#Mount Gilead

[unteriors]

State Route 19, Mount Gilead, Ohio.

[stormbearstudios]

Thatched roof on the main lodge at Town Creek Indian Mound, Mount Gilead, North Carolina.

Pilot Knob in Pilot Mountain State Park

[middleland]

House — Mount Gilead, Ohio by Christopher Riley

[preacheroftruthblog]

Obadiah: "The Kingdom Shall Be The Lord's"

Those of the Negeb shall possess Mount Esau, and those of the Shephelah shall possess the land of the Philistines; they shall possess the land of Ephraim and the land of Samaria, and Benjamin shall possess Gilead.  The exiles of this host of the people of Israel shall possess the land of the Canaanites as far as Zarephath, and the exiles of Jerusalem who are in Sepharad shall possess the cities…

[carltonblaylock]

Mount Gilead

Judges 7:1-3 7 Then Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon) and all the people who were with him rose early and encamped beside the well of Harod, so that the camp of the Midianites was on the north side of them by the hill of Moreh in the valley. 2 And the Lord said to Gideon, “The people who are with you are too many for Me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel claim glory for itself against…

[former-leftist-jew]

So, we had Simchat Torah last weekend. (The holiday dedicated to finishing the reading the last chapter Torah and starting again, for another yearly Torah read cycle.)

As my rabbi started to read final chapter of the Torah (in hebrew and then in English), literally the :

1: And Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, [to the] top of the summit facing Jericho. And the Lord showed him all the Land: The Gilead until Dan,

2: and all [the land of] Naftali, and the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah, until the western sea,

3: and the south, and the plain, the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees, until Zoar.

4: And the Lord said to him, "This is the Land I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, 'I will give it to your offspring.' I have let you see it with your eyes, but you [Moses] shall not cross over there."

Devarim (or Deuteronomy) Chapter 34, Verses 1-4

And I just...

I just felt so sad and so tired from all the self-proclaimed "anti-Zionist Jews" and know-nothing goyim who feel confident saying, "Zionism is not Judaism," or "Zionism is a disgrace to Judaism."

Because, it's like, what do you THINK these passages are about??

But let me guess:

You didn't actually read these passages.

You didn't actually celebrate Simchat Torah.

You don't actually read the Torah, or go to shul, or any of that.

And I get it: Judaism is a very extensive religion with lots of demands, holidays, rituals, and practices. It's a hoarder religion that clings to every scrap of knowledge, history, tradition and lore that ever had anything to do with any of the Jewish/Hebrew/Canaanite people. And it varies from place to place, over literally thousands of years across hundreds of countries and a few continents of Jewish Disaspora.

It's impossible to know everything there is to know about Judaism; you can literally dedicate your whole life to studying Jewish history, theology, folklore, literature, etc and not even scratch the surface of the vast millennia of knowledge we've accumulated, lost, and re-discovered. Not everyone can or will celebrate every Jewish holiday, or attend every shul service, etc.

Buit also... by the same token...

Given just how many Torah passages and Jewish holidays specifically mention or reference locations in and around the Jewish ancestral homeland, outright state or imply a spiritual connection or longing to return to our ancestral homeland...

I'm sorry, but you'd have to literally know NOTHING about Judaism to think that ancestral ties or spiritual connection to or cultural longing to return has "nothing to do with Judaism." Then you must know nothing about Judaism, then, apart from the name of the religion.

[kimberly40]

Tent Graves in Sparta, Tennessee:

A fascinating group of tent-shaped stone grave coverings, most over 150 years old, stand in Mount Gilead Cemetery in White County, Tennessee. The purpose of the tent-shape covering was to keep animals from getting into the graves. In the 19th century, the deceased were buried in much shallower plots, so the covering was needed to avoid tampering by animals or grave robbers.

These folk style grave coverings, called tent or comb graves, are found primarily in Tennessee, but examples have been found in Kentucky, Alabama, Arkansas, and Georgia.

[churchblogmatics-blog]

Books for spiritual formation

Books that have left an indelible mark on my understanding of God or the Christian faith in some way. My spiritual development is unfinished, so this list is unfinished - I'm always open to suggestions

Soren Kierkegaard

The Sickness Unto Death - Explained how sin works psychologically, illustrates how it can be its own punishment

Works of Love - What it means to love, what it costs, what it gives us

Fear and Trembling - What faith means, its miraculous nature

Karl Barth

Evangelical Theology - What theology actually means, how the gospel is good news

The Epistle to the Romans - Shows the need for continual reformation of thought within the church, introduced (to me) the idea of God's freedom in communication to man

Church Dogmatics II.2 - Election is good news! It is God willing to choose humanity despite sin - universal reconciliation can and should be hoped for

