#Exodus 23:24 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

girlactionfigure · 9 months ago

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"From the River to the Sea"

@Daniel_Sugarman

In this thread, I’m going to go into some detail about what the phrase “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free” means to many Jewish people. You may not agree, but I hope that it may enlighten those who simply don't understand the almost visceral reaction to it.

🧵

2) For the benefit of a number of students at some of America’s most expensive higher education institutions, let’s start by clarifying - the river is the River Jordan, the sea is the Mediterranean.

3) So what do those chanting it mean? When asked, a bunch of them will say they want a single state in this area in which all people can live together in dignity and equality. Sounds great, right? Who would argue with that?

4) That claim is somewhat muddied when one particular version of that chant is used in Arabic, as has been heard and seen at various protests - من المية للمية / فلسطين عربية “From water to water, Palestine is Arab”. But let's leave that aside for the moment.

5) Note that the protesters are not calling for Israel to be *changed* into what they see as a free and equal society. For them this can only be achieved by Israel being *ended* and replaced by Palestine.

6) Objectively, you can say that the reason for this is that the protestors believe that Israel (and Zionism) is fundamentally incompatible with what they see as equality and freedom for all, which is why for them it has to go in its entirety. But...

7) But there is a significant degree of ambiguity as to what the end result *actually* means. And it’s that question mark which is why so many Jewish people see this slogan the way they do.

8) Because Jewish people have lots of different examples of what happens to Jewish communities who are minorities in countries in the MENA region. They get destroyed. I'll give you some examples.

9) Egypt. 1948 - 75,000 Jews. 2024 - 30 Jews.

10) Lebanon. 1948 - 9,000 Jews. 2024 - 20 Jews.

11) Syria. 1948 - 15,000 Jews. 2024 - 4 Jews.

12) Yemen. 1948 - 55,000 Jews. 2024 - 1 Jew.

13) Iraq. 1948 - 156,000 Jews. 2024 - 1 Jew.

14) Iran. 1948 - 150,000 Jews. 2024 - 8,750 Jews (under the strict control of the Iranian regime).

15) Libya. 1948 - 40,000 Jews. 2024 - No Jews.

16) Algeria. 1948 - 150,000 Jews. 2024 - 150 Jews,

17) Tunisia. 1948 - 105,000 Jews. 2024 - 1,500 Jews.

18) Morocco. 1948 - 270,000 Jews. 2024 - 2,000 Jews.

19) The anti-Zionist narrative is that this mass Exodus was the fault of the Zionists, who created Israel. No Israel, goes the refrain, and all those communities would still be there.

This ignores a very simple point.

20) In every single one of these countries, to a greater or lesser extent, Israel’s independence was followed by significant repression of local Jewish populations.

Every one.

21) Remind me, what’s the way to describe holding members of an ethnic or racial group responsible for what other members of that group may have done elsewhere?

22) By doing so - oppressing the local Jewish population via pogroms, repressive laws, denying Jewish people full citizenship, confiscation of land and property - these MENA countries made a more effective argument for Zionism than Israel ever could have done by itself.

23) What that said, very clearly, was that Jews as a minority in a MENA country lived there strictly on sufferance. That at any time they could be deprived of everything - including their lives.

This had been clear pre-Zionism too, but the reaction post-'48 put the seal on this.

24) Which brings us back to now. The one-state Palestine being dreamt of is one where, at best, Jews will be allowed to live as a minority.

25) I put it to you that the experience of more than half of Israel’s Jewish population - descended from those who had to leave MENA countries, means that they *know* what the end result of such a Palestine will be.

A land without Jews.

26) This, by the way, given most Israeli Jews now are descendants of MENA Jews is also why the “post-colonial” depiction of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as some sort of “white vs brown” battle is so utterly brainless. And that’s before we discuss Israel’s many Ethiopian Jews.

27) I’ve gone on too long, I know, but just one final point. If the anti-Israel protestors really wanted to assure Jews - all Jews - that there would be a real future for Jews in their hoped for future one-state Palestine - they would be doing their best to engage with Zionists.

28) They would be saying “Zionism is an ideology built on numerous examples - in MENA and in Europe - that Jews are, in the long term, only safe in their own country. Let us show you that this isn’t necessarily the case. Let’s talk. Find common ground. Try for friendships.”

29) Instead Zionists are told they are Nazis. The same age-old antisemitic conspiracy theories about Jewish control are applied to “Zionists”. “Zionists” are excluded from the Community of the Good.

30) Congratulations!

You’ve just proved every single Jewish Zionist’s point for them - and you’ve helped create new ones. In a very similar way to those MENA countries post 1948.

*Thread ends*

#Israel #Jews #Middle East

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thrashkink-coven · 3 months ago

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The one major thing I’ve taken away from my couple days of arguing with Christians about abortion in the Bible is that they always must insist that I am saying these things because I want the Bible to agree with my views. I know this is only because they use the bible as justification for their views… but guys….

Babes,… I’m a fucking Luciferian. Come on. Why would I care about whether or not the Bible agrees with abortion? I’m obviously not following the Bible anyways. If i wanted a reason to justify my beliefs…I wouldn’t be using the Bible… because the Bible clearly does not follow my morality anyways.

I am a supreme lover or theology, history, and culture. I am far more interested in the followers of Christ than Christ himself. And likewise, I find the creation of the Bible fascinating. I think the evolution of Judaism to Christianity is one of the most interesting things in the world. I love humanity, far more than I care about its God. I want to know what values, characteristics, doctrine, they considered to be divine and projected onto their God. I only study the word of God so I can understand the human hands that wrote it.

