? Andes?
And at 60 it's no joke. Yesterday it was 9C, for heavens sake! Argh..
Moses could talk to a rock and get water - he was amazing.
I hope the warplanes got all the Hexbollator rocket & missile launchers so everybody is safe from those jihadi maniacs.
VIA EMAIL
it sounds like the levites- the priesthood who learned to control the jewish masses- taking a tithe etc- moses got paid off big time
what a sick thing that people have gotten themselves locked into - for 1000’s of years
by the end of this the jewish people will be the most hated on the planet- all exposed in gaza- driven mad by fear of the other
the progroms will begin again
time to stop blaming ‘god’ and realize the set up
Valeri
Dear EFC, have you been listening to the translations of Ammon Hillman? Dr. Hillman studied drugs in antiquity. Turns out that centuries later, the same terminology is all over the Bible. It is about drugs - and mythology. Not history. Best.
Although the word Israel is not mentioned in that passage, what it refers to is the idea that there is only one God above all, which is what Israel means. In other words, Israel was never a reference to a country, it was always a reference to a belief system.
Original Instructions, plus consequences spelled out. Thank you for daring. Again,
Jessica
VIA EMAIL
Eric-
Caught this late, but answering you anyway. These verses are part of the Pentateuch, which to me having read pieces parts seem to be designed to assert the divine right of kings above all else. The rulers of Israel and Judah are to be unquestionably obeyed, even though before the exile they still kept concubines, sacrificed animals, and made costly mistakes. They were still selected through divine intervention, as it were, so in spite of their shortcomings in not always heeding the word of Yahweh, they still as rulers of Israel in particular are considered as absolute in Gods favor. The common man does not fare so well and may even be put to death for making a mistake, especially in service to a ruler but that's moot, in the Pentateuch.
The thing is, Moses apparently never led anybody out of Egypt; there was no exodus, only a shift from polytheism to monotheism (the parting of the Red Sea) along with associating the king with the direct favor of Yahweh. Moses may have belonged to the Hyksos that ruled in Egypt for a time but were of Canaanite lineage. At least since the time of Pharaoh Akhenaten in Egypt there was a gradual movement around the Mediterranean elite to associate divine right of kings with monotheism, as the two institutions worked well together for the consolidation and welding of power.
The verses you list are quite neatly concerned with granting Jews the right to their original homeland after the Exile. Therefore devote sectors of the Jewish government and some religious leaders may feel quite justified to apply them today, to the current carnage going on between Israel and lands assigned as Palestinian but not granted any sovereign rights by Israel. The same set of verses would also be useful for any king or country around the Mediterranean under the influence of Judaism or Christianity, that would be looking for religious justification to use in seizing back lands once held in a previous time.
The Jews as they are known today did not always rule the coastal areas of present day Gaza strip and modern Israel, but Phoneticians and Canaanites did. Current anthropology findings even suggest that the original occupants that built the first formal building structures long ago were Aryan, not of Semitic heritage at all. The current DNA findings for Palestinians are 50% Canaanite and the rest Greek or Phonetician. Israelite DNA came in as 50% Canaanite and mixed other heritages such as Russian, Arabic, Sephardic, Ashkenazim, etc.
Best Regards, Marguerite Hafeman
Its about God's laws.
Good morning Donna. Deuteronomy is one of the books for the law. I am looking for interpretation
Seriously Eric, I think we need to be careful interpreting the Bible. Kind of a sensitive time to bring this up. I refer everyone to Karin Armstrong for serious study.
I'll interpret the Bible for you: THOU SHALT NOT KILL.
There is no footnote or asterisk after that.
I love that, Eric! Also, we have some folks who want to display the 10 commandments everywhere, but actually following them has never crossed their minds.
This is a prophesy by Moses before Israel entered the Promised Land as to what will happen to them in the future, Assyria took Israel into captivity and then later Babylon took Judah into captivity and this told of a future time when the people would pray and seek God and he would return them to their land and it happened just like that when the Persians let them return under Ezra–Nehemiah. The circumcising of the heart just means that God changed their hardened hearts which were hardened against God causing their disobedience and exile to hearts obedient to God and he blessed them and returned them to the Promised Land. Prophesy totally fulfilled and does not apply to us or the Israel of today or anyone else.
