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thenationaltreasuregazette · 2 years

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To the editor,

Thoughts on the various bumps, bruises, and scrapes that the team (TM) must have attained in the course of their adventure? My personal headcanon is that Abigail’s right shoulder is probably a bit screwed up: she did hang single-handed off the side of the food truck door for multiple minutes, and she landed on the same shoulder when she was knocked down and lost the Declaration in traffic. And then there was the whole ‘wooden stairs collapsing under Trinity Church thing’…

Love your work!

Hi Anon,

Thank you so much for your question! I’m glad you’ve been enjoying my little project. I definitely have.

Injuries! Oh yes I have so many thoughts, and like you, they mostly center around Abigail’s shoulder.

Aside from being tired, like just exhausted, nobody talk to me for three days t i r e d, the gang came through their adventure more or less in one piece. For as much as Ian and his crew liked to shoot at them them, nobody got hit, and after the Charlotte exploded, there wasn’t any direct violence of that sort either. The injuries we’re looking at are mostly incidental, the wear and tear of going through an ordeal like that.

Let’s take the trio one by one:

Riley

There’s only one injury actually mentioned directly in the dialogue of the film, and that is:

"Actually I still have this splinter that’s been festering for three months"

So Riley got a splinter. (I think he would be rather miffed if we didn’t acknowledge that up front, lol.)

Other than that, as the tech guy/comic relief, he’s usually a bit removed from the action. There are exceptions of course, like when he’s shot at in the van outside of the National Archives, but in general he comes out okay. He also makes it to safety almost immediately in the collapsing staircase sequence, which spares him most of the physicality of that event. So Riley makes it out with just the base level of exhaustion and fatigue.

And a splinter.

I think it’s safe to say that most of Riley’s scars from this one are emotional.

Ben

Ben’s role in the story is much more physical; he’s the one doing the bulk of the heisting, running, jumping, etc. There are four main point that I see where Ben could have been injured.

The first is rescuing Abigail from the catering truck. While hanging out of the van is certainly dangerous, Ben is in control of what he’s doing. He’s deciding how far he can reach, etc. Not so for Abigail. Since Riley is able to swerve around the oncoming bus, Ben escapes this moment seemingly no worse for wear.

Second is the chase through Philadelphia. Here he’s probably looking at some minor scrapes and bruises, mostly from diving through the graveyard. The gunshots hitting the headstones sent little bits of rock dust flying, which could have scratched up his face and hands. And he doesn’t seem to be cut or in pain after the chase, but if there were sharp edges on any of that scaffolding he could have scraped a hand, shin, etc.

It also clearly hurts when he punches Powell outside the cemetery; he even says “Ow!” as he shakes out his hand. But then it’s off on the chase again. His hand doesn’t seem to impede his ability to climb the scaffolding, and when he’s in FBI custody he’s interlacing his fingers pretty tightly. So the “Ow!” might have been more from the shock, the kind of stubbed-toe pain that’s worst in the moment and then subsides. Still, he might have scraped or bruised knuckles. He also might be feeling the punch later that afternoon or the next day, but after what is to come, it might get lost in all the other soreness.

Third is the jump from the Intrepid. We know that Ben has fairly extensive dive training. He wears a Rolex Submariner, which is a $10,000 watch? Ben, I have new questions about your finances. which is waterproof to 1000 feet. From the FBI’s profile we know that Ben’s education encompasses “Navy ROTC and Naval Diving and Salvage Training Center.” He also breaks out the scuba gear again in Book of Secrets.

Holy shit this led me down a massive rabbit hole into what Ben’s exact relationship with the Navy might be. More on that at a later date.

Without getting into specifics, Ben is an experienced diver. But that’s scuba diving, not high diving. The Naval Diving and Salvage Training Center is the largest diving facility in the world, and it’s possible that depending on what course(s) Ben was enrolled in, he learned jumping-from-height techniques. He doesn’t strike me as a parachuting-from-a-helicopter kind of guy, especially because that likely wouldn’t be necessary for the kind of salvage he was interested in. I’d venture that is more for rescue missions��which is under the purview of multiple military diving regiments trained at NDSTC—but probably not where Ben’s focus was, given that the Charlotte was already long-sunken.

He clearly gets his body into a pencil position before hitting the water, and just the fact the he has the wherewithal to do that while jumping from an aircraft carrier suggests that he has some experience related to this. BUT, that doesn’t mean he’s actually prepared to do what he does.

Still, he surfaces in New Jersey in one piece. When Ian says a “No broken bones? A jump like that could kill a man,” Ben’s response is to play it off. “No, it was cool. You should try it sometime.” That doesn’t mean he wasn’t taking a huge risk in doing it, but he clearly came out of the jump without significant injury. He’s also able to change, meet Ian, and lead the expedition into the catacombs without any visible signs of pain. So while I imagine the jump didn’t feel as “cool” as Ben claims, he doesn’t seem to be hurt. Sore, almost certainly, but whose to say where the soreness from the jump ends and from any of the other adventuring begins?

And last, of course, we have the Trinity Church staircase sequence. Ben ends up hanging on for his life three different times during the stair collapse, first with Abigail trying to pull him up, then holding her up before dropping her on the nearby platform, and finally hanging onto the last board after the elevator breaks in half.

As with the Intrepid he doesn’t seem to be injured, but at this point his body has to hurt. He might not realize it in the moment—or even after the moment, what with his entire life’s goal evaporating and then materializing before his eyes and all—but holding his grip that intensely had to have stressed most of the muscles in his hands and arms. And although he doesn’t bring it up like Riley does, I wouldn’t be surprised if he came away from that with a palm full of splinters. Then he immediately had to hold himself up on a 200-year-old natural fiber rope, which can't be a pleasant sensation even without everything else going on.

So I imagine when all is said and done he’s plenty sore, with bruises and scratches here and there and possibly some minor scrapes, splinters, or even rope burns on his hands.

Abigail

And now to the main event. As you point out in your question, Abigail seems to come away from the adventure worst of the three of them. She’s the only one who appears visibly in pain after one of the action sequences is over.

As you state, in each of the three major action sequences—the catering truck, Independence Hall, and Trinity Church—Abigail take a bit of a beating, and she takes it in the same place: her shoulders.

Let’s go through them one by one.

Catering truck. When she opens the door of the catering truck, she’s immediately flung out and whips almost all the way around the doors. That has to hurt her arms, shoulders, and torso; her body was not prepared to move like that. She holds on with both hands, swings out on her left arm only, then finds her grip again with the (fake) Declaration in her right hand. First she reaches out to Ben with her free left hand, and then does so again after the door swings back and Ian takes the document from her, leaving her right hand holding onto the door. When Ben pulls her into the van, she lands pretty hard on her back.

That had to hurt.