The Journal of John Woolman

What undying commitment to justice means, what it looks like

Martin Luther King Jr

Letter from a Birmingham Jail - Made me understand how Romans 13:1 can be integrated into radical politics

A Gift of Love - Brought to life 1 John 4:20

A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving

A narrative illustration of unwavering faith

The Imitation of Christ, Thomas Kempis

What we're saved to, salvation has a telos

Flannery O'Connor

Wise Blood - Life without Christ, the perils of sola scriptura

A Good Man is Hard to Find - Shows grace as an intrusive lived experience

Marilynne Robinson

Gilead novels (Gilead, Home, Lila) - Rich illustration of Imago Dei

When I Was a Child I Read Books - Bolstered my understanding of the 8th commandment (reading with charitable intent, in interactions with others in life and on the page)

What Are We Doing Here? - Illustrates what the glory of God means in daily experience

Garry Wills

What Paul Meant - Paul and Jesus were of a unified mind, stop reading Paul as a bible thumper, start reading him as a man who loved dearly and wrote with urgency on live issues

Religio Medici, Thomas Browne

Ecumenism is a beautiful thing and should be strived for in all Christian communities

The Seven Storey Mountain, Thomas Merton

The gospel brings peace of mind and soul, searching for peace is a valid epistemology

Eichmann in Jerusalem, Hannah Arendt

Wickedness is not inevitable, it arises from moral and intellectual sluggardliness

The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Learn to love the church, it is the arms of Christ; great exegesis of the Sermon on the Mount; great companion to the book of James

White Evangelical Racism, Anthea Butler

Evangelicalism did not emerge from theological first principles, it is a diseased expression of the faith informed by racism at the root

Jesus and John Wayne, Kristin Kobes du Mez

Evangelicalism did not emerge from theological first principles, it is a diseased expression of the faith informed by misogyny at the root

C.S. Lewis

The Great Divorce - Eternity begins now, sin is its own punishment and grace is its own reward

Till We Have Faces - God has compassion and patience for those who wrestle with him, to summon the boldness to contend with God can be a blessed thing

The Courage to Be, Paul Tillich

The dynamics of Christian faith explained in the abstract

As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner

The thinness of intellectual assent, the richness of faith

The Denial of Death, Ernest Becker

Explanation of the existential need faith meets in the language of continental philosophy

Confessions, St. Augustine

The most theologically and philosophically rich testimony besides that of St. Paul

An Unpublished Essay on the Trinity, Jonathan Edwards

What is the trinity, why is it important

John Milton

Areopagitica - Enforced virtue means nothing

Paradise Lost - Human beings are worth saving even if they aren't deserving of God's favor

Civilization and its Discontents, Sigmund Freud

Illustrates the necessity of grace by exploring a world through the assumption of its absence (excellent foil to A Gift of Love)

[war-in-time]

Something I haven’t seen talked about as much in regards to sotr is the world building. Like yes the characterization was god awful, but one of the things I disliked most about it was that it didn’t really do much to explore or build on the world of Panem. I’ve always loved the small details that Suzanne Collins has included to allude to the fact that Panem is dystopian future America and make it feel different but also uncomfortably familiar.

Things like the fact that past arenas become historical sites that Capitol citizens vacation to and participate in re-enactments at. Even tbosas (which I definitely have some issues with) at least builds up the world of the Capitol in Panem in a new way from the trilogy, like the fact that the first arena is implied to be a football stadium or something similar is great. She has typically done a great job of making us aware it is America but like in an uncomfortable way sort of similar to how Margaret Atwood builds the world of Gilead in Handmaid’s Tale.

But sotr was just missing that to me. I guess she sort of tried to explore things like the tunnels under the arena with the whole water tank thing and encounter with the game makers. And we find out that books aren’t common in district 12. But idk it just felt dull in comparison to the other books set in this world to me.

I’m gonna answer these two together because they’re essentially the same topic for me. The hunger games are the central conflict that most of the books (outside of Mockingjay) are focused on. It’s kind of hypocritical of Collins to say she wrote the trilogy as a commentary on how people are desensitized to violence in todays media, meanwhile she continues to actively promote that same violence for two more books when the story was already completed.

I don’t blame anyone who wants to see more arenas being explored. I’d personally love to see an arena that takes place in either the ruined city that was mentioned, or in a tundra environment, because: humans are naturally curious creatures and we like learning about topics like survival in extreme conditions.

Think about every person that had ever climbed Mount Everest; they knew it was inherently dangerous and there was a very high likelihood of dying when making the decision. Or think about how popular true crime shows/videos/books/movies have been for years. People are naturally curious, especially if there’s an element of danger involved; so why wouldn’t they want to know about this huge part of the hunger games world that’s inherently dangerous?

