#epiphanized

[aspiringwarriorlibrarian]

You know, I don't think I've ever seen a direct reversal of the "At Least I Admit It" trope. You know the one, where the bad guy says "I do bad things but I acknowledge they're bad so that makes me morally superior to you", and I could go on about why that bugs me but that's not the point. The point is that Qimir and Sol are both holding someone prisoner, but Qimir is the one trying to disguise it with soft words and fake freedom while Sol is being completely honest.

Qimir: You can leave at any time, provided you swim across several miles of turbulent sea to a ship I locked and then fly through space with no idea how to navigate. Oh wait, you're gonna try it anyway, um....actually, first you have to stab me with a lightsaber, no this is not physically restraining you from leaving I'm just holding you in a way that prevents you from moving anywhere unless I let you, it's totally different.

Sol: I shot you in the back and handcuffed you to a bed while you were unconscious.

[firstofficerkittycat]

Most romantic thing in the world to me actually would be if Spock went thru with kolinahr and everything went to plan and he was genuinely fine and comfortable with himself afterwards but he deeply regrets it still bc he realizes it wasn't logical to have gone through with it when he only did it to be accepted and there was nothing ever wrong with him, purging emotions isn't some superior state of being it's just a different mode of existence that is no more valuable than the former, and Jim's wellbeing is still very important to him as his t'hy'la bc mutual relationships are not the product of emotion they are a fundamentally important part of life whether u have feelings or not and Jim does have feelings and it was fucked up of him to damage them over his obsession with fitting in to Vulcan society, and a few weeks after he comes back he tells Jim he loves him softly while tryna calm him down from something and he's like no you fucking don't please dont say that to me it hurts more knowing you'd lie about it and Spock's like I'm not lying I do love you and Jim pulls himself up and looks him in the eyes like ok what does that mean and he goes I don't think it matters that I can't feel emotion anymore when I know what loving you felt like. It's in my core. If it can transcend life, actual material existence then why wouldn't it be able to transcend the emotion itself. Don't you think it's bigger than any of that. I love you because I know I do

[riepu10]

Epiphanes Cleopatra (1999)

[mourningmaybells]

every day some christian weirdo goes online saying this person is the antichrist and the end of the world is nigh because the omen got really popular in the 70s and too many christians tend not to read the bible critically or through metaphors, or through knowledge of historical context... but man i also wish dragons were real

[berenike-euergetis]

Gold coin featuring Cleopatra I Syra

Cleopatra I Syra ("The Syrian") born around 204 BC. She was the daughter of Antiochus III the great and Laodice III. Cleopatra I married Ptolemy V of Egypt, solidifying an alliance between the Seleucid and Ptolemaic dynasties.

[actually-the-antichrist]

Okay, I feel like I've just had an epiphany- been thinking about religion lately especially in regards to my own polytheism, and I've come to the thought that religion isn't something you "believe" or even something you "do", it's something you are. Like, Hellenic Polytheists don't just practice Hellenic Polytheism, but they are Hellenic Polytheism, the religion. Similarly, Christians don't just practice Christianity, they are it. That is why the argument of "I am a good Christian as opposed to bad ones" breaks down, there is no bad Christian that is detachable from the notion of a bad Christianity. A Christian who is doing "bad things" isn't just doing Christianity badly, but is doing a bad Christianity, and objections made to the religion that center the actions of this individual are valid, because the religion's bad is directly embodied in them.

I think religion is something that you are. Perhaps more than any other identity marker in the modern world, be it sexuality, political allegiance, upbringing etc, religion is more fundamentally what you are because the very issue of divinity is also the issue of personhood and humanity. In terms of my polytheism, I think that one does not just connect with the gods; the entanglement is even deeper than that- your very personhood is what the religion is, and the gods are a part of who you are.

[numbersbythebook]

Hannukah is Upon Us

written by Will Schumacher

Hannukah is upon us.  It is not one of God’s feast days but is called a minor festival just as Purim is. It is mentioned once in the Bible:

John 10:22 And it was at Jerusalem the feast of the dedication, and it was winter.

Enoch and Hannukah share the same root meaning “dedication”.