Not immediately. Not the kind of searing pain that can’t be ignored, but the kind that creeps up on you. The kind the stiffens up and settles in muscles you'd never even noticed were there.

Ben repeatedly asks Abigail if she’s alright and she never really answers whether she’s physically hurt. She thinks she’s lost the Declaration of Independence to a truck full of armed lunatics, and that is all she can focus on.

“Yeah well I’m not alright! Those men have the Declaration!”

At Patrick’s house, she keeps her arms crossed over her body most of the time. This is probably a function of being in an incredibly awkward situation—semi-kidnapped and now meeting your accidental kidnapper/intentional document thief/future love interest’s dad, who insulted you at the door??—but you could additionally read this as experiencing some soreness in her arms and shoulders.

When she goes to test for the cypher, her hands seem as steady as could be expected in such a situation, and once the masonic symbol is revealed, she goes all-in on helping Ben reveal and record the rest. So she can’t be in too much pain. Plus, like in the van, the safety of the Declaration and the thrill of cypher have all her attention.

I imagine that it’s when they get on the road to Philadelphia that she really starts to notice what hurts. As she sits in the car her muscles stiffen up, and there’s much less to take her attention from the pain. Not to mention she’s now willingly on the run from the FBI, with these two weird guys she just met, in a dress she probably wanted to be out of hours ago, in the middle of the night, while having plenty of quiet time to reckon with the fact that she just put lemon juice all over the Declaration of Independence and almost certainly will not have a job when she gets home. The physical discomfort only adds to it all.

I’m not convinced she’d even attempt to sleep in such a situation—Riley, sure, but that’d be a lot of trust for Abigail to be showing toward these guys at this point—but even if she did, she might not be able to get comfortable. No matter how she might twist in the seat, her neck or her shoulder or one of her sides would hurt.

Philadelphia. When Abigail is knocked into the road during foot chase in Philadelphia, she lands on her back and right shoulder, and when Riley pulls her out of the path of the truck, she again lands on her right shoulder. While these don’t look like particularly hard falls in and of themselves, after swinging from the catering truck and then having twelve-ish hours for that soreness to build, yeah, those fall probably hurt.

She may also have some raspberries on her hands or knees from when she fell. Again though, Abigail is so focused on the Declaration and almost dying for it, again that it doesn’t even seem to register with her.

Trinity Church. Finally we have the Trinity Church staircase sequence. First she helps pull Ben up from where he falls, and then she hangs from the elevator. She’s holding onto Ben with her right hand, and when he drops her on the platform she falls and lands more on her back and left shoulder. It’s this left arm that she’s clutching even while Ben is still dangling over the pit.

She takes her hand away when she yells, “Hang on!” but immediately puts it back again, which suggests to me that she’s in quite a bit of pain. In the previous instances she’s been so focused on the danger to both herself and the Declaration that she doesn’t acknowledge she’s just been through something that probably hurt. Now, even with both Ben and the Declaration moments away from falling to their doom, she is reflexively holding her shoulder. She’s even still holding it when she runs up to Ben after he swings to safety on the rope.

Maybe if the adventure hadn’t been so rough on her shoulder already this wouldn’t have been such a painful hit, but in any case it’s clearly not something she can ignore.

There’s this little moment that I had never noticed before when Ben’s trying to convince Ian to turn back where Abigail puts her hands on the railing in front of her and noticeably wiggles that left shoulder, as if she can’t quite get it comfortable or is checking to see how bad the damage is.

It’s not broken or anything like that: she’s clearly using both her arms when they discover the treasure, even holding her torch with that left hand at one point. And in the three months later flash-forward she’s holding Ben’s hand with her left and pressing up against him with her left shoulder, so she’s fully healed by then.

Headcanon time

My personal headcanon is likewise that her shoulder is pretty banged up. I imagine that when Abigail takes that jacket off (or when an EMT does, because I’m assuming there’s an ambulance somewhere in with the 300 police cars and FBI vehicles that must have descend on Trinity Church after Ben’s call) she’ll find a nasty bruise. The kind that’s instantly purple and only seems to get worse. The kind that lasts for weeks and turns all sorts of sickly greens and yellows as it's healing.

I imagine that when Abigail’s sitting watching Ben talk to Sadusky, all the pain and stiffness she’s been pushing out of her mind comes creeping back on her. Aching soreness in her back, her shoulders, her neck. And that left arm hurts. The longer she sits there, the more she realizes just how much it does.

I especially like to think that the paramedics give her a sling that she’ll have to wear for a few days. There’s not much they can do besides immobilize her shoulder and let it heal. I don’t imagine she needs any kind of dramatic treatment like surgery, but maybe some physical therapy when she gets home if you’re so inclined.

What I like about the sling is that it’s highly visual, and Ben would already be on his way to Boston by the time she gets it. So while Riley is probably there to see how bruised Abigail’s arm is, Ben gets to be surprised when he sees her the next day. I also headcanon they have to stay in NYC for a few days being debriefed by the FBI. And he gets to feel terrible because he’s the one who dragged Abigail into all this, however inadvertently, and yet she’s the one who ends up hurt.

That sweet, sweet angst, you know?

So in addition to the incidental scrapes, Abigail has a wicked bruise on her left shoulder, and possibly others on her back and right arm. Depending on how severely she wrenched her muscles in the catering truck or staircase sequences, she might have some longer-term pain as well. It's possible that those shoulders will never be quite right again, and sitting poorly at her computer or spending long hours hunched over in the preservation room might cause it to flair up again. And given her job, she may have chronic neck, shoulder, or back pain already.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this adventure hurt. Abigail may have sustained the only semi-serious injury, but the guys will be feeling this tomorrow as well.

Running. Jumping. Falling. Holding on for dear life.

Sore muscles. Scrapes. Cuts. Bruises. Scratches.

Remember, they’re nerds. Ben has to have a certain level of fitness to do all that diving, but all three of them are fundamentally nerds. Riley sits as a computer all day, Abigail sits behind a desk, and this particular week in his life to the contrary, Ben Gates probably spends most of his time looking at books, maps, archival records, etc.

Not to mention they’ve been awake for like 24 hours now with unknown amounts of food and water and probably all have massive headaches.

Prescription: Ibuprofen all around.

Well, that's all from me for now. Thanks so much for your question! Feel free to send another any time.

#the national treasure gazette #national treasure #ben gates #riley poole #abigail chase #national treasure meta #my nt stuff #i made a thing #asks #articles

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glapplebloom · 1 year

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He’s Pretty Fly, for a rabbi...

I’m going to start with talking about the Artwork. It sort of reminds me of those stock images you see in promotional materials. Pretty interesting, though a little jarring to see. But today, Rumble gets to fly with the Wonderbolts for the Foals and Friends Weekend Air Parade. Rumble is confident, but Thunderlane told him not to show off, because it can lead to someone getting hurt. Rainbow Dash confirms.