How do we circumcise our hearts?
Is this why we circumcise our babies?
This is state and socially sanctioned genital mutilation, by the way.
And how does this physical trauma affect men in the long term?
This is a question I have not had the bandwidth to begin to explore. I imagine it has incredible spiritual Implications, be it the hearts of our people or foreskins of our warriors.
Circumcision was to represent authentic faith in God. Circumcision of the heart represents the spiritual change of heart (as opposed to physical circumcision) that occurs when the spirit of Christ enters. Today, there is neither a religious nor medical justification for circumcision- the practice is a remnant of old Jewish law which Judaism stopped following shortly after Christ's life on earth.
In Judaism there is the idea of the Evil Inclination.
We all have a God given soul, but man has an evil inclination. It is innate in us, and it is a daily battle to not give in to it. Not to give in to temptation.
The more we move away from God and his guidance of how to live, the more likely we are to do evil, and to sin. When we rely on man to explain the mysteries of the universe, when we create idols, we turn away from our Godly soul, we will suffer hardships.
The passages 1-10 in Deuteronomy come after what can/will happen to the Nation of Israel when they do not obey the commandments, turn away from God and His ways becoming baseless people.
According to the Ramban,(a Sage: born around 1194 in Gerona, Catalonia, and died in 1270 in the Holy Land, specifically in Jerusalem).
these 10 passages are referring to a time when the Messiah will come. Not the present time, but a future time. These passages are explaining that after the Nation sins, and turns away, they will have the opportunity to repent, to return, and all will be well in the entire world. It is showing the eventual repentance and redemption.
Circumcising the heart means that God will assist you to overcome the hurdles that the Evil Inclination always places in our way, once you have purified yourself.
When the Messiah comes the profound change will occur and man will lose the inclination to do evil. The circumcision here is the removal from humanity of the natural desire to sin.
The effect is to separate boys from their mothers, who are supposed to protect them from this kind of insane pain. Male genital mutilation is the essence of what female advocates call "the patriarchy." Further, it completely rearranges men's relationship to their sexuality, cutting off hundreds of thousands of nerve endings. The foreskin is as sensitive as the clitoris. So just ask yourself what the effect would be of snipping off the clits of all three-day old girls (without anesthesia) and you will have your answer.
Let's not get too silly and conflate an old religious practice with modern woke ideology. Biblically, circumcision was demanded as an indication of one's genuine faith in God, nothing more. Why Christians ever adopted the practice is a mystery- my guess is because Christian teaching within most churches more closely resembles warmed over Judaism with its focus on sin, condemnation, and confession, rather than biblical Christianity which teaches freedom from those very things through Christ's death and resurrection. Christ had only one commandment, to love one's brethren as he first loved us.
And so we must circumcise our hearts to separate us from the big G and the knowing deep inside of each of us.
This seems implicit on a core level in the culture blaming of mothers.
So much to unpack here.
For example, the feminist movement has turned nearly all children against their fathers, who are alienated from the household and seen largely as criminals rather than as the people who support the family financially. My mother, along with her feminist friends, sister and cousins, poisoned my relationships with my male relatives and with men generally. Further, I was taught that women are all-righteous, all powerful supreme beings who also must be fawned over and treated like perfect little ladies, cloak thrown over a puddle for them to walk on. I don't think you come from a liberal urban upbringing like most of us here on the coasts. But outside of fundamentalist religion, this is how men are treated. And that goes right along with snipping off their penis.
I was raised by a very traditionalist and artistic mother in Indianapolis and received a pretty liberal education. My family was always straddling the poverty line (sometimes we got free lunch, sometimes it was reduced), but she knew how to buy real estate and I grew up in the old farm house of what is an upper middle class neighborhood a mile from Butler University. The public schools were incredible in the 70’s and 80’s and I received a top notch education largely due to our zip code and my high standardized test scores.
I grew up resenting my mother’s subordination to her husbands. She was always self sacrificing for them and her 8 children. She honestly loved us all unconditionally.
She was a Cancer.
I was lucky to have a wonderful mother.
