Say a week from now a report comes up on the news, and everyone's trippin' over some dude Colombia who claims to be Jesus. He doesn't have any defining features and says the same sorta stuff Jesus said in the Bible, but he (and let's say twelve others) believe he truly is the the Son of God. I ask because it's happened before, but of course, no one believed him, which makes me wonder how many unrecorded times we've killed Jesus in the past. It also brings up the issue of how faithful believers actually are, 'cause to my understanding, faith isn't about the proof. I'm sitting on the fence as I used to practice but slowly faded to agnostic atheism over the years. If he had some evidence or something I'd probably be down, but I'd likely more write him off as another crazy. So, non/believers, what say you?
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"I'm not great at farewells, so uh... that'll do, pig."
Natalie Portman was here
I think if a person has a message about tolerance and love then there is something they can teach us about ourselves and God, regardless of what they claim to be.
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"...you should try reading my posts being getting all emo." --FoxMetal
Uh, I dunno about that...
Last time I heard someone claim he was Jesus, the guy had 666 and devil tattoos all over his body...
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Well, there is a new accent of n00b language. It's called: Vet LUEser goes Foreign!-MegaSpy22
Those must be the pants of the gods!-Digitalpython
the question, though, is whether you would be faithful to that particular person or not
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"I'm not great at farewells, so uh... that'll do, pig."
Natalie Portman was here
Man, I typed up a real long post and it got eaten. I'll respond again later. Short answer: no.
Well, I don't believe in a biblical era Jesus, so I guess not. Maybe one from the future.
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Ocarinakid
No, I would not believe in a modern Jesus. I am Catholic, but I wouldn't set everything down and follow someone who "claimed" to be Jesus. There would have to be some sort of sign that it was Jesus. I'm not saying I don't believe unless I see proof; I'm saying that there would be an indication he was Jesus. It could range from anything to a physical resemblance to something Jesus did that would showcase he was the son of God. In retrospect, no, I wouldn't. I prefer to think of the biblical one as the one and only Jesus Christ.
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I will not accept death... I simply won't.
The Book of Revelation says Jesus will come back, albeit in a fashion so dramatic that there could be no doubt of his identity.
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The Albino Formerly Known as Mimir
From: Ocarinakid2 | Posted: 5/19/2010 2:09:16 PM | #006
Well, I don't believe in a biblical era Jesus, so I guess not.
Surely you don't mean to say that there was no Jewish preacher named Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified by the Romans. No historian doubts that.
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The Albino Formerly Known as Mimir
...a physical resemblance to something Jesus...
Good luck with that one, seeing as no one really know what this guy looked like. I can assure you, though, Jesus wasn't white.
Also, no, I wouldn't believe in a modern Jesus. I think what I believe isn't even that important anyway. If he's Jesus, he knows it, and he's doin' his job regardless of whether or not I stop my life to go join him. Plus, if we've "killed" Jesus without knowing it, I can tell you it was probably planned by whoever makes these plans, so that also doesn't matter so much.
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Holy **** we're in the Matrix? - Willis
Yeah, essentially I was going to say what Mimir said: the Bible has lots of things about the Second Coming, so if I didn't see all that happen, then no, wouldn't believe anybody claiming to be Jesus.
Not until I saw his divinity with my own eyes. Even then I'd be skeptical unless it was breath-takingly clear, no hocus-pocus.
Rastas believed in Emp. Haille Salassie (spelling?) to be the rebirth of Jesus. Though I believe he eventually said he was not Christ incarnate.
So you know, if you're seeking correlation between the answer and the belief of the individual, I am agnostic.
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SIGNATURE
http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/False%20Religions/Wicca%20&%20Witchcraft/signs/sign_of_satan48.jpg
Just saying.
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Willis, it seems like every other time you post, I need to look up a word that's in the OED or Urban Dictionary but not both.