The games are a part of world building for starters. We’re told through Katniss’ perspective that once the games are done the arenas are preserved and people vacation there and partake in reenactments. The people getting the absolute most amount of propaganda in Panem are the people in the capital and learning more about the games could be a deep dive into how people within the capital have been able to disassociate human beings from numbers on a screen.

On world building, we really don’t know anything about Panem outside of the capital from Snow’s pov, district 12 from everyone’s pov, and a bit of 13 in the last book. We don’t know anything about any of the other districts and how maybe some arenas might have been designed with specific districts in mind. Like any time they make an arena with a large body of water taking up most of the arena they kind of have to be setting up the tributes from district 4 to win right? Because the only thing we know about their district comes down to fishing.

We also don’t know anything about the war and how bad it could have possibly been for all sides if the districts agreed to the hunger games as an acceptable form of surrender willingly once the war had ended. There is so much world building that is never actually built and it’s frustrating to want to know more about Panem while being shoved backed to district 12 every single time.

Outside of knowing about Wiress’ arena we don’t get any new work building, not really. Theoretically we could pretend that the tunnels under the arena are ‘new’ world building but they really aren’t. We already knew there was a network under the arena straight from book 1 because that’s where the tributes are launched from. The only other piece of work building I can remember that sotr actually added was saying that until the 25th games, they continued using the same arena that we say in bosas, but even that feels like a stretch.

The arenas are an absolute integral part of the world building in the hunger games, no matter how much people want to pretend that; “if you want to see more arenas you’re just like the people in the capital.” I can’t stress this enough, but wanting to know more about a fictional world (even if it involved death) does not make you a bad person.

[ivan-fyodorovich-k]

The Lord said to Gideon, “The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel boast over me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me.’ Now therefore proclaim in the ears of the people, saying, ‘Whoever is fearful and trembling, let him return home and hurry away from Mount Gilead.’” Then 22,000 of the people returned, and 10,000 remained. And the Lord said to Gideon, “The people are still too many. Take them down to the water, and I will test them for you there, and anyone of whom I say to you, ‘This one shall go with you,’ shall go with you, and anyone of whom I say to you, ‘This one shall not go with you,’ shall not go.” So he brought the people down to the water. And the Lord said to Gideon, “Every one who laps the water with his tongue, as a dog laps, you shall set by himself. Likewise, every one who kneels down to drink.” And the number of those who lapped, putting their hands to their mouths, was 300 men, but all the rest of the people knelt down to drink water. And the Lord said to Gideon, “With the 300 men who lapped I will save you and give the Midianites into your hand, and let all the others go every man to his home.” So the people took provisions in their hands, and their trumpets. And he sent all the rest of Israel every man to his tent, but retained the 300 men.

Judges 7:1-8a

[middleland]

Knights of Pythias Building — Mount Gilead, Ohio (2) (3) by Christopher Riley

[pargolettasworld]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJjtljr9LYc

Shir HaShirim, the Song of Songs, is a truly amazing book to have in the Tanakh.  It is a full-on book of love poetry.  If you squint and twist around and peek through your fingers, you can kind of convince yourself that the love in question is very pure and is between humans and the Divine . . . but only up until you actually read the text.

Cantor Susan Colin has really understood the assignment here.  She’s actually one of the most joyful people I’ve ever met -- there’s something in her that’s always smiling when she speaks -- and she sets this portion of Shir HaShirim as a lush, beautiful, fully produced love song.  The portion begins with “Let me hear your voice, for your voice is sweet and you are beautiful.”  And it just goes from there.  The famous phrase “I am my beloved’s and my beloved’s is mine” is from this portion of the book.

The thing about Shir HaShirim is that, yes, it’s very sexy, and it uses metaphors that really haven’t aged well (”Your hair is like a flock of goats streaming down Mount Gilead,” new Hallmark card right there), but there’s a real sweetness to it.  The weird metaphors are earnest, and the sexiness is fun and playful and is there as an outgrowth of love.  It’s just a fun book to read, and it really rewards a good composer who leans into its strengths.

[officialjudgeclaudefrollo]

Lo, thou [art] fair, my friend, lo, thou [art] fair, Thine eyes [are] doves behind thy veil, Thy hair as a row of the goats That have shone from mount Gilead. Thy teeth as a row of the shorn ones That have come up from the washing, For all of them are forming twins, And a bereaved one is not among them. As a thread of scarlet [are] thy lips, And thy speech [is] comely, As the work of the pomegranate [is] thy temple behind thy veil. As the tower of David [is] thy neck, built for an armoury, The chief of the shields are hung on it, All shields of the mighty. Thy two breasts [are] as two fawns, Twins of a roe, that are feeding among lilies.

"If you recite them to provoke or to jest, then you do the words a disservice. But if you bring them forth as a reflection of something genuine..."

His lips press into a thin line, as though considering whether to continue.

"Then you tread on sacred ground. Speak carefully, for words like these carry weight. They are not meant for idle lips nor frivolous minds."