When I say “the Bible never condemns abortion, here are some contextual pieces of history and scripture that clearly explore God’s perspective on fetal life” I’m not saying “look guys! The Bible is pro abortion and that means we all should be too!!! This totally proves me right about everything!!!”

because it simply doesn’t.

I woke up one morning with a curiosity: “How did people in antiquity regard abortion?” and the clear solution to that curiosity was to read the manual they created for their people. Turns out the manual isn’t all that conclusive, and would actually point towards a complex answer. Does that mean their views were correct, moral, or justified? I honestly don’t care! My opinions on their beliefs don’t matter! The only thing that matters was the intention of the people and the effect these intentions had on the people.

Whether or not the big G-D is truly against abortion could not be known to me, a mere pagan heathen. But what I will continue to say, because I know it to be true now that I’ve spent this much time researching it:

Abortion and/or intentional miscarriage is never at any point stated to be a sin in the Bible or any Biblical text. Never is abortion condemned in the Bible, never is any woman said to be sinning or going to hell for having an abortion or intentional miscarriage. Never at any point, ever, does God say abortion is a crime, and never at any point is it implied that abortion is murder. On the contrary, it is established that it is not.

There are pieces of scripture that clearly establish that the mother is of greater significance than the fetus, and people in antiquity did not consider an infant to be a full person until at its first breath at least, and usually only after a few months of life because of the fact that around 50% of newborns would die anyways. To terminate a thing that might not even live anyways was regarded far differently than killing a fully established person. Due to the increased risk of death during childbirth and the slim chance of newborn survival, it was very normal and common for women to induce intentional miscarriages to save their life. The only instance in which infanticide may have been considered the same as murder was only in the case of late term “abortions” where the fetus had a full form, and looked like a baby (which, we still do not do to this day. It’s illegal to have an abortion in the 9th month).

and to be extremely clear: Premature babies did not survive in antiquity. A premature birth was a still birth or miscarriage. When Exodus 21 says: “If people are fighting and hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely[a] but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. 23 But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

they are referring to a miscarriage. That’s why on every single version of this verse you can find online and in most english translations there is always a footnote on the word “prematurely” that says “or miscarriage”

This isn’t some secret pro-choice agenda. This was the intended meaning of the text. Translators are not trying to support abortion, they are trying to support the intended truth.

Because the fetus was the property of the husband, the loss of the fetus would result in a fine paid to the husband. Further harm caused to the living mother was paid via execution if she died, or a hand for a hand, foot for foot etc. This is the most agreed upon interpretation that makes the most sense in accordance to the customs of the Jewish people and other laws of nearby nations in which Hebrews inhabited.

So, to conclude this shit show,

I don’t give a shit a fuck or a damn what YHWH thinks of abortion. I find the opinions and beliefs of his people to be far more interesting and historically significant. Based on their literature, we can get a pretty comprehensive view on their ideals when it came to this topic. Their ideals have absolutely nothing to do with mine nor do they add legitimacy to mine.

I just like theology guys lmfao

and you bet your ass that I’m going to take the time to do my research if there’s a chance that I accidentally shared misinformation (which I did! Numbers 5 are not instructions on how to do an abortion! That’s not the correct verse to use for this argument. That was totally my mistake.) In that research I only learned more about the ancient word that supports my original thesis.

and so, my original claim still remains true. The Bible does not condemn abortion. No biblical text ever condemns abortion, and God did not call it a sin.

💋

#pagan #paganism #witchcraft #christianity #religion #pro life #pro choice #abortion #luciferian #lucifer devotee #lucifer deity #demonology #demonolatry #witch community #theology #history #judaism

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girlbloggercher · 1 year ago

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how to read the Bible

this is in order!

1. John

2. Mark

3. Matthew

4. Luke

5. Genesis

6. Exodus

7. Leviticus

8. Numbers

9. Dueteronomy

10. Romans

11. Galatians

12. Colossians

13. Proverbs

14. Ecclesiastes

15. Job

16. 1 Peter

17. 1 Corinthians

18. 2 Corinthians

19. Ephesians

20. Philippians

21. 1 Thessalonians

22. 2 Thessalonians

23. 1 Timothy

24. 2 Timothy

25. James

26. 2 Peter

27. 1 John

28. 2 John

29. 3 John

30. Jude

31. Psalms

32. Joshua

33. Judges

34. 1 Samuel

35. 2 Samuel

36. 1 Kings

37. 2 Kings

38. 1 Chronicles

39. 2 Chronicles

40. Ezra

41. Nehemiah

42. Jeremiah

43. Lamentations

44. Ezekiel

45. Joel

46. Amos

47. Obadiah

48. Nahum

49. Habakkuk

50. Zephaniah

51. Haggai

52. Zechariah

53. Malachi

54. Micah

55. Hosea

56. Luke

57. Esther

58. Jonah

59. Song of Solomon

60. Acts

61. Titus

62. Philemon

63. Hebrew

64. Isaiah

65. Daniel

66. Revelation

#that girl #wonyoungism #clean girl #glow up #coquette #health and wellness #christianity

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cinelestial · 9 months ago

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Apple Music’s ‘100 Best Albums of All Time’ list:

#1. Lauryn Hill — The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill

#2. Michael Jackson — Thriller

#3. The Beatles — Abbey Road

#4. Prince & The Revolution — Purple Rain

#5. Frank Ocean — Blonde

#6. Stevie Wonder — Songs in the Key of Life

#7. Kendrick Lamar — good kid, m.A.A.d city

#8. Amy Winehouse — Back to Black

#9. Nirvana — Nevermind

#10. Beyoncé — Lemonade

#11. Fleetwood Mac — Rumours

#12. Radiohead — OK Computer

#13. Jay-Z — The Blueprint

#14. Bob Dylan — Highway 61 Revisited

#15. Adele — 21

#16. Joni Mitchell — Blue

#17. Marvin Gaye — What’s Going On

#18. Taylor Swift — 1989 (Taylor’s Version)

#19. Dr. Dre — The Chronic

#20. The Beach Boys — Pet Sounds

#21. The Beatles — Revolver

#22. Bruce Springsteen — Born to Run

#23. Daft Punk — Discovery

#24. David Bowie — The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars

#25. Miles Davis — Kind of Blue

#26. Kanye West — My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

#27. Led Zeppelin — Led Zeppelin II

#28. Pink Floyd — The Dark Side of the Moon

#29. A Tribe Called Quest — The Low End Theory

#30. Billie Eilish — WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?

#31. Alanis Morissette — Jagged Little Pill

#32. The Notorious B.I.G. — Ready to Die

#33. Radiohead — Kid A

#34. Public Enemy — It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back

#35. The Clash — London Calling

#36. Beyoncé — BEYONCÉ

#37. Wu-Tang Clan — Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)

#38. Carole King — Tapestry

#39. Nas — Illmatic

#40. Aretha Franklin — I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You

#41. OutKast — Aquemini

#42. Janet Jackson — Control

#43. Talking Heads — Remain in Light

#44. Stevie Wonder — Innervisions

#45. Björk — Homogenic

#46. Bob Marley & The Wailers — Exodus

#47. Drake — Take Care

#48. Beastie Boys — Paul’s Boutique

#49. U2 — The Joshua Tree

#50. Kate Bush — Hounds of Love

#51. Prince — Sign O’ the Times

#52. Guns N' Roses — Appetite for Destruction

#53. The Rolling Stones — Exile on Main St.

#54. John Coltrane — A Love Supreme

#55. Rihanna — ANTI

#56. The Cure — Disintegration

#57. D’Angelo — Voodoo

#58. Oasis — (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?

#59. Arctic Monkeys — AM

#60. The Velvet Underground & Nico — The Velvet Underground and Nico

#61. Sade — Love Deluxe

#62. 2Pac — All Eyez on Me

#63. The Jimi Hendrix Experience — Are You Experienced?

#64. Erykah Badu — Baduizm

#65. De La Soul — 3 Feet High and Rising

#66. The Smiths — The Queen Is Dead

#67. Portishead — Dummy

#68. The Strokes — Is This It

#69. Metallica — Master of Puppets

#70. N.W.A — Straight Outta Compton

#71. Kraftwerk — Trans-Europe Express

#72. SZA — SOS

#73. Steely Dan — Aja

#74. Nine Inch Nails — The Downward Spiral

#75. Missy Elliott — Supa Dupa Fly

#76. Bad Bunny — Un Verano Sin Ti

#77. Madonna — Like a Prayer

#78. Elton John — Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

#79. Lana Del Rey — Norman F*****g Rockwell!

#80. Eminem — The Marshall Mathers LP

#81. Neil Young — After the Gold Rush

#82. 50 Cent — Get Rich or Die Tryin'

#83. Patti Smith — Horses

#84. Snoop Dogg — Doggystyle

#85. Kacey Musgraves — Golden Hour

#86. Mary J. Blige — My Life

#87. Massive Attack — Blue Lines

#88. Nina Simone — I Put a Spell on You

#89. Lady Gaga — The Fame Monster

#90. AC/DC — Back in Black

#91. George Michael — Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1

#92. Tyler, The Creator — Flower Boy

#93. Solange — A Seat at the Table

#94. Burial — Untrue

#95. Usher — Confessions

#96. Lorde — Pure Heroine

#97. Rage Against the Machine — Rage Against the Machine

#98. Travis Scott — ASTROWORLD

#99. Eagles — Hotel California

#100. Robyn — Body Talk

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pacing-er · 28 days ago

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Krakoa Era Reading List Cherik Version (part 7)

Disclaimer! There are a lot of titles I'm skipping in this period, simply because they focus on characters and plotlines that I don't care about. This story is complicated enough without side plots.

22. Hellfire Gala: Fall of X

I really liked this one! Any comic that shows off Charles powers is a 10/10 for me and this one is no exception. Added bonus is that he is wearing this super cute angel-inspired costume:

Also he looks so freaking pretty here omfg.

As is standard for all Hellfire Galas something goes horribly wrong, but this time it is much harder to come back from. Moira and Orchis show up with a bunch of Nimrods and reveal that they had interfered with the Mutant's medicines for mankind and installed a kill-switch which they use to take humankind hostage. Threatening Charles with mass human death, they force him to mind control all of the mutants on Earth to send them into the portals and off of Earth. Little did he know that they also hacked the portals, effectively turning them into meat-grinders which he just forced all of his people into (as far as he knows at least). Orchis then activates the kill-switch and many humans die anyways, but Charles in an act of desperation extends his powers to make it so they feel no pain and die peacefully. Idk I just thought that was a nice detail. The comic ends with a majority of mutant kind presumed dead, Emma leading the few survivors and an emotionally broken Charles sending Rogue off to "Avenge Krakoa". Very bleak stuff. It's all downhill from here folks!