But just because HE doesn’t show off doesn’t mean others won’t. As Red Bank is breaking formation by going faster. And, somehow, this causes Rumble to crash and sprain his wing. If I have to give the artwork some criticism, it’s hard to tell what happened. Red Bank is the pony with Pink hair, but despite saying she’s going faster, it seems another pony was responsible for causing Rumble’s crash.

Look at this picture. How did Red Bank cause this?

Either way, he’s grounded and won’t be flying after all. Thunderlane offers to stay but Rumble insists he should at least fly. And Scootaloo is here. The comic strongly implies Scootaloo is unable to fly, but Scootaloo doesn’t pay it any mind and suggests they explore the Wonderbolts Academy. He convinces her to break into the opened museum that has no pony sign but is open.

They see many statues of previously established Wonderbolts of the past but are stumped by an Earth Pony among them. That’s when an old Pony comes in to tell them the story of the only Earth Pony to be a Wonderbolt: Wind Sock. Despite being an Earth Pony, he wanted to taste the skies. Can you use this as symbolism for transgender? Maybe but I am not well versed enough to make the connection.

Either way, he wanted to be a Wonderbolt so badly, he took up the job as Janitor at the Wonderbolts Academy. While two specific ponies taunt him for this, later in the comic and based on Dash’s time you see they don’t really mind him being here. And when he’s not cleaning up, he’s trying to figure out ways to give himself wings. They end in failure but he gets one big break when Dauntless gets caught in an area no Wonderbolt can reach.

Figuring the Canvas of the Stretcher would be a material strong enough but flexible enough to keep him airborne, Wind Sock created a pair of wings that were fixed. This allowed him to glide through the air better than normal Pegasi. After rescuing Dauntless, he was officially promoted to Wonderbolt. He flew with them and his glider was superior for carrying cargo. Based off Dauntless saying “we still use some of his inventions”, I’m betting they use those Artificial wings for Cargo delivery.

Inspired by his story and seeing the blueprints, Scootaloo and Rumble recreate the wings so Rumble can fly with the Wonderbolts. Scootaloo couldn’t because she didn’t know the routine. So Rumble got to fly with his Brother and the Wonderbolts as Wind Sock gets remembered....

Also Thunderlane’s mouth is blue. Overall, I really like the story. Opens the door for anyone to be a Wonderbolt if they could, via technology like Wind Sock or magic like Starlight Glimmer. The only flaw I would have to say is the artwork, which is more noticeable when it comes to mistakes. I think it’s safe for GLAB canon.

#mlp review #MLP Revisit #Green Lantern Apple Bloom #IDW Comics #Comic Series

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dailyaudiobible · 2 years

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1/2/2023 DAB Transcript

Genesis 3:1-4:26, Matthew 2:13-3:6, Psalm 2:1-12, Proverbs 1:7-9

Today is the second day of January, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian and it is great to be here with you today on day two of our grand adventure through every book, every chapter, every verse in the entire Bible, welcome back. This is sort of move in week, where we just kind get our bearings and our rhythm and then realize, pretty quickly, how poignant the Bible is and can be. And so, as we just began the journey yesterday, we began four books Genesis, in the Old Testament. Matthew, which is the first book of the New Testament. And then Psalms and Proverbs, and that’s a lot of moving in, in one day. And so, we’re taken a few days just to kind of go over, kind of give an overview of what it is we’re reading. And so, we oriented ourselves a little bit to the book of Genesis yesterday. And we’ll do the same thing when we get to the book of Matthew today. But before we get to Matthew, we have another step forward in the book of Genesis. We’re reading from the New Living Translation this week, Genesis chapters 3 and 4.

Introduction to the Book of Matthew:

Okay, so yesterday we began the book of Matthew. We didn't talk much about the book of Matthew. But if we will recall, we read an extensive line of genealogy that led us all the way to the birth of Jesus. And then, we went through the birth narrative and we we’re just talking about how we just came through this season. And so, it's very familiar in our minds. And I mentioned that those genealogies, although they may not be the most interesting things to read or hear, are very important when we come across them in the Bible. People that we met in the book of Matthew yesterday, are all people that we will get to know. Every single one of those names are people that we will encounter again, as we move our way through the Old Testament. Which brings us to today, where we kind of dive into day two in the book of Matthew. But let's just do a little fly over. Matthew is a part of a grouping of books, just like Genesis is a part of a grouping of books. So, yesterday we talked about Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy; the first five books in the Bible. They are known as the Torah, as they are grouped together or the Pentateuch. So, Matthew is a part of a grouping of books. And you probably already know this, but Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are known as the four Gospels. And each one of the Gospels, and we’ll go through them in order, so we did spend quite a bit of time here at the front of the year with Jesus. Because the gospel narratives of the story of Jesus life and ministry, and his teachings. And as Christians we center our lives around what He was teaching and what He is teaching. So, in the New Testament, we will be moving right through the gospels. So, we get to kind of walk right alongside Jesus, be in the crowds with Him. Be among the disciples, become a disciple of the Savior Jesus, as we move through the Gospels. Matthew was one of the 12 disciples of Jesus, so he walked with Jesus literally and heard Jesus on a daily basis. He was a disciple. So, he had devoted his life to following his Rabbi, following Jesus as a rabbi and they came to understand that Jesus was more than Rabbi. But we’ll get to that as we move through the Gospels. Nevertheless, Matthew had first-hand knowledge of what he's talking about. And as we will discover, Matthew in his previous life before becoming a disciple of Jesus, was a tax collector. So, he was, he was a hated person and he was very just disliked because to the Jews, Matthew’s a Jew collecting taxes on behalf of Rome, from the Jewish people. And so, he's looked at like, basically like a trader. And the way that taxes worked in the Roman Empire among people like the Jewish people, somebody or somebodies with lots of money, would approach the Roman government and say we want to collect taxes from Roman and then they pay a bunch of money to basically buy the rights to collect taxes on behalf of Rome. And then those people who bought that right, hire people to actually go do the dirty work and collect the taxes. And in the process, you can imagine that there is corruption involved and so, there's over taxation that ends up in the pockets of the tax collector. And so, these people are not well-liked. So, when a Jew is collecting taxes on behalf of Rome for another, from another Jew, that just seems disingenuous. And so, they were not liked. And so, the first thing we should probably just kind of understand here is that Jesus called as one of his 12 disciples, people who would live and walk with him during his earthly ministry. He called a person nobody liked. He called an outsider. That is not only riveting but important, because as we read through the book of Matthew, there's a lot of things that happen but the outsider. Or rather the inclusion of the outsider in God's kingdom is something we will see quite clearly, if we're looking for it. And we can nod our heads yes, and shake our heads yes, thank God that He loves the outsider, but the challenge then becomes, how are we treating the ones on the margins? How are we treating the outsider? Because we have an example of Jesus, and we claim to be His followers, His disciples, we claim that our faith and our goals are to become like our Savior, to become Christ-like. If we do not conduct ourselves in any way like Jesus, then what are we saying? Words are just falling from our lips that mean absolutely nothing. They’re just a black puddle on the floor, they mean nothing. Jesus called Matthew. Matthew left everything to follow Jesus. So, we’re getting the perspective of a person who left a certain kind of life and entered a completely different kind of life and was utterly transformed. The text, itself, in the book of Matthew, is aimed at Jewish believers. It's a very Hebrew centric gospel, it quotes from the Old Testament more than any of the other Gospels do, and it works harder than any of the other Gospels do to reveal Jesus fulfilling Hebrew prophecy. More than that, and if this is your first time through the Bible, like if you've wandered in here going, I've got to find some sort of rootedness in spirituality, we get to meet Jesus, we get to walk alongside Jesus, we get to know Him pretty well, and we get to know His style. And we to see His rabbinical teachings, in the way that you would teach in parables. Which are like, which are like illustration stories that have layer, after layer of meaning that can be pondered. So, that the meaning is far greater than the amount of words that were used to tell the story. And there are over 20 parables that are in the book of Matthew. So, we’ll obviously read every word of them. And then lastly, we will see and we will hear Jesus speaking about a kingdom. A kingdom that is of God. In fact, it's God's kingdom. And Jesus speaking to Hebrew people, they weren’t unfamiliar with this concept. And they wished for God's kingdom, but they were in a position, and we’ll go through all of the story, as we go through the Bible, but they were in a position in the first century, when Jesus was upon the earth, where they lived in a land that had been, at one point, their ancestral homeland. But at this point in history, it was part of the Roman Empire. It was a province of the Roman Empire, the province of Syria. But what the Hebrew people wanted was to find a Messiah, some leader, a Messiah, a godly character, a godly person, who could rally people together, and would lead people in the truth but that would also lead them into battle, to overcome miraculously Rome, and throw them out of the land, and then they could have this kingdom of God again, they could have their land back after a millennia. So, Jesus comes walking through the countryside, village-to-village, speaking to people who understand this concept and have this seething rage toward Rome because they are marginalized and oppressed. And He announces the kingdom of heaven is at hand, they’re listening. This could be that guy. He could lead them into battle. And so, Jesus continues to teach about the kingdom of heaven. And it turns out that the kingdom of heaven isn't something that's coming. It's something that is. Is here. Is now. And is coming, its fullness is coming, but it's here now. And so, Jesus reveals the kingdom of God. And it's not the kingdom that the people were expecting. And we’ll get to see the tension that arises from that. So, there’s a little bit of a flyover of Matthew. Let's dive into our day, to our second reading from the gospel of Matthew, which will be chapter 2 verse 13 through 3 verse 6.

Commentary:

Okay, so we've already spent some time talking about Matthew. And I don't want to overwhelm us with all kinds of information but as we’re moving in, it's really, really important that we get oriented to the story and understand what's going on here. And the book of Genesis today, we found out what happened to us, because yesterday, we’re reading through the creation narratives and we’re getting this glimpse of things as they were intended to be. So, yesterday I was just saying like let’s take a step back and look around and we have to acknowledge that something happened because this isn't perfect. We have all kinds of conveniences and a beautiful planet to live on, that sustains our lives, but we are a mess. Something happened. And that's what we get to see in the book of Genesis today with the third chapter of Genesis. One of the saddest moments in the Bible and there are some sad moments in the Bible, but this is one of the saddest of them all. We know the story as the fall. The fall of mankind and knowing that sets up the trajectory of the rest of the Bible. The rest of the story. God made something perfect, including perfect human beings, who wanted knowledge of good and evil, instead of trusting God to sort that out. And we have been using this knowledge ever since to understand something that is far beyond our understanding, the love of God. And we have made a colossal mess out of an awful lot of things, as we all know. We broke the story. I mean, that’s what we see here in Genesis 3. We see what happened. The rest of the story is one of a God who will not stop putting things back together again and inviting his people to be intimately involved in that process. And it's very easy to think and I’ve thought like, I mean I’m a child who grew up in a pastor's home, so the Bible stories are stories I've heard from before I could even talk. And this story of…of the garden of Eden and the fall of man and the talking serpent and the swinging swords from the Angels guarding the entrance to the garden of Eden, like I can still see this imagery from my childhood trying to imagine it. But even as a child, I was like why would God put that tree in the garden in the first place, if it were the possibility of breaking the whole plan? Why is that there? Why did they even get that choice? And as I have pondered that over decades, I have come to realize that love can't actually be love, if there's no way out. That's more like slavery. And an enslaved human being can do all sorts of things that they hate, and connect all sorts of ways that aren't true, including faking love, in order to avoid consequences. But love offered from the heart, a covenant of love, that's not something that can be faked, it's either true or it's false. God loved what He had made. He called it good and very good. He loved the children that He had made. He came to walk with them in the cool of the evening. Love isn't love, if there's no way out. And the tree was that opportunity, and we took the opportunity. And we can blame Adam and Eve, we can do all that kind of stuff but we’re doing the same thing every day, because what is ultimately happening in the book of Genesis is deception was introduced into the story. This serpent is having this conversation with Eve saying, really, God said you can't eat this? You’re not gonna die if you eat this. God’s afraid of you eating this. God’s holding out on you, if you eat this you’ll become like God. You'll know good and evil. You won't need this God who is withholding important information from you. Become God yourself. Eat the fruit. That has been our story ever since. But we will see as we read through the Old Testament and now that we’re reading through the Gospels and the life of Jesus that God has been putting things back together, ever since. Then we will continue with that journey going forward tomorrow.