Frollo’s gaze hardens again, the flicker of contemplation giving way to his usual guarded sternness.

"Now tell me—why do you invoke such verses? Is it to honor their sanctity or to test my patience?"

[mental-health-and-jesus]

10-01-2024 | Bible App Their Verse of the Day | 2 Corinthians 10:5

‘We tear down arguments and every presumption set up against the knowledge of God; and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.’ 2 Corinthians 10:5

#Bible - Verse of the Day | 1 Corinthians‬ ‭3‬:‭16‬

‘Do you not know that you yourselves are God’s temple, and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?’ ‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭3‬:‭16‬

Bible App | ‭‭Deuteronomy‬ ‭3‬:‭1‬-‭11‬

The Defeat of Og 🐄

of Bashan and his whole army came out to meet us in battle at Edrei. But the Lord said to me, “Do not fear him, for I have delivered him into your hand, along with all his people and his land. Do to him as you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon.” So the Lord our God also delivered Og king of Bashan and his whole army into our hands. We struck them down until no survivor was left. At that time we captured all sixty of his cities. There was not a single city we failed to take—the entire region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan. All these cities were fortified with high walls and gates and bars, and there were many more unwalled villages. We devoted them to destruction, as we had done to Sihon king of Heshbon, utterly destroying the men, women, and children of every city. But all the livestock and plunder of the cities we carried off for ourselves. At that time we took from the two kings of the Amorites the land across the Jordan, from the Arnon Valley as far as Mount Hermon— which the Sidonians call Sirion but the Amorites call Senir— all the cities of the plateau, all of Gilead, and all of Bashan as far as the cities of Salecah and Edrei in the kingdom of Og. (For only Og king of Bashan had remained of the remnant of the Rephaim. His bed of iron, nine cubits long and four cubits wide, is still in Rabbah of the Ammonites.)’ ‭‭Deuteronomy‬ ‭3‬:‭1‬-‭11‬

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[onion-souls]

During this spontaneous Genesis reread I’m doing, I’m realizing that much of the roughness of the narrative is because we’re seeing the elite, intellectual class of a settled people who have recently suffered a great defeat in the Babylonian exile look back to the distant past and romanticize a warlike, highlander period of their heritage. It’s a recurring pattern; very close to the Edinbronian/Glasgwegian Scots and their highlanders in the Victorian era, Albanians are their fascination with highland Kanun, and the late Ottoman Arabs and Bedouin romanticism.

It’s also very clear that much of this violence never happened at the scale described (particularly the victories in Joshua); too many people, and cultures seem to immediately pop back up after their supposed genocide. A lot of it feels like the Israelites are trying to ape the Assyrian atrocity steles, but it’s pretty clear that the easternmost Hebrews crossed the Jordan and simply intermingled with people who spoke pretty much the same language and lived pretty similar lives and even considered themselves to be part of the same genealogical ur-tribes, which were reckoned with some finality during this phase of the composition of Genesis.

This might explain some of the awkwardness of the House of Jacob splitting into the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, the alleged dialect differences among the Israelites of Gilead mentioned in the Shibboleth tale (and that Gilead is sometime re-reckoned as another subgrouping and then a grandson of Manasseh, which leads to a “Gilead” being inserted as the father of Asriel in Numbers, but Chronicles places Manasseh as the father of Asriel, so...), the nature of Simeon’s geography, curse of scattering, and sinister, superhuman, lore, and the possibility that Gad ben Yaakov Avinu was originally Gad, the Semitic God of Fortune attested to from Arabia to Mount Hermon and found in Isaiah 65:11. Gad in particular is odd, as the Tribe doesn’t really show up much; they’re not in the Song of Deborah, aren’t in the 2 Chronicles 27 list, and seem to have been nomadic herders on the Northeast Bank of the Jordan.

[bea-lele-carmen]

Song of Solomon chapter 4 KJV: - 4:1

Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves' eyes within thy locks: thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from mount Gilead.

2

Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn, which came up from the washing; whereof every one bear twins, and none is barren among them.

3

Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy speech is comely: thy temples are like a piece of a pomegranate within thy locks.

4

Thy neck is like the tower of David builded for an armoury, whereon there hang a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men.

5

Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies.

6

Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, I will get me to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense.

7

Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee.

8

Come with me from Lebanon, my spouse, with me from Lebanon: look from the top of Amana, from the top of Shenir and Hermon, from the lions' dens, from the mountains of the leopards.

9

Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse; thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes, with one chain of thy neck.

10

How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse! how much better is thy love than wn and the smell of thine ointments than all spices!

11

Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb: honey and milk are under thy tongue; and the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon.

12

A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.

13

Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits; camphire, with spikenard,

14

Spikenard and saffron; calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices:

15

A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon.

16

Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits.