#Saducees

[fictionadventurer]

Stories referenced:

Pentecost: Acts 2:15

Peter and John escape prison: Acts 5: 21-26

Peter escapes prison: Acts 12: 1-16

Paul and Barnabas worshipped: Acts 14: 11-18

Paul's fatal preaching: Acts 20: 7-12

Paul's rules-lawyering: Acts 26: 30-32

Paul's snakebite: Acts 28: 1-6

Paul turning his enemies against each other: Acts 23: 6-10

Philip's teleportation: Acts 8:39

[orthodoxadventure]

It is essential for us to confess that the Holy Ever-Virgin Mary is actually Theotokos (Birthgiver of God), so as not to fall into blasphemy. For those who deny that the Holy Virgin is actually Theotokos are no longer believers, but disciples of the Pharisees and Saducees

Saint Ephraim the Syrian, "To John the Monk"

[judaismandsuch]

On...This Nonsense

So, I saw this graph in a group I am a part of, and it is so increadibly wrong that I need to rant about it:

K, this is dumb for .... a lot of reasons. I am sure Muslims and Christians can see a load of issues that I can't, but that aint my focus.

I'm just going to talk about the Jewish religions, the flow, and use Christian and Muslim religions as comparisons.

First of all, the term of the parent religion: "Judaism". The term comes from "Judean" or basically members of the tribe of Judah.

The first definite use of it as a general term for Hebrews is in the Scroll of Esther where it calls Mordechai "a member of the tribe of Benyamin, a Jew" (paraphrased for clarity). That takes place around 480-350 BCE (scholars argue about which Emperor is the one mentioned).

(the term is used elsewhere/earlier, but usually a refrence to a member of the tribe of Judah, or else in a way that could go either way).

Now the reason I mention that, is because:

"Northern Tribal" would never have used the term, as they are from the ten lost tribes, and had a separate kingdom (Israel) VS Binyamin and Judah who had the southern kingdom (Judea).

Samaritans consider themselves to be descendants of the tribe of Manasheh and Ephraim, so wouldn't use the term either.

So the top religion should really be Bnei Ysrael, or Hebrew, or Isrealite.

Next: what the fuck is "Northern Tribal"? The split b/w the ten tribes and the 2 was political, not religious. They remained the same religion until they stopped existing/were lost/ the Samaritan split happened.

I even googled "Northern Tribal Judaism" (and variations) and couldn't find jack shit. It really shouldn't be on there.

Now, when/how Samaritanism and Judaism split is both a theological and historical debate. (to the point that talmudically there were issues with drawing lines between the 2). Hell, I have hear people use the term "Samaritan Jew" before. But tbh, it is innacurate, and insulting to both religions imo.

But either way the first split should be: Judaism-Samaritanism

On the same level in the chart it has Saducee, Pharisee, Eseen, and Christianity.

Which is bonkers. There were difference between the three groups, but they were not on the level of being schisms or seperate religions like christianity.

If you wanted to argue that they are, then Christianity would be descended from one of them (or all three). Because there wasn't a monolith religion for all 4 of them to come from. The split was there when Jesus was born.

So After Judaism you either have "Christianity" Or you have "Pharisee" "Saducee" "Essene" and then a line below you get christianity.

Next Line: "Karaite" "Orthodox" "Sephardic"

That is the most bat shit thing I have seen in my life.

First of all: "Sephardic" isn't a religious movement or theology. It is a culture and set of traditions. Putting it in a flowchart as its own heading, the same way Christianity and Islam do is insane.

Secondly, even if you do so, the others in the split should be: "Ashkenazi" "Temani" "Mizrachi" and a couple of others. not "Karraite" and "Orthdox" Next, while Karraite does deserve it's own spot (I can do a dive into the theology of it later) It Should be as a descendent of Pharisee with the other branch being Rabbinic.

Next: "Orthodox" with descendents of "reform" "conservative" etc.?

No! The term "Orthodox" exists as a counter to those! And only (until very recently) in Ashkenazi Judaism!

Now maybe the reason that they divided Sphardic it's own heading was to indicate that they don't have sects like the Ashkenazi do, but still, wtf?

And Splitting Hasidic that way? like it is equivalant to any of the splits in Christianity or Islam is batshit.

So really after "Rabbinic Judaism" you should get: "Ashkenazi Sectarianism" and "Not that"

And put all that shit under Ashkenazi Sectarianism.

Anyway, this graph sucks, Maybe I'll improve it later.