Prayer:

And Father, we thank You for Your word and we thank You for allowing us to gather, to be in the world at this time, with this technology and able to be far-flung all over the world, representing all kinds of different cultural contexts, all stripes and flavors of theological persuasion. We’re able to come here together, around the Global Campfire and immerse ourselves in what the Bible says by simply reading and absorbing it together. Thank You for this gift. And, Holy Spirit, although this may be the first time that we ask this year, it won't be the last, lead us into all truth. This is something promised in the Scriptures. We believe that You will. Our role will be to be openhearted and openhanded as You lead us. So, thank You for inviting us to this grand dance, as we take the adventure of a lifetime through the Scriptures. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, it is the websites. It’s where we find out what's going on around here, home of the Global Campfire that we come around every day and gather. The Daily Audio Bible app will allow you to see and interact with all things are on the website. So, download the app from the App Store that's associated with your device. Just look for Daily Audio Bible and you can download the app for free, so check that out. And while we’re doing some checking out, check out the different sections like the Community Section. There are links to get connected on social media or begin to follow. But in the Community Section we’ll also find the Prayer Wall, which will become an invaluable resource for us, as we navigate through the year, because it's always on and never off, it's always there. We can always go there. Can't sleep, want to focus outward instead of focusing inward on the problems that are keeping you awake, want to put your mind toward others, go to the Prayer Wall. Read what people are asking for prayer and what how they're sharing their lives and their stories, pray for them. Let them know you prayed for them. Or maybe you can't sleep because you’re getting crushed and you’ve been dragging chains around so long that you can't move anymore, and you feel alone. You're not. Go share your story. Let your brothers and sisters come around you, the Prayer Wall is always there for us, as we navigate through year together. So, check that out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible. First of all, thank you, humbly, we wouldn't be in this if we weren't in this together. And now, we're in year 18, seven days a week. So, we’re in this together. And I thank you. There’s a mission here, to bring the spoken word of God read fresh every day and offered freely to anyone who will listen, anywhere on this planet, any time of day or night, and to build community around that rhythm of showing up every day. That’s what we call the Global Campfire, coming together every day, knowing for certain, this isn't a solitary journey. We are not on it alone. So, if that is life-giving to you, then thank you for your partnership. There is a link on the homepage dailyaudiobible.com. If you're using the app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or the mailing address is P.O. Box 1996 Springhill, Tennessee 37174.

And as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement that you want to share, you can hit the Hotline button in the app, that's little red button up at the top or you can dial 877-942-4253.

And that's it for today, I'm Brian, I love you and I'll be waiting for you here, tomorrow.

Prayer and Encouragements:

James The Teacher, my friend, I’m Sparky in Texas. I heard you on community prayer brother, about your daughter's recital and it really hit home with me. As you know, my kids moved to Northwest, up around Portland with their mother. The day before they flew out, for the last time before moving, I had had a real tough time with the build-up. And the day before they left, I stayed up really late, really stressed out. And then that next morning, when my parents were flying out with them, they left at probably 430 or 5 in the morning, and I was so tired that I missed them leaving at the airport. And it crushed me, absolutely crushed me. And I could not forgive myself over it. I beat on myself. I knew my ex-wife was probably gonna do some beating on me too. And out of all of that, it occurred to me that God might not have wanted me there for a reason, in a weird way. We don’t understand, and I’m like you, I’m dead set, point on when I’m at work, running crews, running guys. And then it seems like I can miss things, ADD-ish at the house, and I feel like I fall short. But God’s got you. He knows what’s supposed to happen. And your daughter still loves you man. There’s many more, hopefully. Love you dude, good to hear from you.

Good morning, Daily Audio Family. This is God’s Chosen, calling from California. Channel to all the special needs parents, all the care givers and all those who have been praying and uplifting us in this prayer line. It’s been so encouraging. I myself, am a parent of a special needs daughter. But I thank God for His daily strength. She’s 7 years old. We begin our day with Psalms and we end our day with Psalms. And I’m gonna sing a song with her. Right here. This is the day, this is the day that the Lord has made, that the Lord has made. We will rejoice, we will rejoice, and be glad in it, and be glad in it. This is the day that the Lord has made, we will rejoice and be glad in it. This is the day, this is the day, that the Lord has made. I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart. Where? Down in my heart. Where? Down in my heart. I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart. Where? Down in my heart to stay. And I’m so happy, so very happy. I’ve got the love of Jesus in my heart. And I’m so happy, so very happy. I’ve got the love of Jesus in my heart. Amen. Amen.

This is Jersey Jane for Jesus. And my prayer goes out to Greg from Southwest Sweden, I believe you said. Your wife is under terrible stress. Your mother-in-law is having stomach issues. You are having trouble finding a job until you finish your courses. I pray that all these things, calm down. That you should find work. That the stress in your wife’s job, should lessen. That it would be surrounded with peace. That her co-workers are kind and good and godly. That is the main thing, that they are godly. And I pray the blood of Jesus over your mother-in-law. That she be healed, through Jesus’s healing hands. And I wish you also, a Happy New Year, Greg. And it was nice to hear from you. And I pray, and I pray, and I pray. Amen.

Good evening, this is Peggy in Texas. And I come, asking for prayer for Ben my son. It was almost a year ago that I requested prayer for him. That was when he entered the emergency room of a local hospital. And he was diagnosed with COVID 19. He was placed on a ventilator and was there for 3 months. And had a feeding tube, of course. And all kinds of things happened to him during those months. He was, had a collapsed lung and he had a heart valve infection and he had another infection and then he had, he had a massive stroke, somewhere along the line. He was able to be removed from the ventilator in April and actually, since then, he has really been hospitalized or in a physical therapy rehab place, 12 of them as right now, as of right now. It’s been so hard. It’s been catastrophic. Ben, Ben needs prayer. He has tremendous tremors. And those tremors make it impossible for him to hold onto the bars and try to stand. We, he had surgery on both feet to straighten them in order that he might be able to stand. He has not had the opportunity to do that. He is suffering. It hurts to see a child suffer. He is a wonderful man; he loves the Lord. Has raised a precious family, four children, they are all out in their first jobs, after graduating from college. And he has a lovely wife. Ben’s illness has been catastrophic in so many ways.

Hello, no, are you sure. No, not Pelim. I never. Ah man, you just never know. I guess I just took this community for granted. I just, I never called and told him. I never told him how much he means to me. I never told him how much I enjoy his calls. I never told him. Man. Melissa, you’re one. I think you’re amazing. I think you’re great. I love when you call. I love your intro, I love your voice. I love how much capacity you have for everybody. You’re amazing and I just pray to God that He blesses you. Renzo, Renzo man, you’re special bro. You’re special kid. You’re special. I wish there was a way that you could share your music with us, man. I just, I wanna hear it bro. Man. There’s so many. There’s so many. You guys are special. I just can’t, I know death happens, I understand it. I know it. But I just, I just never told him. I never told him. It doesn’t matter but. I just wish I could have told him. God bless every one of you guys. Shawn 3:16.

Hey, my Daily Audio Bible siblings. Good morning. I just could not let this year go by before I say, Happy New Year to all of you. You’re all my siblings, young and older. So many of you have blessed me during the year, 2022. Thank you, Brian, Jill your voice in music. It’s amazing. I love being here. I love this family. For real, you guys are my family. I love you guys. You guys are my church. This is what I enjoy the most, though I do go to church on Sundays. And I enjoy it but this is my favorite part, my Daily Audio Bible. I want to wish you a Happy New Year, may this year, the new year bring us closer to the Lord. May we be consistent with the reading of the Bible. Yeah, I was consistent for the whole year of 2022, it’s amazing. I cannot do it without God and your prayers. So, yeah, I just wanted to tell you how much I love you guys. You guys are important in my life. Thank you for all your encouragement, your prayers. Oh, I have so many favorite ones here. This is Minita from Lambart. God bless you. I love you so much.