Hannukah is celebrated as the miracle of the oil lasting 8 days as the temple was being rededicated But in a religious sense it is so much more.  It is about victory over assimilation.  Antiochus IV Epiphanes outlawed Judaism.  There was to be no more circumcision, sabbath keeping, torah study or dietary laws.  The high priest position was given to the highest bidder who would be loyal to Antiochus IV and Hellenization.  As long as any jew decided to follow the rules of Hellenization they were allowed to live.  Many who stayed dedicated to God and His laws were killed.  A war broke out and the jews dedicated to God miraculously won.

What Antiochus IV did was much like the story of Daniel 3 when Nebuchadnezzar set up an image and made everyone bow to it.  You were fine as long as you bowed to it.  If you didn’t you were thrown into the fiery furnace.  I have posted on Daniel 3 and have shown how it is a picture of the Great Tribulation of the Church Age we are in.

What Antiochus IV did and the events of the Maccabean revolt is a type of the Great Tribulation church age we are in. Jesus refers to these events in Matthew 24:

Matthew 24:15-20 When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:) 16 Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains: 17 Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house: 18 Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. 19 And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! 20 But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day:

The Jewish people loyal to God and His laws fled to the mountains and hills.  Many jews would not fight or flee on the sabbath so they were killed. Antiochus IV set up an altar to Zeus in the temple and sacrificed a pig.  Jesus is referencing these events in the above section. Jesus then says when these things happen there will be great tribulation:

Matthew 24:21 For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.

In my mind what Christ is saying is that there will come another ruler who Antiochus IV is a type of who is going to try to assimilate you. Paul says our battle is a spiritual battle and we are fighting against Satan and his spiritual forces at work in the world:

Ephesians 6:11-12 Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Jesus calls satan the “ruler of this world”: John 14:30 Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me.

Something that I have learned from listening to teachings by people much smarter than me is that God’s Word is perfect. There is nothing in the Bible that shouldn’t be. It is all there for a reason. There are no idle words. So when you see something that seems odd or really not necessary you should be drawn to that to study why did God include that.

This again is the only verse containing Hannukah in the Bible, which I believe is linked to the Great Tribulation Church Age we are in where satan is acting as Antiochus IV trying to assimilate us:

John 10:22 And it was at Jerusalem the feast of the dedication, and it was winter.

I read this and ask “Why do we need to be told it is winter?”. We know Hannukah is Kislev 25. Strong’s G5494=”winter”. It is also translated as “tempest” in Acts 27:

Acts 27:20 And when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, and no small tempest lay on us, all hope that we should be saved was then taken away.

I have posted on this story before.  It is a Noah’s ark type story. The tempest is a type of the Great Tribulation we are in just as the rains and flood of Noah’s story are a type of the great tribulation.  They will only be saved if they stay in the ship-Noah’s ark. Only the ship will be lost. Christ is the ark covered in pitch meaning atonement.  He died for us to provide us the Atonement, He is the ship lost. They ate the fourteenth day. Nisan 14 is the Passover lamb as a type of Christ dying for us. Not a hair of their head will be hurt just like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and Luke 21:18 (a sister passage to Matthew 24). 276 were saved. The 23rd generation is the 12 sons of Jacob. This is Israel.23 x 12 = 276

So winter and the number 5494 seem to be a key to the lone Hannukah verse.  I looked further at 5494. This is verse 5494:

Deuteronmy 22:23 If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her;

I look at this verse and I see a picture of all of mankind.  We were virgins spiritually created in the image of God but we chose to eat the forbidden fruit with another(the prince of this world) rather than with our Maker and Husband God.  It is similar to Dinah being taken by Shechem son of Hamor and being defiled by him in Genesis 34:2. “Shechem son of Hamor” has a gematria of 666. The gematria of verse 5494 is 2888.  Strong’s G2888 =”rulers” is used only one time in Ephesians 6 about the spiritual fight we are in with satan as the ruler who Antiochus IV was a type of:

Ephesians 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

This to me was perfect. I have seen the spiritual war of Ephesians 6 and Revelation 9 as the fight against assimilation that the events leading to Hannukah typified. My thought is that since Ephesians 6:12 is tied to Hannukah what is the verse jump? John 10:22 is verse 26504.  Ephesians 6:12 is verse 29350.  The verse jump is 2846. Strong’s G2846 = ”chamberlain” and it is only use one time:

Acts 12:20 And Herod was highly displeased with them of Tyre and Sidon: but they came with one accord to him, and, having made Blastus the king's chamberlain their friend, desired peace; because their country was nourished by the king's country.