-Mimir
What's funny about this though is I've been reading the Left Behind series. I'm in the beginning of the third one. It's a series of novels that follow the lives of people and the events of the apocalypse. Entertaining for anybody probably, because of all the intrigue, action, politics, conspiracy, etc., but especially so for Christians who wonder about interpretation of end-times prophecy .
http://killingthebuddha.com/mag/dogma/spaceship-jesus-will-come-back-and-whisk-us-away/ <--Here's a Frank Schaeffer article that was on Arts & Letters Daily a few months back on the subject of Left Behind. The title is pretty off-putting, but (and I guess I should re-read this before summarizing, but uh... yeah) it makes a pretty good point about how absurd it is to label a series about cinematic brutality and political intrigue "Christian literature," especially after that whole "render unto Caesar" thing, and the "love thy enemy" thing, and the "thou shalt not fantasize about your jerkface neighbors being reduced to singed skeletons." Okay, I made that last part up, but only a little, if you take a broad reading of the whole seeing a woman and lusting after her is adultery in one's heart thing. In fact, let's just go with all of Matthew 5.
Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is, Alex, I'd imagine you realize all this, so what are your thoughts on the subject?
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Willis, it seems like every other time you post, I need to look up a word that's in the OED or Urban Dictionary but not both.
-Mimir
Surely you don't mean to say that there was no Jewish preacher named Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified by the Romans. No historian doubts that.
My bad, I should have specified. I meant that in the "Would you believe him to be the son of God" kind of way. In which case, no, I don't believe anyone with superpowers ever existed.
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Ocarinakid
In which case, no, I don't believe anyone with superpowers ever existed.
Again, I must object, this dead Italian nigh-midget who begs to differ: http://www.rockheap.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/heaven-and-hell.jpg
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Willis, it seems like every other time you post, I need to look up a word that's in the OED or Urban Dictionary but not both.
-Mimir
I can't stress the parallels enough:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzRGqGu0jCU
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Willis, it seems like every other time you post, I need to look up a word that's in the OED or Urban Dictionary but not both.
-Mimir
"Uh, I dunno about that...
Last time I heard someone claim he was Jesus, the guy had 666 and devil tattoos all over his body.."
Did he teach us about love and tolerance?
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"...you should try reading my posts being getting all emo." --FoxMetal
I'm going to assume that if the real deal ever showed up, he'd be able to convince me, along with pretty much everyone else, that he has actual divine connections.
I doubt it, though. It just seems so arbitrary that someone like that would show up in my lifetime. What's so important about now? Wouldn't sometime earlier be a better time to show up? Or maybe sometime in the future?
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Then I'm going to make sweet, sweet love to my instruction guide for Paper Mario: TTYD - Power of 3
I think the term "modern Jesus" is a bit of a miss. What makes Jesus special isn't anything that happened when he was alive -- there are messianic, possibly apocalyptic sects popping up all the time, right? Jesus is *JESUS* because his sect happened to survive, and thrive, and dominate. You don't just get born a Jesus; it takes years and years to become one, and chances are by the time you get there, you've been dead for a while.
(For statistical purposes: Agnostic Jew)
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Shake your windows and rattle your walls.
Well, this Frank Schaeffer deal is harshly written, and I suppose that may be good for when extreme people need extreme criticism. Being more sane, I was a little annoyed how he kept harping on the 1 or 5 or whatever percent of Christians who are like that, but again, I agree that they need to be criticized.
That aside, let me approach the Left Behind books. I've read the first two books all the way through, and I read them in the past week or so, so I have a pretty good recollection of them, and I don't think there is ever any pleasure in the death of anybody. I don't think it's like a snuff book or a revenge fantasy. Maybe it is in the later books, but from the character of these first two (and the third one I'm near the beginning of) I have to doubt that. Sure, the snippet sounds grotesque, but anybody who reads Revelation literally has that same idea impressed upon them: the end WILL be grotesque, and it's not that suffering is a good thing (even when the evil suffer we should not be happy about it; it's necessary and sometimes part of justice but it sucks; we'd much rather they had repented and lived rightly so that karma wouldn't catch up with them; reference http://www.topical-bible-studies.org/12-0008.htm for the attitude any Bible-believing person ought to take towards sinners and their judgment).