23. Immortal X-Men (Issues #14-18)

Very cool, very convoluted. Basically covers two storylines: Xavier uncovering vital truths with the help of the Sinister that had been implanted inside of him, Hope and Exodus leading the mutants in the Noplace they'd been sent to after Hellfire Gala. A whole lot of twists and turns and it ends with a big reveal that I thought was super cool so I won't spoil it. Mother Righteous continues to ruin things for the mutants, and it's revealed that she was the one who hacked the portals to send them all to the White Hot Room (the mutant afterlife) in order to use Jean's power to become a Dominion. I liked Charles part in this comic a lot despite him spending a lot of it sitting around depressed in the ruins of Krakoa. At first we are led to believe that he is using his telepathy and newfound telekinesis to massacre the Orchis agents that Shaw brought there, but it is revealed to be the remnants of Sinister inside of him doing the killing. I like that it allows us to see how efficient and deadly he could be without conflicting his morals. He also has a beard in this comic which is... Something. I don't hate it.

Charles dynamic with the Sinister inside of him was very enjoyable imo. Hope and the other mutants were also very interesting, and I dig the Jewish parallels with them all stuck wandering in the desert "diaspora" in search for the Promised Land. They actually use those exact words.

That's the end of the Immortal X-Men run! This title in particular had some of my favorite moments so I'm definitely gonna pick up a physical copy for it

24. Jean Grey

Technically a prelude to the previous entry, in which we see Jean explore several different potential outcomes for mutantkind as she waits to be resurrected. It explains her appearance in the White Hot Room. Charles and Erik are in the first issue of this title, with special emphasis put on their relationship. We see Jean put Magneto into a catatonic state, believing that it would be better for mutants if he was out of the picture. Charles of course freaks out and immediately kicks the X-Men out of the mansion, and when they later return they find that Charles has restored Erik's mind and the two of them are living together. Due to the lingering effects of Jeans powers Erik is now wheelchair bound, so they're matching! The rest of this title covers Jean's various relationships and sort of serves as a character analysis.

25. The Resurrection of Magneto

I think that enough is explained at this point to read this story. Arakko was not affected by Charles command to walk into the portals, but they were busy dealing with a civil war so they are late to the game. Ororo goes into the mutant afterlife to retrieve Magneto's soul, since after the events of the Hellfire Gala Charles is no longer stable enough to lead the mutants. Some really epic symbolism and references to various moments in Magnetos history are shown, including the iconic scene from the original Trial of Magneto comic. Overall a great analysis of Magneto as a character, but the cherry on top was the focus put on Charles and Erik's relationship. Man is obsessed with Charles and it shows. Definitely a must-read for Cherik fans. I'd include some screen caps but I'd basically be sharing the full comic so I recommend you just read it.

I'm taking another break to read some older X-Men comics I got for the holidays so I'm cutting this one shorter than anticipated. Next are Fall of the House of X, Rise of the Powers of X, and X-Men: Forever! Then I need to go through Duggan's X-Men comics and see what I missed since the reading order lists I'm using and the titles on the free comic site don't match up and it's a whole thing. But I'm almost to the end! The next Krakoa era reading list should be my last 🎉🎉🎉

#xmen #cherik #krakoa #krakoa era reading list #marvel comics #magneto #professor x #erik lehnsherr #max eisenhardt #charles xavier #resurrection of magneto #immortal X-Men #fall of x #dont want this to be buried in my drafts anymore lol

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estera-shirin · 3 months ago

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Paper Amulet, India ca. 1980

From the curator: "Around the edges of the amulet are quotations from the following biblical passages: Numbers 17:11-15 and Samuel 24:25. These quotations have to do with the plague being averted from the land and would give protection against illness. The names of the four rivers of paradise are listed around the Magen David. Above and below these names is a quotation from Exodus 12:23, which deals with the lord protecting the Israelites in Egypt from the destroyer of the Egyptians. Below this is Psalms 22:10 (trusting in the lord). the center of the Magen David contains a large grid with letters. the beginning letters are the abbreviations: for Psalms 32:7 (for general protection), Genesis 49:18 (for protection at night), and a large number of unidentified abbreviations. what is clear is that this amulet is made for general protection for both a home and those living in it. This is a reprint of an amulet originally published in 1905 with an almost identical design and text" attached below.

#jewish history #jewish #jewish art #amuletic art #amulets #judaism #religious objects #indian jewish #indian jews #india

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walkswithmyfather · 13 days ago

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Proverbs 3:5-6 (NLT). [5] “Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. [6] Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.”

Exodus 2:11-15, 23-25 (NLT). [11] “Many years later, when Moses had grown up, he went out to visit his own people, the Hebrews, and he saw how hard they were forced to work. During his visit, he saw an Egyptian beating one of his fellow Hebrews. [12] After looking in all directions to make sure no one was watching, Moses killed the Egyptian and hid the body in the sand. [13] The next day, when Moses went out to visit his people again, he saw two Hebrew men fighting. “Why are you beating up your friend?” Moses said to the one who had started the fight. [14] The man replied, “Who appointed you to be our prince and judge? Are you going to kill me as you killed that Egyptian yesterday?” Then Moses was afraid, thinking, “Everyone knows what I did.” [15] And sure enough, Pharaoh heard what had happened, and he tried to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in the land of Midian...[23] Years passed, and the king of Egypt died. But the Israelites continued to groan under their burden of slavery. They cried out for help, and their cry rose up to God. [24] God heard their groaning, and he remembered his covenant promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. [25] He looked down on the people of Israel and knew it was time to act.”