At first I was a bit disappointed but then I looked at the story. Incredibly it is the story of the events of Hannukah. Herod is acting like Antiochus IV.  He kills James for not assimilating and has Peter thrown in prison:

Acts 12:1-3 Now about that time Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church. 2 And he killed James the brother of John with the sword. 3 And because he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also. (Then were the days of unleavened bread.)

Peter is miraculously saved just as the jews miraculously defeated the army of Antiochus IV:

Acts 12:11 And when Peter was come to himself, he said, Now I know of a surety, that the Lord hath sent his angel, and hath delivered me out of the hand of Herod, and from all the expectation of the people of the Jews. Many assimilated as they did in the time of Antiochus IV.

Acts 12:20 And Herod was highly displeased with them of Tyre and Sidon: but they came with one accord to him, and, having made Blastus the king's chamberlain their friend, desired peace; because their country was nourished by the king's country.

They called Herod a god. Antiochus IV took on the title “Epiphanes” meaning “God manifest”:

Acts 12:22 And the people gave a shout, saying, It is the voice of a god, and not of a man.

Lastly Herod died by the hand of God and was eaten of worms: Acts 12:23 And immediately the angel of the Lord smote him, because he gave not God the glory: and he was eaten of worms, and gave up the ghost.

This following quote I copied from Wikipedia.  Antiochus IV Epiphanes died by the hand of God and was swarmed of worms in his death just like Herod.

“But the all-seeing Lord, the God of Israel, struck him with an incurable and invisible blow. As soon as he stopped speaking he was seized with a pain in his bowels, for which there was no relief, and with sharp internal tortures— and that very justly, for he had tortured the bowels of others with many and strange inflictions. Yet he did not in any way stop his insolence, but was even more filled with arrogance, breathing fire in his rage against the Jews, and giving orders to drive even faster. And so it came about that he fell out of his chariot as it was rushing along, and the fall was so hard as to torture every limb of his body. Thus he who only a little while before had thought in his superhuman arrogance that he could command the waves of the sea, and had imagined that he could weigh the high mountains in a balance, was brought down to earth and carried in a litter, making the power of God manifest to all. And so the ungodly man's body swarmed with worms, and while he was still living in anguish and pain, his flesh rotted away, and because of the stench the whole army felt revulsion at his decay.” — 2 Maccabees 9:5-9 (NRSV)

Hannukah should be a reminder to us of the wiles of the devil. He wants to assimilate us.  God wants to sanctify us.  We should have a love for God’s laws.  His laws are His heart.  When Paul says we are not under the law, he is not saying we are not to follow the laws.  He is saying by the blood of Jesus we are no longer under the curse contained within the law.  Christ said He did not come to destroy the law, He came to fully show us how to live it.  Like the Psalmist we should treasure God’s laws within our heart.  We are to be His disciples full of grace and truth.

[preacherpollard]

Controversial Prophesy Alert

Dale Pollard Daniel 8  Daniel prophesied of the Persian and Greek eras of Israelite history. The angel interpreted that for us, so there’s no mystery there. That mean man of the Diadochi, Antiochus Epiphanes, is described with his persecution lasting 2300 days. It was concluded by the Rededication of the Temple by Judas Maccabee, and that day became the Jewish Festival of Lights (John…

[popemoses]

Re-Dedication

Hanukkah Hanukkah commemorates the Maccabean victory over the Greeks (specifically, Antiochus IV) and also the cleansing and rededication of the temple. Just for fun, notice what themes surround the context of the story of the Feast of Dedication presented in John 9, 10 and 11. (I like to picture them corresponding to 8 Branches of the Hanukkiah or the 8 days of Hanukkah.) The Messiah interacted…

[liberalfartsdegree]

It makes me feel untold depths of awe and wonder and joy in the world when a small creature such as a cat or dog recognizes that your hands are analogous to its paws. When you put a hand down and they mirror you by tapping their matching paw and such.