The draw of the books for me is something more along the lines of, "Wow, isn't this crazy? What if this could really happen? What if Revelation's literal? This is nuts!" and I think that's the draw of a lot of fiction. It's out-of-the-ordinary stuff and interesting to think about. In the Bond films, you see James Bond kill bad guys, but it's not a murder fetish you're indulging, is it? I think this is the same. Fiction is enjoyable even if the reality it represents wouldn't be.
The reason it's Christian literature is that it postulates an interpretation of a Biblical book and kinda runs with it and brings it into a realer-world setting.
So yeah, I agree with you that it'd be sick to live out that revenge fantasy through reading a book about the evil dying. I think if you read that link I used and/or the Bible, you'll see that God doesn't encourage that kind of behavior and neither does any halfway-decent church. There are wackos out there, and even Frank S. doesn't think that LaHaye and Jenkins are to blame. I'll say that revenge fantasy is an abuse of the books rather than a use.
I only have 16 words to say to this:
Because they had not repented, the angel stabbed the unrepentant couple thirteen times, with its sword.
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Shake your windows and rattle your walls.
From: Dont Interrupt Me | #021
I think the term "modern Jesus" is a bit of a miss. What makes Jesus special isn't anything that happened when he was alive -- there are messianic, possibly apocalyptic sects popping up all the time, right? Jesus is *JESUS* because his sect happened to survive, and thrive, and dominate. You don't just get born a Jesus; it takes years and years to become one, and chances are by the time you get there, you've been dead for a while.
-water into wine
-blind people given vision
-walking on water
-fish and bread into a ****ton of fish and bread
-necromancy
-etc
and let's stay this guy from Colombia can do all the things I just listed (and more). The Revelations stuff doesn't go down but he can raise people from the dead, heal diseases, and fly. Still no?
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"I'm not great at farewells, so uh... that'll do, pig."
Natalie Portman was here
Jesus saves...and takes half damage.
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Smithy/Freepizza/Heydude/Monty/Shadowspy
Mat 24:3-5,10-11 (NIV) ..."Tell us," they said, "when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?" Jesus answered, "Watch out that no one deceives you, for many will come in my name,.. At that time many will turn away from the faith... and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people."
nice. i hope there are a lot of deceivers; i love magic
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"I'm not great at farewells, so uh... that'll do, pig."
Natalie Portman was here
Mat 24:21 - "For then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will.
Mat 24:22 - "Unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.
Mat 24:23 - "Then if anyone says to you, 'Behold, here is the Christ,' or ' There He is,' do not believe him.
Mat 24:24 - "For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect.
Mat 24:25 - "Behold, I have told you in advance.
Mat 24:26 - "So if they say to you, 'Behold, He is in the wilderness,' do not go out, or, 'Behold, He is in the inner rooms,' do not believe them.
Mat 24:27 - "For just as the lightning comes from the east and flashes even to the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man be.
what about stuff like
http://www.humanistsofutah.org/2002/WhyCantIOwnACanadian_10-02.html
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"I'm not great at farewells, so uh... that'll do, pig."
Natalie Portman was here
I've read the whole Bible and I can tell you that the answers, or enough information to extrapolate them, are there. A point-by-point would take me a long time to author, but there are already lots of commentaries (on every individual book of the Bible, written from probably millions of different viewpoints; take your pick!) available online to answer those questions if you're interested enough to read them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chumash_(Judaism)#Various_publications
If you want my personal opinions I can give them, but I'd want to do it without the rigors of looking up chapter and verse on everything I think/say.
well, yeah, the purpose is to see what you think; i don't care about people who aren't you people.
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"I'm not great at farewells, so uh... that'll do, pig."