“Our Way or God’s Way” by In Touch Ministries:

“Relying on our own knowledge and strength robs us of the blessings that come from following God.”

“Whenever challenges come into our life, there are two ways we can respond to them: God’s way or ours. Moses is an example of a man who tried out both options. In today’s passage, we see him taking matters into his own hands. Although his motives were pure, his method was wrong. Moses made three mistakes.

1. He focused on the difficulty. How often have we done the same thing? The unfairness or pain of a situation grabs our attention, and in our desire for a solution, we act without first seeking the Lord.

2. He relied on his own strength and understanding. When a problem arises, the most natural response is to do what we can to fix it. However, God wants us to rely on Him, not on ourselves (Proverbs 3:5-6).

3. He acted impulsively. If a situation seems urgent, fixing the problem as fast as possible becomes our top priority. In our haste, we’re likely to forgo waiting on the Lord.

We’ve all followed Moses’ example at some point and suffered the consequences of self-reliance. But notice that God didn’t reject Moses or cancel the divine plan for his life. Instead, He refined the future leader’s character through trials and gave him another chance—and He’ll do the same for us.”

[Photo thanks to Maksym Kaharlytskyi on Unsplash]

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lobot0mmy · 6 days ago

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Stupidly long list of all the artists I listen to.

I listen to over 80 different artists bands consistently, like, I know over 10 songs that I can recall

(I'm doing this out of boredom?)

No particular order.

1. Black Sabbath

2. Queen

3. The Doors

4. Slipknot

5. Led Zeppelin

6. Jeff Buckley

7. David Bowie

8. Motley crue (dont listen anymore, actually dislike them)

9. The rolling stones

10. Radiohead

11. Nirvana.

12. System Of A Down

13. Pantera

14. Oasis

15. Foo Fighters

16. Misfits

17. Motorhead

18. Soundgarden

19. The Cure

20. Red Hot Chilli Peppers

21. Korn

22. Metallica

23. Exodus

24. The Beatles

25. Elton John

26. The Smiths

27. Pink Floyd

28. Limp Bizkit

29. Guns N' Roses

30. Car Seat Headrest

31. Greta Van Fleet

32. Type O Negative

33. The Gits

34. Alice in Chains

35. Pearl Jam

36. Hole

37. The Police

38. Stone Temple Pilots

39. Megadeth (don't like it much)

40. Deep Puple

41. Pat The Bunny

42. Pierce The Veil

43. Sleeping With Sirens

44. Get Scared

45. Pixies

46. John Lennon (solo)

47. Paul McCartney (solo)

48. George Harrison (solo)

49. Mazzy Star

50. Slowdive

51. Panic! At The Disco

52. Black Veil Brides

53. Against me!

54. Pencey Prep

55. LeATHERMOUTH

56. Frank Iero and the celebrations

57. Death spells

58. Frank Iero and the patience

59. Frank Iero and the future violents

60. Delirium division

61. L.s. Dunes

62. Fall Out Boy

63. Judas Priest

64. Remember The Laughter

65. A Day To Remember

66. Sonic Youth

67. The Young Veins

68. Paramore

69. Green Day

70. Three Days Grace

71. La Dispute

72. The front bottoms

73. Never Shout Never

74. Modern Baseball

75. Ramones

76. Sex Pistols

77. Taking Back Sunday

78. Asking Alexandria

79. Alesana

80. The academy is...

And I can't recall more...

#how do i tag this #my chemical romance #i dont know

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sailorspica · 3 months ago

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sole salvation: zeke jaeger, messiah claimant

this is so long it has a table of contents, and prompted by an ask from @oxygenbefore1775:

salvation and atonement

recapitulation

genealogy

the paths as wilderness

biblical fiction

all the english bible citations are from the NRSVCE, i reference the gospel of john just once because it sucks, this is barely proofread and about ~4k. two shorter posts that might be of interest:

the founder ymir eve-mary replacement theology run

krista/christa

none of this is arguing iseyama consciously made any allusions!! this is just comparative reading

1. salvation and atonement

i looked up the japanese title for snk 114, "唯一の救い," mostly for the second part. "唯一" is kind of obviously "sole" or "only" (if i know any CJK characters it's number radicals), but i wondered about the nuances of "salvation" because of the association i have for it below. this had me running to good ol' biblegateway.com, whose only japanese bible translation is the from the heavily paraphrased/colloquial Living Bible. a search of "救い" lands us in exodus, isaiah, and my second-favorite gospel, luke.

you guessed it: it's part of the word choice for "messiah." section titles in bible translations are editorialization, really, but the beginning of the nativity story in matthew is headed

約束されていた救い主 promise (...tense stuff idk) savior

救 = rescue, aid, salvation; 主 = host, leader, lord

in the hebrew bible context of exodus, 救い most often refers to god delivering the israelites from egypt through moses, while isaiah is christians' favorite prophet for all his shit cited as prophesying the messiah. the title "christus" is latinized from the earliest greek translation of the bible from hebrew, which used "christos" for "messiah." kings good and bad were anointed with oil (chrism) at the start of their reign, so "anointed one," "messiah," and "Christ" really just meant a monarch. quoting some old testament pseudepigrapha (psalms of solomon 17:23-24), the messiah was understood in second temple judaism as a future davidic king expected to "thrust out sinners from the inheritance / to crush all their substance with a rod of iron / to destroy the lawless nations with the word of his mouth." (rod reiss, zeke as marley's spear, the scream, etc)

now for the "sole" bit. i am cursed to read the kodansha USA title "sole salvation" with the connotation of the solae of the protestant reformation, which are 2-5 doctrines articulated by various reformers but not necessarily codified (or creed-ified, as it were), uh, in protest of early modern catholicism. theological authority comes sola scriptura (not the pope), justification comes sola fide (not by following rules the best), and salvation is available to all sola gratia (through god's grace, not individual merit/how many indulgences you can afford).