[bernardo1969]

The Gospel of Saint Matthew is very brief in describing the life of John the Baptist, however, the spiritual task of this prophet was to anticipate the arrival of the Lord Jesus and his eternal Kingdom. And with these words, John addressed the common and simple people at the Jordan River for the repentance of sins: "Repent of your sins and turn to God, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near" Matthew 3:2. John preached the Kingdom of God, the empire or dominion of the divine perfections, and taught that this spiritual Kingdom had to be personified in a redeeming Messiah who was to arrive soon, although as the gospel relates, he personally did not know who this figure was. And like Jesus, John the Baptist also had problems with those who held the religious power, the Pharisees and the Saducees, and he addressed them saying that because of their religious authority, they would be judged more severely than other people, so he told them these words as a warning: "The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire" Matthew 3:10. These words of John the Baptist bear a great resemblance to the teachings of Isaiah in the poem about the vineyard. In this poem Isaiah taught that Israel was that vineyard that had not given the expected fruits; and like Isaiah, John the Baptist explained that the Pharisees and doctors of the law were also that vineyard that would be judged by its fruits. The Kingdom of God consists ultimately, as all the gospels taught, in the choice of a path, righteousness or sin, and that by that choice and its fruits men are judged, the preaching of John the Baptist was based on this truth.

[apocrypals]

I've been listening to your podcast lately and loving it. (I followed this blog years ago bc I knew I wanted to get around to listening to the pod & I finally did!).

ANYWAY I wanted to share - every time you talk about pharisees and the saducees I am reminded of the church camp song "I just wanna be a sheep": "I don't want to be a saducee / 'cause they're so sad you see / I just want to be a sheep *knee slap* baa baa"

Up until now that was my only frame of reference for what a saducee or pharisee was. Also when you sang "baa baa" you had to put up your hands to your head to make little sheep ears. Oh church camp.

This is a camp song I had forgotten about. Thank you (?) for the reminder

[the-gamling-dog]

I do like this, because it plays into the Calvinist narrative that sure, Christ's redemption yada yada, but some people exist firmly below the floor at which Christ's grace applies.

Because Biblical literacy appears to correlate inversely to foam-flecked jeremiads about Them.

Let demons atone and find forgiveness. Maybe Lucifer was their Pharisee, their Saducee, and led them astray from the Law. Who's to say?

Certainly not Men, when the Son of Man accepts everyone.

hey uhhh but fr the concept of fallen angels existing but risen demons being an impossibility is kind of a great summary of sin in christianity

[rinumia-blog]

SCRIPTURE READING (STORMY)

Matthew 16 vs 1-4(NIV)

1 The Pharisees and Saducees came to Jesus and tested him by asking him to show them a sign from heaven.

2 He replied, "When evening comes, you say , 'It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.'

3 and in the morning, 'Today, it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.' You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the sign of the times.

4 A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah. " Jesus then left them and went away.

[unheardradical]

While plying a half ounce of merino yarn I got to having some thoughts. I have a "friend " on FB who I believe is Wiccan. Sometimes it takes effort to believe to me the planet is conscious, him with all his deities and afterlife. To the Salvationist I am a Saducee. If the planet remembers me I haven't completely died. Thinking how energy dissipates and all the different kinds of energy it would take and a way of having the energies not dissipate and not become all homogeneous in a afterlife is hard to grasp. Thinking getting older that I need to accomplish something and I have. When I was a teenager I wanted to be free and I believed being a soldier kept people free rather than just defending the economic system we live in. I finally found what freedom is. To me it is giving up all the things that control me so I can do the meaning of the law given at Sinia which is in all the "Gospels" loving The God and your neighbor as yourself. The Identity of God preached that until we murdered It. I am not free. I don't even like the conspiracy of the cooking instructions that on store bought frozen pizza. The corporation that owns the grocery store wants you to eat at the pizza joint it owns. ( I completely let a frozen pizza thaw out pre heat the oven 50 degrees less than the standard 400 and bake the pizza till the bottom crust is golden. I don't eat pizza at a pizza place. ) I am not free and I know what I must do to be free. When my chemical soup of a brain quits working I will have accomplished what I wanted to find when I was a teenager.

[thejesusmaninred]

"The Saducees." From Mark 12: 18-23.

Next we meed the Saducees, "the angry ones" who are Orthodox Jews. Now these, well these...not exactly everyone's best friends, but they did seek out Jesus for His divine counsel. As for modern Orthodox Jews, the mission is to take advantage of their Torah instruction and involve them in the future of Israel in the same manner as Jesus did the Pharisees and the Herodians.

The Torah as we have stated must be studied a few different ways and reduced to salient points. By covering these disparate sects of Judaism, Jesus is attempting to marry them all together to create a community that is as literate in the Torah as possible in all the ways it was intended.

The process is called a marriage. Marriages in Judaism include someone who is on the inside of the faith and someone who is on the outside. Two Jews cannot marry each other. One must be a Gentile for the marriage to meet the requirements God gave Onan in the Torah. The future of the Jewish people and the human race depends on it.