Natalie Portman was here
When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord - Lev.1:9. The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?
The Bible eventually changes. There's the "new covenant" and the "old covenant". The old covenant was made with Abraham and it was basically, obey me and I will be with you and bless you for all generations. God was slow to anger and merciful in many circumstances although He'd never asked anything unreasonable of the Israelites in the first place (except to make a point, like asking them to be perfect). The old covenant's purpose ran its course and led to the new covenant, which is what we are asked to live under today, which is that the Law (while it leads us to do good and eschew evil) will no longer judge and condemn us; instead, all the sacrifices that were required under the old covenant were fulfilled through the ultimate sacrifice, which was Christ, and so in the new covenant there's lots of things we don't need to do any longer (which were never meant to be permanent; they were specific to a time, place, and culture).
I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?
I believe slavery in that day was a bond-servant type thing. It's not the brutal slavery associated with the south. Instead, if you owed a debt and could not pay it, you would work off the debt, and the law did require this of you. That was the extent of slavery. In fact, when Joseph's brothers (Joseph of "the coat of many colors" fame) do what the more modern slavers did, where they just sell innocent Joseph into slavery, it's portrayed as they've done something evil to him. So I don't think it was ever a proper interpretation or that there was ever an excuse to think that the modern-type slavery was acceptable.
I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness - Lev.15:19- 24. The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.
In that day you could tell without asking; women kinda secluded themselves at the time. This law also had a purpose, which was a health law -- similar to the seafood laws. Health laws fall under the broad spectrum of Old Biblical Laws We Now Consider Obsolete, and it's not arbitrary. Some stuff is moral and arises out of human nature and would last forever, but some stuff is confined to the time and place in which it serves to follow it.
Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?
Not sure what to say to this. I assume there's a better answer out there, but I personally don't know.
I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself?
The "put to death" stuff was never taken literally even in the days that this was written, and so I assume they understood it to mean something other than. I don't know why it's written now as "put to death" because that wording seems pretty clear. But they weren't putting people to death, hardly ever. Even the Pharisees, who held to absolutely the strictest adherence to the Torah, you don't read about them in the New Testament killing any prostitutes or sinners. And you know that they know who the sinners are, because they criticize Jesus for hanging out with them.
A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination - Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this?
Health law. Falls in line with what I think of the other health laws.
Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here?
This is supposed to be a lesson to the Israelites that flawlessness is the only thing that can approach God. It sets the stage for a perfect, sinless Messiah coming and being the high priest over the entire earth, i.e. Jesus.
Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27. How should they die?
Culture law. Some things, the Israelites were asked to do specifically to stand out from other cultures. Maybe to make them recognizable so that people could see which God to worship (this constantly happens in the Old Testament, where another nation or a foreign person sees that the God that the Israelites worship is the true God).
I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?
Health law.
My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev. 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? - Lev.24:10-16. Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)
Symbolic law. The symbolism was that you shouldn't take "a little of this, a little of that" when it comes to your belief system. You don't mix gods from "there" with God from "here".
I know you have studied these things extensively, so I am confident you can help. Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging.
God's Word is unchanging but we have the historical context to understand which generation of which people He spoke it to, and some things we can glean from it and apply to modern life, and some things are different because of the different way we now live. Some things like "love your enemy, pray for those who persecute you and despitefully use you", those are eternal truths. That's just a good heart.
This is taken from my church's website (http://www.ekklesiadetroit.com). It was written by my pastor, talking about how God actually hated some of the "allowable" things in that culture. Perhaps He led slowly instead of fully sometimes so as to keep His people from completely abandoning Him? I don't know. But here's this...
Let’s look at another example: divorce. God hates divorce, big time. However, in that list of 600+ laws, God permitted divorce. When Jesus walked the earth, He told people how much He couldn’t stand divorce. Some people asked him, then why did God allow it in the Law, through Moses? “Jesus replied, Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery” (Matthew 19:8-9).