Mothers have a lot to answer for. Women who are unprepared for motherhood, or who think they can juggle it with a professional career, do a lot of damage to children. Women who resent motherhood are extremely toxic. Many of us were raised by narcissistic mothers who made it all about them. Look carefully at who is blamed. Check out the constant vitriolic 24x7 attack on what assholes men are (and nothing else). Our "liberal" society now thinks the only good man is a trans woman.
Usually mothers are held harmless for the damage they do to their children, or the damage is said to be nonexistent. But to see that the feminist goggles must come off. Women do most of the child-rearing. That makes sense, since men build all of the bridges and tunnels you drive on. So if we are wondering where men come from, we need to look to the women.
I agree with MOST all of that. (The part of mothers being largely held blamesless is not an accurate statement, in my opinion as a mother.)
And yet there is a terrible loneliness and impossibility that individual women have been saddled with being responsible to do without the support of a village. The social isolation of mothers, the lack of support of the culture, the shadow work of housework and emotional lifting for everyone around her, the ideas of perfectionism, the guilt implicit in fucking up your kid if you do anything wrong... it goes on and on. There are plenty of fucked up moms out there- I am just looking at the parental fallacy that even as adults we get to keep blaming mommy for fucking us up when she often times needed some help herself. Honestly, it is another way feminism has abandoned women.
Yes, a tricky topic. Jobs are easy to find- and few jobs even require long hours or physical labor. So, the man's traditional role is easier than ever. But, how does a young woman today "find" a man who will love and respect her? Young men are notoriously poor at thinking with their upper brains- and under current cultural sex norms, what is to prevent young men from thinking with their lower brain, get what they want from a young woman, and then dumping her when convenient? Was "free love" not a boon to men and their desires? I have sympathy for women as they likely enjoy sex as much as men. But, in the dating world, a man not willing to wait is a man unlikely to make for a good husband and father. But, holding out is no guarantee- my mom followed that course, but ended up in a loveless marriage. Women have a more difficult role than men, and men being the often prideful characters they are, makes a woman's position even more precarious.
David, This is missing a lot of data.
<< I agree with MOST all of that. (The part of mothers being largely held blamesless is not an accurate statement, in my opinion as a mother.) >>
See Janice Fiamengo's work on mothers who kill their children. The fathers serve hard time. The mothers get off easy. For the same kind of murder.
https://fiamengofile.substack.com/p/everyone-agrees-that-the-murder-of
I am not saying it doesn't happen.
I am speaking of something more subtle and psychospiritual in our orientation towards what it takes to raise a child.
That's funny. I am personally highly favorable to moms whom I know personally, as long as they respect their children and as long as the baby daddy doesn't call the police on my little dog for nothing (as happened the last time I dated a mom). I deeply respect mothers and their efforts and would be supportive of any who took me as a friend. I love children and see them as my teachers. So tell me, where are all these lonely moms? Why am I not taking the kids out on Saturday afternoon just for the fun of it? I am friendly and accessible — and emotionally available. I think there is something else going on.
A LOT of people don't wanna get involved in other peoples lives. A LOT of people don't wanna help guide the little ones they run into because it is not their job. A LOT of people wanna judge the behavior of the children and project weird adult motivations onto them and their parents. A LOT of people still expect children to be seen and not heard, or better yet, just not seen at all.
I am not dismissing your points when I say that as a non-parent you may not have the aperture to see what I am pointing to. There is a weird veil in our culture that is between individualism and parenting. It's like a limited hangout that is suddenly opened, a world you didn't know was happening along side society that many of us were unprepared to navigate due to the separation of people from each other in the ways we live.
For example, I have been actively asking many men I respect and admire, men who are friends of mine, to mentor my son, even before his Dad (a heroin addict, in and out of our lives) died just before my son turned 15. What I am asking is for them to basically befriend him, what many hear is "help me raise" my son. Virtually no one has shown up for this kid. I am not asking for pity, and I work hard at not victimizing myself anymore. Luckily for my son, I have a very strong masculine streak and have made my mission to encourage positive masculinity, but I can't teach him about "being" a man. When he decided to start training in boxing I do everything in my power to support him and am glad to have found a sport that is famous for it's mentorship. It's been a god send for him.
for the answer to that, see above. I may be too generous with my love. And the other answer is, I'm not the guy with a million bucks who will save them. And having me as a friend will ward off "that guy."
And you wanna know where these lonely moms are? At work 24/7.