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versus-weird-al · 3 months

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Winner #82!

The results are in and the winner of our eighty-second poll - "Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)" (The Offspring) vs. "Pretty Fly for a Rabbi" (Weird Al) - is...

"Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)"!

youtube

"Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)" got 48.8% of 43 votes, while its opponent "Pretty Fly for a Rabbi" got 44.2%. 7% of voters elected to see results.

So far the score is...

Originals: 11, Weird Al: 44

Bonus Medley Score:

Originals: 11, Weird Al: 16

#weird al #weird al yankovic #versus weird al #vs weird al #results #score #winners #pretty fly for a white guy #pretty fly for a rabbi #the offspring #Youtube

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dreamerandthedarkhalf · 3 months

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One of the best parts about the beloved blue hellsite is that I get to curate my own experience, block people who are unhealthy for me, and generally live in an echo chamber of people who seem to believe we ought to be taking care of each other and the planet. But it's an election year in the United States and that is unfortunately a global issue. Here are some of the screenshots I've captured from people who are deeply convinced that voting for a convicted felon is their patriotic duty. (These screenshots are NOT anything CLOSE to things I believe and generally these screenshots just make me feel pretty nauseous. I'm sharing because I think the anxiety so many of us feel in regards to this November is very, very real).

[screenshot of black words on a white background. text reads: "Very soon, the same people who shut down your businesses and hampered your careers will be asking that you re-elect them so they can keep theirs. Never forget what they did to you." A red "X" is at the bottom center after the text.]

[screenshot of a picture with a young Donald Trump in front of a black sign with a red curtain. text reads: "Did you know: The 14th of June, 1946 is the birthday of a boy born in the Jamaica district of Queens, NYC. In 1995, his car has a flat tire. A black man walking by notices it's owner is wearing a suit. So he fixes the flat. 'How can I repay you?' asks our birthday boy. 'My wife has always wanted some flowers' A few days later, the black man's wife gets a beautiful bouqet of flowers with a note saying, 'Thanks for helping me. By the way,..... the mortgage on your house is paid off.' A USMC Sargent spends 7 months in a Mexican prison for a minor charge. He is beaten. The man from Queens sends him a check for $25,000 'To get you started.' A black bus driver saves a suicidal girl from jumping off a bridge. Our Queens man sends him a check for $10,000. A rabbi's critically ill son needs to get from NYC to California for specialty care. No airlines will fly him. The generous man pays for a private flight for the child. This kind man form Queens commits many other 'quiet acts of random kindness.' A wise man once said 'If a man's heart is good,..... Nothing else matters. And if a man's heart is bad,..... Nothing else matters.' Who is this kind man? #DonaldJTrump, a man with a good heart. Let's gooooo 2024"] The same people who believe the 45th President is a fantastic human being and not the third worst President in the history of the United States also believe LGBTQIA+ / queer people shouldn't be allowed to exist.

[screenshot of several pages. text reads: "There is an anti-LGBTQ+ internet censorship bill that has unfortunately passed in Kansas. It requires you to use your ID verification for any site that involves LGBTQ existence, which are now labeled as 'harmful to minors'. This bill aligns with KOSA (Kids Online Safety Act)."] More of the text of the actual bill is highlighted in other parts of the screenshot. I've seen a not-insignificant amount of people saying, "voting blue won't help nearly as much as you think" or discouraging people from voting in general. I understand the disenfranchisement with the current system. I also have a lot of depression and anxiety about how much "interesting times" we live in (and how I REALLY just want to go back to living in boring times, if there ever was such a thing). I also feel as though we don't really have any good options at all. But I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that certain people out there want to watch the world burn and they're the match. The Intercept published a story on 31 January 2017 about how the FBI quietly investigated white supremacist infiltration of law enforcement within the United States. The Presidency of the United States had just peacefully transferred between former President Barack Obama and DJT, which means the FBI's investigation found these behaviors in law enforcement from a period when Democrats were the majority in the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate. The investigation was initiated and provided funding by those Democratic leaders because they thought something might be going on. But as soon as DJT took control, funding for that investigation was removed (as well as a bunch of other stuff), which means no action was taken to remove that influence from law enforcement establishments. There's a lot of research out there on how hate crimes in 2020 were higher than they'd been since 2008. I know there's a LOT of people out there who have done more research and posted better rundowns of everything causing us anxiety and I encourage research and knowledge-gathering. I've seen many articulate posts about the accomplishments of Biden's administration. This wonderful person also did a great video that breaks down the likely future, depending on this election.

Anyway. Here's a link on how and where to vote in the United States. https://www.usa.gov/how-to-vote

Every state has its own voter registration deadline. Find yours to make sure you can register in time to vote.

Every state except North Dakota requires people to register if they want to become voters. Depending on your state, the registration deadline could be as much as a month before an election. Check the U.S. Vote Foundation to find your state's voter registration deadline. You can also check your state or territory's election office for more details.

#voting #u.s. politics #vote #please vote #your vote matters #long post #politics

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thegoddesssekhmet · 3 months

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✨ Put 5 songs you listen to, post it, then send this ask to 10 of your mutuals

Pretty fly (for a rabbi)- Weird Al

I'm the boss- Big Bad Bosses

Mambo no.5- Lou Bega

Diggy Diggy Hole- Yogscast

Must have been the wind- Chalkeaters

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silverjetsystm · 5 months

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Character solidifying! | Accepting

22. Who are their friends? Lovers?

Narrowing scope to 616.

Back in 'the day,' their friends were:

Frenchie: Marc's friend from the merc days. He flew MK's helicopter and lived at Grant Mansion with Marlene --

Marlene: the system's girlfriend who lived with them also at Grant Mansion. She was Steven's girlfriend at first and grew to love Marc and Jake as well. She was as vital to the MK operation as Frenchie, helping plans succeed and holding her own in fights.

Gena: Jake's bestie who ran the local diner. She and Crawley gave Jake plenty of tips for MK business. Her sons, Ricky and Ray, were also lookouts for MK. Ricky was KIA in the military. Ray took over flying the helicopter for Frenchie sometimes.

Crawley: our resident homeless man who pretty much took the cash Jake gave him and used it to buy tea bags.

Outside of occasional change ups (Gena moves to Houston for a while, Marlene and the system break up a ... few times. okay at least 8 times), the cast was the cast between real world 1975-2011. Because Marc's refusal to change, they all dipped in and out of the system's life and eventually moved on altogether. I'll spare you the revolving door.