Get this, God hates divorce, but He didn’t deal with the situation directly for thousands of years, because our hearts were too hard. Our hearts and minds were too jaded to understand this concept, so God dealt with it “indirectly.” People read the Bible, got divorced, engaged in polygamy… because they didn’t hear the Spirit of the text.
-water into wine
-blind people given vision
-walking on water
-fish and bread into a ****ton of fish and bread
-necromancy
-etc
and let's stay this guy from Colombia can do all the things I just listed (and more). The Revelations stuff doesn't go down but he can raise people from the dead, heal diseases, and fly. Still no?
Okay, so storybook Jesus, not historical Jesus. Well, I wouldn't just believe the guy's divine with all that. I might believe he's a superhero, if he uses his wine and necromancy to help people. Also, the bar for miracles has probably been raised since 2000 years ago. I mean, if you've got a guy who goes around, waves his hands over blind people, and then they can see, that's pretty sweet. But compare that to, say, a research team that develops affordable, easy-to-reproduce cyborg eyes -- they can cure blindness all over the world but you probably wouldn't suspect they're supernatural.
On the other hand, turning water into wine, that's about the same level of miracle as it was in biblical times. But a guy who does that, I don't think that's any proof he's a god. He might be a magician, or even, like, a wizard; he might even be a wizard who preaches love and peace, but that's no grounds for divinity.
Then again, even if God himself rose out of New York Harbor one day, 300 feet tall, glowing blue, and everything, and he ended leprosy forever and turned all the fish into loaves and gave everybody in America a slinky that climbs up stairs -- y'know, I'd thank the guy, but I wouldn't really worship him. Not unless someone forced me to or something. That's just what I've taken away from the rational, voluntariness-loving society I live in: I believe in leaders, not lords. So I'd follow someone with a nice philosophy that works because they have a nice philosophy that works. But even that doesn't doesn't make them *Jesus.*
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My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev. 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? - Lev.24:10-16. Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)
Symbolic law. The symbolism was that you shouldn't take "a little of this, a little of that" when it comes to your belief system. You don't mix gods from "there" with God from "here".
At the risk of sounding like a secularist jerk -- because I probably am one, but I'm also actually curious: How do you tell the literal laws from the symbolic ones?
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Shake your windows and rattle your walls.
I'm really not an expert, so it's hard for me to field all these questions, but my belief is that the Holy Spirit provides discernment to believers. But a secular person could also make pretty good guesses, I would think, by considering whether the disallowed act would still be harmful today, as it was in the society that it was originally disallowed in. I know that's not the most concrete answer, and it can't be, because it comes down to good judgment. Obviously if there were concrete answers, I'd try to provide you those.
One concrete example for me is from Matthew 5:38 (which lays out a particular difference between the old and new covenants; namely, mercy triumphs over judgment (James 2:13)).
"You have heard that it was said, 'AN EYE FOR AN EYE, AND A TOOTH FOR A TOOTH.'
"But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.
"If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also.
"Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two.
"Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you.
"You have heard that it was said, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.'
"But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
"For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
"If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?
"Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Another thing that I think stands out in this text is the last part. The law of human action has just been changed and the "therefore" of it is that you are to be perfect as the heavenly Father. To me, this means that God's law always involved mercy triumphing over judgment, and that it never involved angered revenge, but that (as was the case with divorce) the old covenant was made with a people whose hearts were hard and were not able to receive God's fullness.
Ooh, counterintuitive. I like.
Also, thanks.
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Shake your windows and rattle your walls.
Oh, this part of the above sticks out to me as well: But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.
I also think that any Jew at the time would have understood the significance of this; namely, that sons emulated fathers if they wished to honor them. So there are two sentiments here and the less-focused-on sentiment is this: that when you do this you emulate the Father. So it's more evidence that the Father loves enemies and wishes well on antagonists.
Oh, and, no problem DIM; it's an honor to be asked my opinion.
Two things, Alex:
For slavery: you're very right that classical slavery was of an entirely different character than the kind we imagine in the New World, but it wasn't indentured servitude, wherein you trade your labor at a greatly devalued rate to pay off a debt; a slave was owned by his or her owner as a chattel, and could be sold without consent, brutalized and worked to death more or less at the discretion of the owner. Under Athenian law, in a comically brutal example, slaves could testify and could be required to testify in the law courts, but their testimony was only valid if taken under torture.
Now, granted, the ideologies behind the two kinds of slavery were night and day, and most of the time people treated their slaves with basic human decency (in fact, a common tactic for getting a lawsuit dropped in Athens was to subpoena your opponent's slaves, because it was very rare that a plaintiff would want to see his slaves subjected to torture) but you shouldn't confuse a general trend of evil-in-no-specific-way with slavery being a little speedbump for an otherwise happy life. This is especially the case for a nobleman sold into slavery. There's no mistaking that Joseph's brothers totally screwed him, and hardcore (and the story of his eventual forgiveness loses some of its power if they sold him into playing-stodgy-British-butler-for-a-few-years).
Now for the putting to death: I suspect that the main reason that we don't see any capital punishment for violations of the Hebrew law is that, in the places we have any sort of account, the Torah was hardly ever the political law. For the vast, vast majority of recorded history the Hebrew state has been a subject-kingdom even if it was allowed that level of autonomy. Capital punishment has always been a touchy issue, and in highly bureaucratized societies, almost always a power reserved to the very highest levels of government. So the perfect example is that Christ was condemned to die by the Roman governor and not the Sanhedrin, because they didn't have that power. Whether or not anyone ever wanted to stone adulterers or shellfish consumers (and there's documentary evidence that they did, say in John 8), in any kind of metropolitan center, they simply wouldn't have been allowed by the Babylonians or the Romans or whomever.
Now, during the eras during which there was a reigning autonomous king of the Hebrew people, it gets a bit dicier. A high credible hypothesis (which is especially popular with feminist critics, although I'm getting it as interpreted by Northrop Frye) it was only under the prophet Jeremiah that the cult of the guy whom we refer to with a tetragrammaton rose to prominence: that there were a great number of Hebrew faith traditions which waxed and waned in influence until the era of King Josiah and the Babylonian captivity. That's why so many kings turned to Ba'al worship--they didn't turn to it, they just happened to be Ba'al worshipers. Same thing with Solomon: he built shrines to other gods while he himself was into the worship of that guy because it just wasn't that big a deal: diff'r'nt strokes, and Ba'al worshipers are more fun at parties. In the period of the captivity, the faith of Josiah and Jeremiah rose to prominence as a method of uniting the Hebrews in exile, and the historical books were written retroactively to idolize the kings who supported the tetragrammatic cult and villainize those that supported others (going so far as to indict even Solomon).
So the point is that even when there was a Hebrew king on the throne, he might not have been into that particular Mosaic law code, and he almost certainly wouldn't have the stability or probably the mpetus to start executing people for breaking it, because most of them didn't follow it anyway. Although I guess they did try that in Europe for hundreds of years with the whole Catholic/Protestant thing, but look how that turned out.
BTW it goes without saying that I'm not using "cult" in the pejorative sense, right?
I wasn't aware there was any other sense, so no, it wouldn't have gone without saying.
Oh. It means "group of people in a larger religious tradition who revere a particular figure or divinity with a greater fervor than other similar figures." The group of followers who write a saint's Life and petition for canonization and so on are the cult of that saint. You can look at the Council of Jerusalem as a typical watershed moment: before, Christianity hadn't really split off from Judaism, and one can talk about the "cult of Jesus" in a way that doesn't make sense afterward.
Largely unrelated to the brainwashing robe suicide thing; sorry if I caused confusion and offense.
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Willis, it seems like every other time you post, I need to look up a word that's in the OED or Urban Dictionary but not both.
-Mimir