[vickihinze]

The Wars of the Maccabees by James R. Coggins

After the Jews returned to Jerusalem from exile in Babylon and rebuilt the temple and the city wall under Ezra and Nehemiah, there is a gap in the biblical record of about four centuries. During this time, the Jews struggled to survive as a small, weak remnant in a hostile environment. They were trapped between two dueling successor states to Alexander the Great’s Greek Empire—the Seleucids based…

[lucidknight-blog]

DANIEL‬ ‭11‬:‭2‬-‭20‬ ‭

““Now then, I will reveal the truth to you. Three more Persian kings will reign, to be succeeded by a fourth, far richer than the others. He will use his wealth to stir up everyone to fight against the kingdom of Greece. “Then a mighty king will rise to power who will rule with great authority and accomplish everything he sets out to do. But at the height of his power, his kingdom will be broken…

[coffee-without-anesthetics]

chain sumeragi and saigiku jouno bsd, same ability different font

[trashbaget]

i’m in my private place of residence, i cracked the door 2 inches—if you’re seeing my cunt right now, it’s because you wanted to look at it

[championsofmyheart]

happy maccabean revolt 1 seleucid empire 0 day to all those who celebrate

[ruminativerabbi]

Chanukah 5783

In the years following the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE, Israel bounced back and forth half a dozen times between the Egyptian Empire and the Syrian Empire. Each change of government resulted from a separate war, collectively if vaguely known to historians as the Syrian Wars, but the details have almost all been forgotten. Tens of thousands died on the battlefield. None of these wars accomplished much of anything, however—other than laying the groundwork for yet another war intended by the party that lost as a means of gaining back the territory surrendered to the party that won in the previous one. It’s almost impossible to keep the details straight, and not least of all because all the kings of Egypt involved in all six of these wars were named Ptolemy and almost all the kings of Syria, then called the Seleucid Empire after its founder, were named Antiochus. I remember trying to master the details back in graduate school and thinking that my task was something like what it would be like to attempt to master the plots of all of Shakespeare’s plays if all the protagonists in all the plays had the same names. Possible, obviously. But just barely.

Two battles count more than most: the Battle of Gaza in 217 BCE, which was one of the largest and bloodiest battles of ancient times and which ended with a resounding victory for Egypt; and the Battle of Panium (now the site of a lovely park in northern Israel) in 200 BCE, which led to the permanent annexation of Israel by the Syrians, which in turn led eventually into the events of the Chanukah story. All of this has been long forgotten by all. Indeed, the thought that the “real” reason Antiochus IV, the king who went to war with the Maccabees, was so eager to rule Israel with an iron fist had much more to do with his fear of yet another Egyptian invasion than it did with any specific desire to alter the course of Jewish history will itself seem vaguely blasphemous to most: we have all been raised to hate the wicked king who attempted to outlaw Judaism, but which of us was ever invited into the incredibly complex political background that went into the king’s eventually tragic decision to favor the party in Jerusalem he considered the most likely to return his support later on should yet another war erupt.

I thought I would write my pre-Chanukah letter this week about Antiochus IV, the king we all love to hate. He was, in fact, more of a shlimazel than anything else, the heir to a complex set of political realities he seems to have been only barely capable of mastering, let along using creatively for his nation’s benefit. And here he is in a flattering coin-portrait created by an artist of his own day.

There’s lots to say. First of all, his name wasn’t really Antiochus: his parents named him Mithridates and he merely took the name Antiochus, his father’s name, when he ascended to the throne in the fall of 175 BCE. (Whether his father had a different name too before he ascended to the throne is not known.) But he was not his father’s immediate successor. That would have been his brother Seleucus, who reigned from 187 until his murder in 175 BCE. The legal successor should have been Seleucus’s son Demetrius, who was actually declared king by his father’s assassin even though he was being held captive in Rome. His absence created a vacuum of power at the top which was quickly filled by “our” Antiochus, who declared the new king to be a different son of Seleucus, also named Antiochus (you see what I mean about these people’s names), whom he himself had murdered shortly thereafter…which left him free to seize the throne, illegally but effectively, in 175. And so “our” Antiochus became the king of Syria. Not a nice man, although one with nice-looking hair. (Were the curls natural? Did they even have curling irons in antiquity? I’ll try to find out.)