Our current Midnight Mission Gang is:

Reese: Recent vampire who lives in the same neighborhood as the Mission. The assistant. Knower of tech and social media.

Soldier: Also recently turned vampire. Lives with his mom near the Mission as well. Former HYDRA goon.

Hunter's Moon/Dr. Badr: The other Fist of Khonshu. Traditional and devout where Marc is not. Can channel former Fists' memories and abilities.

Tigra/Greer Nelson: Marc's former/current (in comics and in some verses here) lover. They were on the West Coast Avengers together. She's a weretiger and has a son.

8-Ball/Jeff Hagees: super villain goof. formerly a defense contractor and missile propulsion engineer with a gambling addiction that ruined puts the former in 'formerly.'

22. ‘Type’ or ‘ideal’ partner?

Nice hair. Can kick Marc's ass. Can hold them accountable for their actions. A bunch of patience. A partner doesn't have to be romantically involved with all three of them but they can't shove the other two aside to be with the one. They like hands and competency. Doesn't have to be in fighting, though that really does help since their life is...like this. Accepting that they will not stop being MK.

13. Did they like school? Teachers? Schoolmates?

School was an exercise in endurance. They got through it. Marc didn't have any friends and was always in fights. Steven liked school well enough but he and Jake struggled with keeping a friend group. Teachers could be sympathetic while others weren't.

They could have gone to a Jewish day school but they were in the public school system with Jewish education on the side. Antisemetism came from Marc's peers as well. Amongst their Jewish peers, Marc was seen as a troublemaker despite being the rabbi's eldest.

29. What is your character’s weaknesses? Hubris? Pride? Controlling?

They can be angry and dense; they're also workaholics if Jake decides the work is more important than breaks.

Spector: An interesting mix of pride and self-loathing (egotistical?). Which leads to him being controlling.

Grant: Tfw Executives Defunctioning. His anxiety gets the best of him with Spector being a goddamn mess and he has to be responsible for this as well, which leads him to being an annoying yuppie fuck in other avenues of his life. At times he defaults to 'smile and wave' passivity.

Lockley: Can be too easy-going and casual. Not in a passive way. Deliberately carefree.

Spector and Lockley's weaknesses feel more apparent. Grant got stuck with a lot of thought spirals in volume 1 and I interpret some of the moments at Grant Mansion to be Grant and Spector being blurred.

#asked and answered #headcanons #we are mk | system

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notmuchtoconceal · 7 months

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[14:00]

The first thing to say here is that an earlier generation of scholars actually argued that the development of the evil Demiurge began in Alexandrian Jewish circles. This theory has speculated that Jews at the very periphery of their social, intellectual and philosophical circles -- perhaps those Jews at the very limits, at the adjacent of some of those magickal practices that produced some of the books like Sefer HaRazim -- were ultimately responsible for the development of the evil Demiurge, says this theory.

(It's largely rejected now, but it's the dominant theory you may read in old books.)

Perhaps it was a rebellion against their more emergent orthodox theologians, an outgrowth of Jewish bitheism with the so-called Two Powers in Heaven Hersey (which really frightened the Rabbis, way more than Christianity ever did) the influence of Dualism on their theology, or a response to the historical material reality of Jewish suffering during the Judean-Roman Wars, the violent Alexandrian pogroms, the Kitos War, and finally the genocide that followed in the Bar Kokhba Rebellion, it was a pretty crappy time to be Jewish in the 2nd century, so you might wanna

... dip out.

In other words, when God gives you lemons -- God must be evil.

In fact, something similar actually emerged after the Holocaust with what is now know as Abusive God Theology and that stuff makes... makes H.P. Lovecraft looks like Elmo on MDMA.

*whew* Abusive God Theology.

But there are logical and evidentiary problems with this line of thinking.

First, there's just no evidence of evil Demiurge thinking in any known Jewish text. It seems to fly in the face of every tenet of Judaism that is foundational to it, and Judaism does a pretty good job of preserving... heterodox opinions. And the Jewish writers at the time -- from the earliest Rabbis to Hellenizing Philo and the generations that follow -- they seem to all fall on the exact opposite position of the evil Demiurge idea and they never polemicize against what would seem to be that position. It's just silent in the narrative. That's just to say there's no Jewish evidence -- positive or negative -- of the emergence or even the presence of the evil Jewish Demiurge in their clrcles.

In fact, it only takes place in Christian works. In Christian Works. Primarily those of the second century like the famous Apocryphon of John, the most popular book in this genre.

However, the idea likely has its origins not in Judaism but in the Pagan demonization of the Israelite God Yahweh. At the heart of post-exilic Israelite mythology is the story of the Exodus, that is the accounts of the descendents of Joseph who were allegedly enslaved by Egyptian pharaohs then forced into labor camps for 400 years. Eventually the Egyptians perceived a demographic threat from the fecund Israelite women and engaged in mass infanticide with Moses surviving -- rescued of course -- and then raised in the house of Pharaoh. After beating an Egyptian taskmaster to death, Moses flees into the wilderness of Midian and gets advice from a.... burning bush... and a divine mission to return to Pharoah and liberate the Israelite people from Egyptian bondage.

Pharoah... he's a ... he's a nope on that one and uh, y'know... what follows are a series of horrifying plagues, eventually the Israelite God murdering all the firstborn Egyptians... even the poor animals get killed by the Angel of Death, including Pharaoh's son. After this, the Israelite people are liberated, but not before plundering Egyptian wealth.

They... they go on a looting rampage. Pharoah's despair of course turns to rage in the Sea of Reeds where the Red Sea is split. The Israelites escape and Pharoah and his army are drowned. Oh yeah, and the Israelites, they live happily ever after after that. Everything's fine. For the Israelites and the Jewish people. Nothing bad ever happens again.

Now, the origins of this myth, the Levitical Exodus story might be a good one. Friedman gives an interesting idea of what is called the Leviticus Exodus Theory. Might be a possible historical seed of the Exodus, but this myth has become foundational in the centuries prior to the turn of the Common Era as Judaism is becoming a religion as we might recognize it. And for Judeans living in Judea celebrating this myth in Hebrew, well... that's all fine and good as well as myths go.

But during this period, most Jews didn't live in Judea, they were increasingly spread throughout the world that would become the Roman empire and were especially concentrated in he Egyptian port city of Alexandria. The Egyptian city of Alexandria.

Further, this tale wasn't just in their native language there. It was being translated into the vernacular Greek of the time, and ... worse, it had even been translated into Greek for performance by Ezekiel the Tragedian by the 3rd Century BCE. This Judean Exodus myth was being performed in Egypt in the public vernacular... for all to hear. All during the twilight of the proud Egyptian autonomy. It could have only been salt in the wound of the end of Egyptian civilization as it had existed for thousands of years.

Now as you can well imagine... this myth was not exactly well-perceived by Egyptian people. It paints their empire as defeated by a bunch of slaves who expropriate them in the end. It paints the Egyptians as sorcerers, slavers and psychopathic baby murderers. It paints their traditional gods as helpless against... a single foreign desert god and their divine pharaohs as vicious pawns ultimately drowned, and... that's the worst possible death in the Egyptian religion.

Drowning. Is an awful death for the ancient Egyptians.

Any Egyptian would have found this myth highly offensive at basically every register. In fact, other non-Jews would have found it frankly laughable given the splendor and power of ancient Egypt and the relative backwater that was Judea. If one were to measure the power of the Gods by their relative social success... okay. The Judeans had one rather impressive temple to speak of. One. The Egyptians had hundreds. Thousands. And all of those were of supreme antiquity; ancientness and grandeur both being the prime indicators of the powers of the gods in antiquity. And thus the the Hellenizing Egyptians deployed a powerful religious weapon to counter this scandalous, this offensive Exodus story.

The Judean God was a Donkey Headed Demon.

Yeah, for real. That was the comeback.

Yahweh was a Donkey Headed Demon.

In the indigenous religion of the Egyptians, the demonic god Seth was responsible for chaos, the desert wilderness, violent storms, and the barbaric foreigners that threatened ancient Egypt. He was also the usurper who murdered his brother Osiris, hacking his body into pieces and locked eternally in combat with the symbol of justice, Horus.

He was depicted, at least early on, by a... strange otherwise unknown animal known in scholarship as the Typhonic Beast with a sunken muzzle and floppy ears. Sometimes appearing like a kind of hybrid dog-like, perhaps desert scavenger kind of animal. However, as the centuries went on, the head of this beast became more and more donkey-like. Further, the popular Canaanite storm god Baal also became associated with Seth in the Egyptian imagination. In fact, Baal's name when it's written in the Egyptian language uses this Seth animal determinative, probably indicating his foreignness and desert dwelling character.

This shows they were somehow equivocated in the mind of the average Egyptian scribe, at least. And as Hellenism took hold, so did the interpretatio graeca, whereby the gods of various national pantheons were set in a kind of system of grand correspondences. Thus famously the Greek Hermes was equivalent to the Roman Mercury, the Etruscan Turms, the Egyptian Thoth, the Carthaginian Tautus, the Gaulish Lugus, and most famously in our neck of the woods here, Hermes Trismegistus, sort of a combination of Hermes and Thoth into one mythical Egyptian sage. Of course, this could function in an ecumenical sense. The same Gods worshipped variously in various places acutally went to great lengths to lay the groundwork for the imperial religious tolerance of Roman fame. The Romans were kind of like we all worship the same set of Gods and we can all get a long as long as you pay your taxes.

But this could also be used for polemical ends and that seems to be exactly what the Egyptian answer to the scandal of the Exodus and the Israelite God Yahweh was. To link the demonic Seth of the Egyptian pantheon with the Israelite God Yahweh.

Now such a move would not have been at all theologically difficult for the Egyptians. The first step's already there: the linking of Egyptian Seth with Canaanite Baal. Of course, Judeans would have found this link horrible and offensive. Yahweh and Baal being bitter mythological enemies at least from the Judean perspective.

But from the Egyptian point of view? That would have been just what Freud would have called the narcissism of minor difference.

Both Baal and Yahweh were -- at least as far as the Egyptians cared -- minor Canaanite storm gods worshipped by barbaric foreigners whose only claim to historical fame was actually just trade routes that ran north and south through their lands near the sea down through the Shfela.

Otherwise, they were just desert-dwelling nomads or highlander bandits or both. Seth, the god of storms, chaos, the desert waste and foreigners, as historically linked with Baal... it was an easy slide to link with Yahweh. Yahweh himself was a kind of warrior storm god.

(Thunderstorms, though. Not coastal storms.)

In fact, just reading the Exodus story reveals more Seth-like properties.

He's a causer of pestilences and eclipses and brings darkness and turns the life-giving Nile into blood. Blood was used over the lentils of Israelite homes as a horrifying angel went through, murdering all these children and animals. Even the color red is linked to Seth in the ancient literature and in the Greek magical papyri. Yahweh leads them into the desert of all places to worship in the wilderness of Mt. Sinai at a mountain enshrouded in araphel in Hebrew.

Deep Darkness and fire and lightning abounding.

Even one of the major Greek terms for Yahweh Iao sounds a bit like the indigenous Egyptian word for donkey, : Iō. Or later the Coptic Iohao. literally Donkey-Headed. Iohoa. Yahweh. Eh. Donkey God. The animal at that time most associated with the demonic Seth.

Thus by the first few centuries before the common era, it had become a bit of token slander to suggest that the Jews worshipped a donkey-headed diety despite their claim that no images of their God were allowed, either in their Jerusalem temple of otherwise, for that matter.

Around 200 BCE we hear from the Alexandrian Menaceus that an Idumean -- a Southern person from same stock as Herod, actually -- had torn off the head off the Donkey shrine within the Jerusalem temple. It was a golden donkey head. A narrative that's repeated a century later by Apollonius Mullon and the Stoic philosopher Posidonius where in that story, Antiochus the IV Epiphanes (Hanukkah Antiochus) the Seleucid leader whose outrages would ultimately lead to war, he entered the temple and found a golden statue with a donkey headed deity around 167 BCE. Around the same time, around the turn of the common era, a certain Democritus also recounted Jewish worship of a donkey headed golden deity and likewise did Appion and even the historian Tacitus who should have known better, but he repeats the story anyway.

In the 90s in the common era, the Roman Jewish historian Josephus would actually have to defend Judeans from just these claims in his writings. Indeed the entire Exodus narrative was being inverted. Rather than being saved by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, in the literature -- the pagan literature -- the Israelites were being depicted as lepers actually just expelled en mass from Egypt. Not liberated by any God. In fact, Plutarch even depicts the demon god Seth escaping Egypt on donkey back; a journey taking seven days, precisely to mock the origins of the Jewish sabbath. He's even said to father sons, one named Jerusalem, and one named Judea, literally making the Jews the descendants of the demon god Seth.

Of course, this would have been all the more outrageous and horrifying to the Judeans of the time considering their traditional way of making fun of the Egyptians. They mocked the Egyptian gods by saying they worshipped a bunch of animals -- with bird heads and crocodile heads, now their God -- their God -- now their god Yahweh was the stereotypically stupidest beast of them all: the braying donkey.

I apologize for any donkeys [reading]. I apologize.

Got to be careful this episode. I'm gonna get donkey cancelled.

#to get a feeling #you know this monkey #his name is donkey

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