how we apply all this to zeke:

what is wild about christianity and islam after it is "humanity"'s fall from grace and the promise of a messiah to remedy it were initially about just one people. AoT's dramatic irony has the paradisians refer to themselves as the whole of humanity until grisha's basement, so jaegerist ethnonationalism is, really, in keeping with the prehistoric tribalism detailed in the history books of the hebrew bible. when the israelites encounter egyptians and semitic peoples of canaan and babylon, they know them as pagans, and proselytization is not on their minds at all, nor these other peoples' relation or lack thereof to adam and original sin. with zeke, we see this idea of salvation and its scale and recipients flipped between grisha and ksaver: grisha promises the restorationists that zeke will save eldia, while ksaver and zeke swear to save the world from titans with eldia as the sacrifice.

the lack of consensus of how to "save" eldia mirrors the hairsplitting of soteriology into what modern commenters call theories of atonement. there are many, but the only ones i'll mention are

substitutionary theory: the vague but broadly understood starting point that jesus died for humanity, and most subsequent theories hammer out the details. with this you'll often see writing connecting it to the story of abraham and isaac, and a classic work is derrida's the gift of death chapter 3, but i have to say if this story echoes for anyone in AoT, it is tom ksaver and not just because of the ram.

ransom theory: humanity has been satan's hostage ever since the garden of eden, so jesus was born and raised, incarnated as human by god, to be the perfect sacrifice to buy back our freedom. this is weird because it calls into question god's omnipotence: why respect satan as a debt collector?

satisfaction theory: jesus' sacrifice is more about ethics and respect in that his death is the "minimum" price for our sins, but he goes above and beyond by walking willingly through the exact cavalcade of physical torture that was the passion, which "satisfied" god, working from a classical/medieval fixation on honor and dishonor.

penal (not penile) substitution theory: god cannot forgive sin willy nilly, so jesus bore god's punishment for us. this is lutheran, and if you read martin luther's diaries from when he was an augustinian, this man just wanted a morally perfect Dom. libs and catholics don't like this because it makes god look bad. s/o my kenny post where i put grandpas ackerman and jaeger side by side with a bit of penal substitution, but it also makes me think of grisha (below)

and my favorite, recapitulation theory, which is simply the most literary way to read the gospels: christ's life, not just death, are a do-over of adam's. he succeeds where adam failed, perfectly inverting everything about the first man: he was born of a woman (the cause of adam's fall 🙄) but chaste himself (allegedly), he's tempted directly by the devil and resists, and in death the piercing of his side by a roman centurion echoes that eve was made from adam's rib. it's the root of the idea of jesus and mary as the "new" adam and eve that i dip into in the krista post—antisemitic supercessionism is a later addition. mary "recapitulates" eve by obeying god, not satan, etc.

i didn't do that comprehensive a skim, but grisha and zeke seem to be the only ones who use "salvation" language, while karina braun uses "atone" in snk 94. "atonement" has one of the silliest etymologies of all time: at + onement, unification, when two become one. so framing the crucifixion as "atonement," and referring to mysticism as self-effacement, jesus' death is supposed to reconcile man with god, like we were divorced. its more pedestrian, legal definition is for reparations and such, but i don't think the soteriological version can describe marley and eldia at all. it's not just penal, but penitential (sacramental) semantics on kodansha USA's part. i might go pester @tsuki-no-ura for a direct translation later. but the jesus-est and adam-est thing about zeke, to me, is physical at-onement when ymir fuses his body into the founder, or as zeke says to armin in snk 137, "did ymir eat you, too?" so the death of jesus' earthly body is a horror story if you aren't trinitarian: he is subsumed into god, made indistinct.

2. recapitulation

recapitulation is a useful idea for FOUR AoT characters: zeke, historia, eren, and mikasa. i really think the figures that do the most to "recapitulate" the eldian creation myth are mikasa and historia, though:

historia: have already said my bit! she's the anti-mary, snk 65 has the juiciest theological language of all. see my second favorite gospel luke. she disobeys where ymir's daughters didn't: she says hell no, she kills her dad. she's my hero.

mikasa: eren and armin's conversation about mikasa and ymir more casts ymir as a god with mysterious motivations, so i'd say "whatever mikasa did" gives us a more medieval "satisfaction" model of pacifying her rage

eren: the whole metaphor on humanity penned in like livestock, ymir's leaving the gate open for the pigs. eren's defence of historia, even from her own self-sacrifice in volunteering to inherit the beast, also makes him an anti-daughter of ymir.