He was widely thought to be at least slightly demented. In fact, his official name Antiochus Epiphanes (literally, “Antiochus the Magnificent”) was often altered by his subjects to Antiochus Epimanes, literally “Antiochus the Madman.” And he behaved oddly too, often abandoning the palace to show up naked in a public bathhouse or weirdly attempting to run for public office as though his great ambition in life was to become a paid alderman situated a thousand ranks lower than his actual status.

But mostly his foreign policy was about keeping the Romans calm and keeping the Egyptians from re-seizing Israel. He got off to a good start with the Romans by paying off the huge sum of money owed them after their victory in what historians now call the four-year-long Roman-Seleucid War that raged from 192 BCE to 188. The Egyptians, not so much. But the Romans were the allies of Egypt…and in that detail lay the ultimate cause of Antiochus’s undoing.

The real background to the Chanukah story is called by historians the Sixth Syrian War. In 170, the Egyptians declared war yet again on the Syrians with the specific intention of regaining Israel for their empire. This did not go at all well: the Syrians counterattacked ferociously, seized almost all of Egypt except Alexandria, and took their king (called, because what else, Ptolemy) captive. Antiochus allowed the Egyptian king to continue to reign, but only as a servant to Syrian interests. This did not go over well with the Egyptians, however, who revolted and succeeded in putting a brother of Ptolemy, also (of course) named Ptolemy, on the throne. This was a direct repudiation of Syria’s victory, and so Antiochus sent a huge army, headed by himself, to attack Egypt again two years later in 168 BCE. But he didn’t anticipate the degree to which this would anger the Romans. Nor did he anticipate what happened next.

That story, we know only from the great Roman historian Polybius, who lived from about 200 BCE to about 116 BCE. To read the story in his Histories, Antiochus landed and began his march into Egypt, only to find himself facing not a Roman army intent on thwarting his plans, but a single Roman individual, a man named Caius Popilius Laenas who had come from Rome with a letter from the Senate ordering Antiochus to go home and leave the Egyptians be. Imagine the scene: Antiochus, king of Syria, with thousands of soldiers behind him and a single man, an emissary from the Roman Senate, standing in the road in front of him. The latter handed Antiochus a letter from the Senate ordering him to retreat. Antiochus, no doubt uncertain how to respond, said he needed time to consider the offer. Popilius said that was fine, then took a stick from the ground and drew a circle around Antiochus, informing him that he needed to make his decision before stepping outside the circle. Thus humiliated in front of his own men yet terrified to defy Rome openly, he politely—and more than just a bit pathetically, given that he was leading an army and Popilius was one single man—he politely agree to go home, which he then did.

And that instance of public disgrace was the background that led to the Maccabean revolt. Antiochus, more eager than ever to keep the Jews of Judea happy and disinclined to fight with the Egyptians during the inevitable next war, lighted on the idea of putting in power those Jews who seemed the most eager to become part of his world—to worship in the Syrian-Greek style, to speak Greek, to frequent Greek-style gymnasiums, to attend theaters featuring the great dramas of the Greek playwrights, etc. For good measure, he outlawed practices liked the least by the Jews he liked the most, and circumcision foremost among them. Calculating incredibly incorrectly, Antiochus imagined “his” Jews to be invincible with his royal support. But he failed to take into account the detail that the large majority of Jews were revolted by those innovations and wanted only to maintain their ancient ways and their ancient cult without some outside authority bossing them around and telling them how to conduct themselves spiritually or religiously. And it was at that precise moment that the Maccabee brothers, sensing the potential inherent in the situation, began a guerilla war against the Syrians, eventually wresting some kind of autonomy from the Seleucids. So that was in 164 BCE. But within a few decades, the Syrian Empire had become so riddled with insurrection and civil unrest that the Jews of Israel were able to function as an autonomous region within the empire. In 104 BCE, a descendent of the original Maccabees proclaimed himself king…and Jewish autonomy morphed into real independence, which lasted for about forty years. But that’s a whole different story, the one featuring the Romans landing on the shores of Israel and slowly taking over. It’s a good story too, though. I’ll tell it another time.

So Antiochus the Shlimazel. Humiliated before his troops. Illegitimately on the throne in the first place. Mocked as a crazy person by his own subjects. And, in the end, a failure whose own personal poor decision making led not only to Jewish autonomy in the Land of Israel, but also eventually to the end of his own dynasty.

By the end, he didn’t look so well either.

Sic semper tyrannis! Happy Chanukah to all!