The Talmud however warns a bunch of sullen smelly old Jews are not going to lure to best freshest meat into the fold. It says the Jewish people need to lighten up, have fun, do it right, create a format only a fool would refuse. Freaky Fridays are not going to be enough, there must be a good deal more if the faith is to undergo a resurrection and attain to God's Glory as the Torah states.

To understand Jesus's explanation of all of this we need to examine a few keywords:

Marriage=#213, באג, a bug, ‎"pollinators". Bugs are supposed to move from field to field in order to ensure species diversity within plants.

Resurrection=#742, זד‎ב‎, zdav, "to long for a heavenly body but there is no such thing." A zedav is "a dove that is also a wolf" AKA a waste of time.

Next we need to understand sibling relationships. They are not at all the same things in ordinary English:

A man=#72, זב‎, "a drip from a spout."

A woman=#1022, יבב‎ ‎ ‎"whining", "a load, a burden, a fate."

Children=#169, ב‎וט‎, bot, "wattage" you have to put them to graze, like pigs.

The noun βοτανη (botane), meaning pasture or pasturage; the vegetation that grazers eat (Hebrews 6:7 only). This word could also be used to refer to dry fodder, or herbs for human consumption, or even plants to turn into material to make clothes. This noun is the source of our English word botany, or the study of plants. The related noun βοτανη (botane) described a pasture. Noun βοτον (boton) describes a grazer or grazing beast. Noun βοτηρ (boter), describes a "pasturer"; yet another word for herdsman. None of these latter words occur in the New Testament.

A man's brother=#487, ד‎חז‎, dhaz, "understand of what it means to be alive."

A wife= #1082, יחב‎, yachav, "loving."

A widow=#1864, יחוד‎ ‎"uniqueness, unification, setting aside." A widow gets another chance. Lucky her.

These elements are combined in the following passage from the Gospel Torah:

Marriage at the Resurrection

18 Then the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question.

19 “Teacher,” they said, “Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother.

20 Now there were seven brothers. The first one married and died without leaving any children.

21 The second one married the widow, but he also died, leaving no child. It was the same with the third.

The verb חמם (hamam) means to be hot or warm, and that usually in the physical sense (Exodus 16:21, Haggai 1:6). Sometimes it's used to describe a non-physical heat: determination (Psalm 39:3), non-sexual excitation (Isaiah 57:5), and sexual-excitation (of animals only - Genesis 30:38).

 22 In fact, none of the seven left any children. Last of all, the woman died too. 

23 At the resurrection[c] whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?”

If we read Bereshit at just the literal level, the rest of the Torah is castrated, it is sterilized. The promulgation of a sterile Torah is the reason the world is experiencing tremendous difficulties. Each Day represents a specific marriage between man and specific principals associated with the founding of his superior intellect. Jesus said if we pass the days without understanding we will not live life.

Muhammad said the same thing about the study of the Quran:

So in no way did Jesus condone polygamy or polyamory or incest, but instead said the mind must be exposed gradually to a rich mixture of enlightening conceps across the course of a man's life. Each level of sophistication outmodes the rest, which explains why the Kabbalah states the widow moves on to find better and better male qualities to improve her lot.

The Values in Gematria are:

v. 18-19: The Orthodox Jews asked Jesus a question. The Number is 11020, אי‎‎ך, How, "How experienced are you? How pronounced is your state of knowledge?"

v. 20: The first one married and died. The Number is 6961, וטוא‎‎ ‎, veto, "a refusal to be bucolic or rural, to live like a cow."

v. 21: The same was true of the second and the third. The Number is 6669, wavt, "and hot."

"The verb חמם (hamam) means to be hot or warm, and that usually in the physical sense (Exodus 16:21, Haggai 1:6). Sometimes it's used to describe a non-physical heat: determination (Psalm 39:3), non-sexual excitation (Isaiah 57:5), and sexual-excitation (of animals only - Genesis 30:38)."

v. 22: Last of all the women died too. The Number is 3708, ג‎ע‎ח‎, "they were hungry."

The men were fed a literal interpretation of the Torah and the women suffered. We need to learn as much as we can all of the time or we die a slow death, sometimes a fast one:

"Hunger is a sign that one's basic necessities are not being met, and heralds the death that is inevitable if the hunger is not assuaged. Hunger often comes accompanied by διψος (dipsos), thirst, and both are characteristics of πτωχεια (ptocheia), destitution, the polar opposite of ελευθερια (eleutheria), freedom, which is the purpose of the Gospel of Christ (Galatians 5:1).

This helps to explain how Jesus could claim that he was "the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst" (John 6:35).

A life of eleutheria is a life of completion (שלום, shalom), not a life of not having to eat (Luke 24:43), but rather a life devoted to the absorption and application of an abundance of hitherto unrelated elements: a permanence at the point of intersection of a great many continuums (Revelation 21:26)."

v. 23: At the resurrection[c] whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?” Orthodox Jews are scared of losing their Jewish identity. Jesus and yours truly suggest there is nothing more interesting about being Jewish than to understand the ways God, the angels and the prophets colluded to create a work of brilliance that is incomparable. A literal interpretation of the Torah is not even a matchstick compared to the brilliance found the fullness of the religion when it is studied all the way. This Gospel Torah is no exception.

The Number is 6533, והגג‎‎, "Go all the way to the roof."

So far Jesus says there is a scientific, "depressed" or legal way to apply the Torah, meaning "to be imitators of God", and there are indications for more literal or literary interepretations. We will summarize all the ways Jesus explained the Torah at the end of the Gospel.

[thetruekyle]

If you profess and prescribe to Catholicsm... you are still going to hell. That ancuent Roman-Empirical 'church' is an abomination of modernity and has strayed as far from God as the Pharisees and Saducees (who failed to recognize and even punished the Son of Man as he stood before them in real time) did...

Only JESUS saves.

[tommychook]

THE HORRIBLE DEATH OF ANNAS AND CAIAPHAS, THE SADUCEES WHO KILLED JESUS

[the-hem]

Jesus and the Question. From Matthew 22: 34-46.

Humanity struggles with the concept of Messiah because we know it is not relevant to us. There is no such thing as a Messiah on a world that refuses to bow before God and obey His Commandments. That would place mankind at the behest of a Mericful God and the madcap antics of humanity which is exactly how we have interpreted the Religion; we are reaping the results of our flawed manner of inquiry into the Holy Spirit through the Gospels.

There are also hints of anti-Semitism in the notion that the One Great Commandment binds the rest and this is also clearly problematic as Jesus was a Jew and very learned in every aspect of Judaism.

Without the entirety of the Torah, the amount of self-esteem and self worth we allow ourselves is limited. So for Christ's formula to work, we must have undertaken the Mitzvot, the Tzav, the Edoms, the Temple Furnishings, etc. and become fully competent as Jews before the Christian aspect has any hope of working out.

The 613 Mitzvot have a Gematria of 1489, א‎דחט‎, "I will push" meaning they are designed to nudge us forward, to cause our characters to assume an ever blooming condition. None are incompatible with the Prime Commandment, nor are any interchangeable with it.

So He did not come to abolish Judaism or overwrite it, but instead to apply it with more ambition than almost anyone on earth so far, save the Prophets of the early Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints who put the Gospel rubber on the road and ended slavery in America. Jesus Himself was not able to claim such a victory of such a horrendous violation of Jewish Law.

Although Jesus Himself was never outspoken about ending slavery in the ancient world, He did not deny this was the most important tenet of Judaism. So we know we need to understand the Religion thoroughly and longitudinally if we are to attempt modern applications.

The Greatest Commandment

34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees [the Orthodox Jews], the Pharisees [the scientists] got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Whose Son Is the Messiah?

41 While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, 42 “What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?”

“The son of David,” they replied.

43 He said to them, “How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’? For he says,

44 “‘The Lord said to my Lord:     “Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies     under your feet.”’[c]

45 If then David calls him ‘Lord,’ how can he be his son?” 46 No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions.

Saducees are the Jewish Police. They are not mentioned in the Torah. Neither are the Pharisees. Saducees do not accept anything but the Torah, rejecting the Mishnah, the Midrash and the rest of the Tanakh.

Pharisees are the authors of the Halachah, the Oral Tradition of the Torah. It is their expectation one's internal scope and external alignment with the law are in perfect order. Jesus was tested by both regarding His Oral and Written expertise with the Torah.

The most important one that is asked to this day is when will it be time for Mashiach?

Jesus says the first, the Law must culminate. It needs to be discernable, in the same way a Kosher Diet or the observance of Shabbat can be discerned before one even takes a bite of food or moves a muscle. So can you determine if you feel a canker in your heart towards another person or not, and can you empathize before you do anything else? If the answer is yes, you understand what it means to stand before God on sacred ground.

Failure to reach it reproaches one from understanding the Messiah and his timeline.

The Gematria explain how we attain to the Highest Ground called the First and Second commandments:

v. 34-36: The Value in Hebrew Gematria is 1124-6. Yabo, "what is the object of your desire?"

"We want God to come. We want the pain to end."

Our verb bo' is expressed in grammatical constructions that convey a causing, and which create the meaning of "to cause to come" may often be translated with to lead, to send or to bring (Genesis 6:19, Numbers 27:17, 1 Kings 17:6).

v. 37-40: The Value in Gematria is 12670, yeboa, "I will be born."

The verb βοαω (boao), meaning to roar or collectively cry out loud. There are of course many Greek verbs that convey a vocal uttering, but it's this particular verb that is used in MATTHEW 3:3: "...the voice of one crying in the wilderness" (MATTHEW 3:3), where it translates the Hebrew verb קרא (qara'), to call or name.

Naming things was the first activity of Adam (Genesis 2:19-20; see ονομα, onoma, name or noun), which formally set him apart from the animals he named, which in turn necessitated the rise of his species-specific wife Eve.

v. 41-42: The Value in Gematria is 9883, טחחג, giggled. The most famous giggle in the Torah is when Sarah became pregnant with Isaac. Sarah means "the government" which means the government must come along for the ride out of the wilderness if we want to be happy and achieve global Messianic proportions.

v. 43- 44: The Value in Gematria is 9620, ט‎ובאֶפֶס‎‎, tubafes, "Good counsel right in front of your nose."

v. 45: The Value in Gematria is 7884, ז‎חחד, zahhad, "things will be sharper, they will bloom the second time around".

The name Ziv occurs only twice in the Bible, but in one context: in the month Ziv king Solomon commenced the building of the Temple of YHWH in Jerusalem (1 Kings 6:1 and 6:37; specifically on the 2nd day of the month, — 2 Chronicles 3:2).

The name Ziv (זו), appears to derive from the verb זהה (zahah, to bloom, to be ready to reproduce.

• The name Iyar, spelled איר, isn't used in the Bible. It's of unclear pedigree but over the centuries most commentators have linked it to the verb אור ('or), to be light or to shine.

Other verbs of interest are ארה ('ara), to pluck or gather, and ארר ('arar), to bind (or curse), which could possibly be applied to the very early stages of agricultural production.

• The second month is also often referred to namelessly in the Bible, quite frequently with a secondary link to some second year:

On the 17th day of the second month, the water of the great flood began to come upon the earth (Genesis 7:11).

On the 27th day of the second month of the second year of the flood, Noah and his family exited the Ark (Genesis 8:14) onto the land that had been dry since the first of the first month of that year.

On the 15th day of the second month, Israel departed from Elim and entered the wilderness of Sin (Exodus 16:1) on their trek away from Egypt, which started in the first month (and which obviously tells of a move away from Egypt's dominant wisdom tradition — see our article on the name Exodus).

If in the first month a person was unclean because of a death, or he was on a journey, he had to celebrate Passover on the 14th of the second month (Numbers 9:1). Later king Hezekiah appears to invoke this rule as he has the whole of Israel celebrate Passover in the second month (2 Chronicles 30:2, 30:13).

On the 1st day of the second month of the second year of Israel's wanderings, YHWH spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai (Numbers 1:1, 1:18) and ordered the census of battle-ready males, twenty years old and older, and organized Israel in battle array. The Levites were exempt from military duty, because they formed the priestly caste. This made Israel 11/12 martial and 1/12 priestly.

On the 20th day of the second month of the second year of wandering, the Shekinah was lifted from over the tabernacle and Israel departed from Sinai (Numbers 10:11).

In the second month of the second year after their arrival, Zerubbabel and company began the work on the Temple's restoration (Ezra 3:8).

King David's commander of the second month was Dodai the Ahohite of Benjamin (1 Chronicles 27:4). His chief was Mikloth, also of Benjamin.

A dodai is a song of love, an ahohite is a "brother reckoned by his words", Benjamin is the "son of the Southern Sun" AKA intelligent, competent with technology and the sciences, Mikloth, "covered by Michael".

Mikloth was the son of Jehiel and Maacah= protected by a vibrant community that presses out oppression.

The verb חיה (haya) means to live and life is all about resonance between elements — molecules working together to make a living cell, cells working together to make a living organism and human minds working together to make a living nation.

Adjective חי (hay) means living and adjective חיה (hayeh) means lively. Noun חיה (hayya) means life or living thing, and may also be used to describe a vibrant community. Plural noun חיים (hayyim) literally means livings but describes the whole palette of activities a living being engages in: one's making-a-living.

The verb מעך (ma'ak) means to press or squeeze. It's used a mere three times in the Old Testament.

We are not ready for a Messiah. We have none ofr the messianic characteristics needed to contribute to the reign of one, and this is why Jesus said the Line of the House of David, adherents to Jewish Law, need to keep sprouting if such a thing is to happen.

This means the conversation about our willingness to be human in the manner of the Torah, in the image of God and the Christ is requisite if we want to continue to believe we were meant to live in Grace.

[the-single-element]

Good morning.

Last week, we began to hear from Matthew's account of Jesus's climactic debate with the scholars of Jerusalem, in which we saw Jesus reframe a challenge to his authority into a referendum on the testimony of John the Baptist. Today, this exploration of John's doctrine continues, with Jesus invoking one of John's favorite images – itself a reference to the prophecies of Isaiah – as a direct challenge to the spiritual authorities of the time... and perhaps as a challenge to us, as well.

Perhaps the first step here, then, is to go back to the part of John the Baptist's teaching which still survives, and see what he was saying to the people. The general outline can be read in Mark's Good News:

John the Baptist appeared in the desert proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. [...] And this is what he proclaimed: “One mightier than I is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; he will baptize you with the holy Spirit.”

But Matthew's Good News (our focus for this year) includes another angle: a warning to the Pharisees and Saducees, who were, at the time, the two main factions of Torah scholars. This warning, like many of John the Baptist's metaphors, borrowed from the first Isaiah's prophecies; in this case, his "trees that do not bear good fruit being cut down" echoing Isaiah's song of his beloved's vineyard, a mournful, striking prophecy of exile which we hear as this Sunday's TaNaKh excerpt.

And Luke – ever concerned with the Kingdom's real-world effects – tells us what sort of fruits John expected:

The crowds asked, “What should we do?” John replied, “If you have two shirts, give one to the poor. If you have food, share it with those who are hungry.”

Even corrupt tax collectors came to be baptized and asked, “Teacher, what should we do?” He replied, “Collect no more taxes than the government requires.”

“What should we do?” asked some soldiers. “Don’t extort money or make false accusations. And be content with your pay.”

So this is John the Baptist as the Synoptic texts see him – "preparing the way" for Jesus by urging people to change their hearts, and thereby, change their fruits, and thereby, change their fates.

John the Evangelist, as usual, has a bit of a different focus. Rather than discuss John the Baptist's doctrine, the focus is more on convincing us that John the Baptist, far from being jealous of Jesus's success, actually encouraged people to listen to Jesus – identifying him as not only the Messiah, but someone who can explain the Kingdom better than John the Baptist ever could.

Matthew doesn't relate that scene so explicitly. But he establishes the continuity between John and Jesus's teachings another way: a shared sort of language, seen now and again in Jesus's sermons and parables. For example:

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but underneath are ravenous wolves. By their fruits you will know them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Just so, every good tree bears good fruit, and a rotten tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a rotten tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. So by their fruits you will know them.”

What a clever turn of phrase Jesus uses here. Not only does he fold in a verbatim quote of John, but he makes the underlying reference to Isaiah's vineyard song more explicit, by talking of both rotting fruit (to which the original Hebrew's "sour grapes" could have validly referred), and the Greek TaNaKh translations of the time, which rendered them as "thorns" instead.

And this leads us, at last, to today, when Jesus finishes making this connection. Because one thing remains to explain in Isaiah's lament: the mysterious, incomprehensible fate of the vineyard. "What did I forget?" it asks. "How could this fruit have grown from good seed?" It's treated as bad luck, a failed investment that results in the investor abandoning the venture... not something that can be explained, let alone repaired like the psalm today asks God to do.

Jesus, in confronting his own Torah teachers, pulls the curtain aside. No longer is the vineyard's lack of produce mysterious. No longer is it treated as incomprehensible that there would be no edible grapes on the vines. On the contrary, human agency is put in the hotseat. The decision of the farmhands to seize the grapes by force – however cartoonish and unreasonable – is a human decision, born of their all-to-human divided loyalties. In trying to keep for themselves the riches they were entrusted, they instead destroy themselves... and indeed, what Jesus is quietly implying by that in this parable today – including a tragic repeat of Isaiah's prophesied exile – he'll be speaking of openly all too soon.

At this climactic confrontation, then, mere days before the Last Supper, Jesus is once again warning that time is nearly up. That John the Baptist's doctrine – change your hearts to change your fruits to change your fate – is an invitation that one sits on at one's own risk. And there's no privileged position that exempts us, either; between John's "do not presume just because you descend from Abraham" and Jesus's "false prophets" and "blind guides", it's the ones who think themselves most exempt that turn out to be most in need of John's medicine, since, after all, more is expected of them.

But much is expected of us, too. If we claim to be Christians, are we acting like it? What kind of fruits are we bearing? What does that say about our hearts – about which parts of us are successfully internalizing the logic of the Kingdom of Heaven, and which still have a long way to go? Are we using our own faith to share our cloaks, as John suggested? Are we using it to do flashy stuff that makes us look good, which Paul also warned us was futile if love wasn't behind it?

It's all one thing. The works will be misaimed and ineffective without the change of heart, and the change of heart is suspect if it doesn't bear fruit. But these are not mysterious processes that we can't observe. We shouldn't be stumped by them, like seeds growing into the wrong species of plant. All of this is made of real, human choices, which we have the power to make or refuse. And as we've learned before, the soil can be properly cultivated to produce fruit more reliably than it did before.

And so we have this challenge, which – as challenges often are in this business – is also a hope. And we'll hear more about that challenge – and that hope – as this debate continues through the month.

[stevensaus]

Why “God Has A Plan” Is Exactly The Wrong Thing To Say To Someone Who Is Grieving

A friend who recently got some bad news told me afterward, "I think if one more person tells me God has a plan I may throw something." With the collective trauma and death of the last few years, it's a phrase that's been tossed around a lot more recently, and quite frankly, it needs to stop yesterday.

The "surface" reading of "God has a plan" or "God works in mysterious ways" is supposed to be that there is a point to whatever suffering that one is going through. Or perhaps "I'm just wishing you well and trying to help you feel better." Maybe that's usually the primary meaning. It might even be the only consciously intended meaning. But it's far from being the only one. Not only are those who are grieving very aware of those other meanings, the implications of that phrase actually paint the Christian God in a very bad light... and may snatch away the comfort of faith from someone at the moment they need it the most. God Thinks Your Pain Is Necessary (But Won't Tell You Why) The first problem - before we get into the theological weeds - is that saying "God has a plan" or "there's always a reason" is regarded as the beginning and end of the comforting process. The statement implies that interfering with whatever situation the person in pain is experiencing is required. Ironically, this is perhaps the most Biblically-supported interpretation. After all, the entirety of the "Good News" is based around the idea that Yeshua (that's "Jesus," by the way) suffered and died for our sins. Which means that someone - Judas, Pilate, the Pharisees, Saducees, and/or the centurions - had to do those things to Yeshua in order to fulfill Yahweh's plan. That means Dante's later poetic interpretation of Hell - and showing Judas in the lowest pit - depicts a massive injustice. (Although not the Bible, though elements of both Dante and Milton have become cultural elements of modern Christianity.) Still, though, it's an awfully jerky thing to say to someone in pain. And, like I said, that's before you get into the real theological weeds. The Ineffable Plan The whole idea of there being a "plan" is part of the problem. Because whenever you talk about a "plan" that, by definition, is not understandable to those subject to the plan, you can end up with some really ugly conclusions. The kindest interpretation of the Divine having an ineffable - that is, unknowable - plan is an existentialist reading similar to mine after watching Everything Everywhere All At Once. Sure, there may be a "plan" - or "meaning" - but the difference is subtle and vital. In this existentialist/absurdist kind of response, for all intents and purposes there is no "in-universe" justification for bad things happening. There is literally no way to convey the "why" of a system (how humans experience the universe) to those still restricted by the limits of their experience in that system. Appealing to an ineffable plan provides a philosophical comfort to existential crisis, but it does not provide any degree of relief to those experiencing grief or pain because of the events in that universe. The only kind response in such a situation is to acknowledge the other person's grief and sit with them as they experience that grief. This also reflects the kindest possible reading of the Book of Job - that JHVH is in the role of a pet owner, being questioned by a pet who needs to wear a "cone of shame" after surgery. The pet is incapable of understanding the need for the cone, and struggles against it. So JHVH's speech at the end of Job could be a sad musing on Job's literal inability to understand what is going on. But this analogy falls down pretty quickly when you realize that modern Christian theology also asserts that Divine is all-loving and omnipotent. Because while that analogy works pretty well for that specific case, it fails utterly when faced with the degree of pain and evil in the world, the responsibilities of pet owners, and the attributes used to describe the Divine. Which brings us to the more common reading of the end of Job, where JHVH comes off as an insufferable and arguably evil prick who simply pulls rank on a mere human. God does not declare Job innocent or guilty. God changes the subject and begins to talk about the wonders of the world that God had created. God formed the earth, set its structure, put bounds to keep the sea under control, created all the heavenly bodies, and even controls the weather. All through this speech, God reminds Job–using what sounds like sarcastic asides–that mere humans could never accomplish all of this. -- EnterTheBible.Org This is also the more common way that "God has a plan" or "there's always a reason" ends up making people feel worse instead of better. And that's the fault of prosperity theology. Look What You Made God Do To You I've talked about how prosperity theology is non-Biblical and evil a few times now. As a quick refresher, the basic version is that the more faithful you are (and the more you give to preachers), the better off you are physically, mentally, and financially. Which is bad enough, but it also suggests the opposite: bad things happen to those who deserve it. That concept - even if it is not explicitly part of preached theology - has permeated American culture so thoroughly that many people assume that if you are poor, or something bad happens to you, that you somehow deserved it. For what it's worth, not only is the "prosperity" portion explicitly debunked in Job, the negative association is not based on the Bible. There are many times that the "all-loving" JHVH laid curses upon the unborn descendants of those who annoyed Him. But that idea that how you are doing in "real life" reflects the quality of your "spiritual life" persists across even the secular portions of American culture. Just Express Some Empathy, Dammit. All of which combines -- both explicitly and implicity -- to end up blaming the grieving person under the pretense of comforting them. Whether the person saying "God has a plan" realizes it or not, the best interpretation of what they're saying is that someone should be thankful for whatever tragedy has happened, and at worst, comes across as abusive victim blaming. And if you find yourself unable to think of anything else to say, perhaps you should try WikiHow. Featured Image by Michael Knoll from Pixabay

I think those stories are useful as metaphor for the generational effects of institutional bigotry and structural discrimination, but literally, they just paint JHVH as a narcissist. Read the full article

[beatrice-otter]

Hey, despite the fact that the New Testament gives Pharisees a bad rap, they were actually pretty cool. Jesus himself was probably a Pharisee (he sure spends a shitton of time hanging out with them and his teachings fit well within what we know of their teachings). And the reason the New Testament doesn't like them is that by the time the Gospels were written, Jews had decided that Christians were just too weird and the whole idea that Jesus was God meant that Christians were worshiping multiple gods (and Judaism says only one god). Therefore, you had to choose either Judaism or Christianity. The ones who chose Christianity were really mad at Jews because of it, and filtered everything about Jews through that lens as the Gospels were being written, turning the Pharisees and Saducees into negative caricatures.

All of which is to say, calling the Hobby Lobby people Pharisees is an insult to Pharisees. The actual Pharisees would think they were awful people, too.

That whole campaign is sponsored by the people who own Hobby Lobby. They know that their toxic brand of hateful bigotry, disguised as religious belief, is radioactively unpopular. Through their own actions, they have turned off an entire generation.

So they spend money on a misleading campaign, designed to trick people into thinking that He Gets Us is an alternative to the toxic and hateful bigotry the sponsors of He Gets Us are hoping to drive them toward.

All of that money could have done legitimate good, made a meaningful difference, and would have actually made a better case for the Canon Jesus than their deeply misleading and sinful efforts to promote Fandom Jesus.

I am not a Christian, but even I know that if the Jesus described in the gospels was a real person, and if he actually said and taught the things the Bible says he said and taught, he would be at the front of the line, decrying the He Gets Us people.

Either they don't get that, or they don't care. In either case, spending money to trick people into following you, rather than spending money to meaningfully and immediately improve people's lives (as Jesus taught, bee tee dubs) just tells everyone that these people are American Pharisees.

If Heaven exists, I would pay a dollar to see the look on their face when the bouncer tells them they aren't on the list, as a consequence of their choices.

[zooterchet]

O'Neill Inner Ceremonial Secrets

I hunt crows, honey, I'm a hawk. It's just the behavior in dog grooming of my father, over the course of centuries. I'm a hound.

But O'Neills, the Scythian Caspians (Georgia, of the Russian Steppes), find dog breeding, offensive, since it's a gay or lesbian job.

The O'Neills are foxes, we've eliminated anyone capable of being able to breed us into a dog likeness, through Judy Didymus Thomas, the sacrifice of Christ; the whole rather tawdry incident for this specific purpose, of killing those capable of breeding us into slaves, in witch hunts, for being reptile zoologists, at the hands of the Saducees, Mary Magdelene, the platinum blondes; Prussian Blue. We've got a Doubting Thom working over Dr. Leo, he's looking at her right now. I'd be your friend Azrael Abyss. The first genome selected in the hunt was Chris Katan. He played Batman, as gay. The second, is George Clooney. He surmised the comic was gay, for siding with the poor. The third, is Charles Winston, he wants to be a big buddy, to Jews. That entire family tradition, is a pin on a grenade, removed, on his preschool philosophy, through The Joker, starring Joaquain Phoenix, number four, the finality. Goths, are undercover cops. The entire culture was wiped out. Medical actors, are heterosexual doctors. The entire culture of homosexual medicine is wiped out. Be a big buddy to Jews, means your father offers poor investment advice. That's now Jewish. The Joker, is a movie depicting a Rabbi, as poor. Rabbis are now poor. The concept of Batman, is that certain ethnic genomes, follow a police tradition. O'Neills, undo a culture. Batman, is the Champlains, the South African Kurds, of the Orange Republic. Ernest Charlebois. Now anyone can be Batman. He's fucking stupid, isn't he? You're stealing a bag of garbage, you're the Chinese poor, the Chinese police class.