zeke: has all of the prologue and expectation to make him seem like a savior. if he recapitulates any part of "from you, 20,000 years ago," he starts out as fritz by attempting to order ymir with his royal blood, but ends up just as bound as her. there's a screencap we've all seen overlaying the storybook illustration of "ymir" and "the devil of all earth" with eren, zeke, and ymir in the paths. i have feminist tbh satanist thoughts on the nature of knowledge and forbidden fruit that i slghtly get into in that krista/christa post

this is the point where it's important for me to say this is an atheist post and blog, and jesus of nazareth was one of like half a dozen messiah claimants knocking around judaea at the time, including his own cousin john the baptist. the first coming of the messiah was a nearly as absurd a prospect to jews in the late roman empire as the second coming of jesus is to us, so "claimant" doesn't even mean they said so themselves. some were preachers whose followers got a little too hype, or just actual con artists. but! zeke does have a lot more christian echoes going for him beyond the exact function of his death.

in the original question mae asked about zeke in either marian or christian terms, so i gotta say that jesus was also human and subordinated to god's will, in a similar position to mary, as was adam. adam's rib symbolism is so erotic and penetrative and all i think about when titans in AoT are constructed spinal cord first. to me everything about titan shifters is a feminist issue of bodily autonomy regardless of gender, and the power of the founder to "rewrite" eldian biology is the most god-like, terrifying, violating thing about it. this is where a lot of more progressive christian theologians struggle, too, with the question of how is god, in all his power and goodness, still permissive of suffering? or is it that god is not in fact powerful, simply all-knowing? and is that worth jack shit? which is the issue of the royal family keeping the founder after the walls went up.

and we leave this section with the jesussy, or more specifically "the holy lance" that made jesus' side wound. but i think levi went for, idk, his appendix? good enough.

3. geneaology

the gospels of luke and matthew start with lengthy and conflicting geneaologies in support of the claim that jesus of nazareth is of the davidic line through the tribe of judah, but matthew's is patrilineal from abraham through joseph, while luke's is surgically imprecise about jesus' father and thus is often argued to be jesus's geneaology through mary backwards to adam, supported by luke being the gospel to feature women the most prominently. not knowing those intricacies or how legal adoption worked in 1st century judaea, you can say that mary is royalty and joseph is just some guy, ben david or not, because he famously did not contribute sperm. looking at zeke, grisha is just some guy, and dina's blood is the whole justification for zeke's suffering. had she not married grisha, she still would be affiliated with the restorationists, and whatever other child she had would be sacrificed much the same. this supposes that jesus of nazareth was just some guy himself, a typical second temple jewish teacher whose followers were especially rowdy; whether god is real or incarnated himself as human is inconsequential when mary is directly descended from david.

but joseph Does matter from a purely pragmatic point of view of protecting and providing for mary and jesus, from keeping his troth with a pregnant teenager he'd probably never met before to the matthew account of fleeing with them to egypt to hide from herod, and in christian ethics through shit like the Feast of the Holy Family, which replaced the much cooler Feast of the Circumcision.

point is, jesus had two dads! joseph is generally understood as a dead during the time of jesus' three-year ministry, but any time jesus refers to his father he does not mean joseph. like ever. zeke nation knows better than i how often zeke discusses grisha, but in my recollection he calls him his full name or says "your father" if talking to eren. in my subtitles for the above panel re: the second paradis mission he says something like "as the former son of the terrorist grisha jaeger."

but to be clear joseph of nazareth is comparatively a non-person. it's reasonable to think he taught jesus his trade of carpentry, though, and two of the greatest songs of all time play with that, along with that tumblrina poem that goes around here frequently.

beyond daddy issues, protestants like this binary of "high" versus "low" christology to discuss jesus as god and jesus as man, though the exact meaning of either varies and frankly i question the historical accuracy of using either to describe ancient/antique christological debates. the way the liberal protestants at the seminary i dropped out of tended to use it is basically sorting jesus's qualities and behaviors in the gospels as divine or human. divine activities = miracles, prophecy, rising from the dead; human activities = flipping tables, being rude to his mom, getting hangry. now these mostly look like venial sins, to err is human et cetera, but the fig tree story is one of the silliest little humanizing details about him, to me tantamount to zeke having a cat's tongue. zeke's whole problem is he holds himself to an extrahuman (not divine, no, since he probably would go with demonic) standard while forgetting what makes him human. ironically, zeke rejects his inhumane father to claim his very human mentor as family, but ultimately half-lives his own life holding himself to or counter their visions of salvation.

the other bit of jesus' family worth connecting to zeke is his cousin john the baptist. but he more belongs to the next section.

4. the paths as wilderness

the torah or pentateuch, the first five books of the hebrew bible, have 99 uses of "wilderness" in the NRSV, and it pops up about 150 more times throughout the prophetic books. of all AoT's hamhanded judaic imagery, i think the paths actually get at something theological as opposed to earthly/fixated on eldia as a persecuted people. the wilderness is a testing ground and a kind of punishment itself, especially in genesis and exodus, for prehistoric figures like hagar, moses, jacob, david, and of course the israelites once they left egypt, wandering for 40 years. they starve and god saves them with manna; left unattended for two seconds they turn to idolatry; and they of course conquer various tribal people of canaan, including the philistines (root of palestine). after that, "wilderness" is much more metaphorical, referring poetically to estrangement between god and his people, the israelites exiled in the babylonian captivity, the destructon of solomon's temple, etc.

but there's one literal wilderness in the gospels. jesus' cousin john the baptist is introduced by a quotation:

In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near." This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said, "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.'" (Mt 3:1-3)

john the baptist is jesus' maternal cousin who he likely only meets once in adulthood, and i am too pedantic not to explain that baptism, or ritual bathing, is not a christian invention. he hung out around the river jordan wearing a hair shirt and preaching and dunking people in a kind of open-air mikveh. jesus visits him to get dunked as he starts his three-year ministry that ends with his death, but before they meet there are already whispers that john the baptist is the messiah. herod antipas, a roman tetrarch, had john beheaded shortly after this at the request of his stepdaughter, so when herod hears stories of jesus' ministry and miracles he dreads that he's john the baptist returned to life.

one could say the fateful meeting of john and jesus is the turning point for the birth of christianity, like the jaeger brothers in shiganshina, in part because the gospels have john insist up and down he himself is not the messiah, he's just preparing the way for him. this kind of makes him look like a bigger loser than he was; contemporary jewish historians of the time say he had a following to rival or even larger than his cousin's.

but right after his baptism, jesus fasts in the wilderness for 40 days, where the devil tempts him. it's the most detailed in luke 4 and matthew 4. jesus resists like a champ, but returning to "low" christology and questioning what actually makes "perfection:" after three years of preaching in galilee, jesus' resolve wavers, and the "willingness" of his sacrifice is 2,000-year-old point of debate. two moments in the gospels that show he fears his death are praying between the last supper but before his arrest, and just as he dies on the cross. gethsemane, or the mount of olives:

And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want." (Mt 26:39)

And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. He said, "Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want." (Mk 14:35-36)

Then he withdrew from [the disciples] about a stone’s throw, knelt down, and prayed, "Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done." (Lk 22:41-42)

and as he dies in matthew and mark, he quotes psalm 22, "eli, eli, lema sebachthani?" or "my god, my god, why have you forsaken me?" he shows resolve and despair, i think so very like zeke. his line in snk 114 of "are you watching, mr. ksaver?" makes me think jesus' relationship to god was similarly distant, and three years of ministry have to have changed jesus as much as oh, 13 years of being a human weapon changed zeke. ymir "tests" both jaeger brothers in the paths, so i bet there's some heresy out there that jesus "stole" john the baptist's role and followers from him.

one thing i'm fascinated by that i haven't seen laid out is that grisha and the restorationists deify ymir, even calling themselves "the chosen children of god" (woof), while ksaver the scientist asks the more materialist question of "what was that 'something'" that ymir encountered if not "the devil of all earth"? but zeke has to split the difference between these two. or, the power of the founder and the paths are simply too "god-like" (kenny's words uwu) for anyone to remain rational.

when zeke first describes the paths after he blows himself up, the first thing i thought of was biblical wilderness. in snk 137, he tells armin he's spent "an astounding amount of time" in the paths trying to understand ymir; i'm cursed to fill in that blank with 40-something, years or centuries or millennia. zeke using the sand all around them as an example of lifeless objects that don't seek to multiply reminds me of two things in genesis:

god's covenant with abraham in genesis 15, reiterated in 22 after a ram(!!!) shows up to take isaac's place: "Because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will indeed bless you, and I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore" (Gn 22:16-17). of course ymir building titans from sand recalls genesis 2, that god molded adam from dust, but before god formalizes this covenant with abram/abraham, he also says "I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth; so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted" (Gn 13:16)

the memento mori verse that makes up the blessing for ash wednesday is "remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return" (Gn 3:19) as he casts adam and eve from eden.

as a metaphor, i suppose wilderness in the bible evokes a time before creation, the void of possibility, and whether you find that beautiful or bleak, whether dust to dust makes you hope or dread, makes you closer to armin or zeke. my other atheist bestie from seminary was optimistic about the death of the human race because non-human life goes on, and that's okay and probably better; the earth can bounce back from the damage we dealt it, which is what trees growing in the colossals' footprints in the epilogue makes me think of. this makes me sound pro-apocalypse and well! i think this all solidifies that armin is the perfect counterweight, not just for the leaf and baseball; armin has always been curious about the planet, is a true scout, while zeke has been beyond the walls all his life, and has seen too much to be grateful. it's very mercury versus jupiter, details versus big picture.

5. biblical fiction

if you want to read the gospels as a total newb, start with mark because it's shortest, then i recommend matthew, then you can do luke and the acts of the apostles. but for juicy fiction that really digs into jesus as a human who struggles with the weight of expectation, you gotta get into:

the last temptation of christ (1988, dir. martin scorsese): i haven't read the book and only could stand the movie twice, yes even feat. david bowie as pontius pilate, but this was my first reaction to the the endng of AoT and the eremika cabin: jesus on the cross is tempted one last time by satan with a vision of running away and living as an ordinary man with mary magdalene. unfortunately zeke does not get a cabin vision but torment, and frankly his time in the paths is more like the three days jesus spent in hell before easter.

the liars' gospel by naomi alderman: is so crazy good, i love this writer deeply. it's more like four novellas stuck together of jesus' life and ministry and death narrated by his mother, judas iscariot, one of the sanhedrin that "tried" him prior to pilate, and barrabas, the criminal or revolutionary that pilate released to mark passover—all jewish, historical judean perspectives. to mary, jesus is kind of a deadbeat, awful eldest son (two of the gospels give him siblings; she did not die a virgin) who really should be working as a carpenter; to judas, he's an unworthy leader; etc. i think it's an excellent model for a novel-length, canon-compatible zeke fanfic.

if any sources are vague it's almost certainly out of the jewish annotated new testament (ed. levine/zvi brettler, 2017)

also tagging @pisspope 💜

#zeke jaeger #zeke yeager #tom ksaver #grisha yeager #grisha jaeger #atheism disclaimer #aot meta #snk 137 #snk meta #snk 114 #aot theology #spica meta

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