Archive for May 11th, 2005
Alpha and Omega
Someone just asked me where my ideas come from.
Another person told me something that I think gets to the truth about where my ideas come from:
“Bob, things that other people don’t even notice leap out at you.”
An example of this is Jesus’s words, “I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end.” Alpha and omega are NOT Hebrew letters. They are not Aramaic letters. They are Greek letters, and everyone who was listening knew exactly what Jesus was talking about.
When Jesus spoke privately with Pontius Pilate, what language do think they were speaking IN? The question never occurred to me until I started thinking about “the alpha and the omega.” Greek was the language of the Eastern Roman Empire. Greek was also the language in which the Roman nobility spoke to each other in Rome.
They spoke Greek, of course.
Jesus kept quoting the Septuagint, the Jewish scriptures in Greek. When Saint John wrote Revelations, and pronounced a curse on anyone who added or subtracted from them, he wrote in GREEK.
Luther and Calvin assumed that only Hebrew scriptures before Christ were Biblical. So they chopped out a huge part of the Catholic Bible that was in Greek. In fact, they cut out all of the Bible from the centuries before Jesus. Jesus Himself would not recognize the Bible I was raised with.
Catholics still keep these Greek books, as the Apocrypha, but they do not study it much. They almost never quote it.
But when Revelations was written in the first century, the New Testament had not yet been compiled. Each of the Gospels, including the many that were thrown out when the New Testament was officially complied, was THE New Testament for a large number of Christians. All they had as scripture was the Bible St. John spoke of in Revelations, and all of the last part of it was the Greek writings we no longer pay attention to.
So the last words of our Bible are a curse on anyone who would remove any part of the Bible, and it was written in Greek.
I am not a Bible literalist, so this makes little difference to me. For Bible literalists, this makes no difference at all.
So where exactly did Greek culture fit into the whole mosaic of Christian history? There were seven million Jews in the Roman Empire when Jesus was born, over ten percent of the total population. As Christianity advanced, these Hellenist Jews, like the historian Josephus, disappear from history quietly and entirely.
They became the basis of the Christian Church.
So most Roman Jews DID accept Christ, but they are the very Jews Christian theologians today reject. Both today’s Jews and today’s Christians do not see them as real Jews because their language was Greek, not Hebrew.
Looking deeply into this would not so much change theology, which is not my field. But it would change history, which IS my field. I want to know what political influence those millions of Jews had in the time of Christ that allowed them to be the only people exempted from the rite of emperor-worship.
I would like to know what how five million people, as they became Christian, began to make their alliances and throw their weight behind the increasingly vicious struggles for imperial power. In the third century, Roman emperors ruled for months at a time before being killed. There was something desperate going on.
And when Constantine accepted Christianity, was it a religious decision or a political one?
All from thinking about “the alpha and the omega,” I realize that there is a giant void in Roman political history without which the history we have is pure myth.
Americans Treat Europeans Like a Minority Group
Posted by Bob in Musings about Life on 05/11/2005
Since World War II Americans have looked upon Europeans as a minority group.
I do not believe in one-way guilt, the reason blacks are stereotyped as criminals is because, not only are so many of them criminals, but it would never occur to a black “leader” to blame this stereotype on black criminals.
Minority groups get stereotyped. Minority groups stereotype us. If Europeans are STILL regarded as inferiors by Americans, it is because they ACT the role far too often.
Europeans think of themselves as highly sophisticated. Americans agree. The Chinese regard themselves as Very Wise. Americans do, too. The problem is that all that “regard” is patronizing.
American Indians are always seen as Noble and Honorable. Blacks are looked upon as Victims. Jews are seen as Highly Intelligent.
I defy you to find a single documentary on television about a tribe or ancient society that does not express amazement at how sophisticated they were.
In other words, ancient civilizations need to be defended against what we really think of them. Blacks need to be defended against what we really think of them. Chinese need to be defended against what we really think of them.
And, Europeans need to be defended against what we really think of them.
So we loudly proclaim that all these groups are Very Wise, very sophisticated, Noble Bearers of Oppression, and so forth. As a professional people watcher, I know very well that when someone says how noble or something another people is, they are adding “for inferiors like they are.”
We are saying, “Yes, they are inferior, but they have this huge redeeming characteristic you wouldn’t expect in a lower people.”
How do you spot a patronizing attitude? It is very easy. Just look at how criticism from the other group is taken.
Once my father was in London, and an Englishman walked up to him and said, “You’re an American, aren’t you?” My father said he was.
“Well,” said the Englishman, I know a lot of bad things about America.”
My father replied, “I know a lot worse things about America than you do.” He thought the incident was funny.
Now turn it around. An American walks up to a visiting Englishman and says, “I know a lot of bad things about England.”
That will never happen.
Blacks insult white people all the time, but whites simply don’t care. For every week in the last sixty years, Europeans have been on the streets with anti-American signs. From time to time we get angry about it, but in general we couldn’t care less.
One of the major reasons no one will listen when we quote hate-filled texts from black “leaders” or the Talmud is because, at gut level, white Americans expect that sort of behavior from people they regard as their frustrated inferiors.
At the same time, we are desperately careful never to say anything critical about those who are not white Americans, because we assume – correctly – that they live or die by our opinion. American criticism of any European country will make headlines there.
Can you imagine a headline saying, “French President Criticizes US?” Americans would turn to the Want Ads for something interesting.
This can get amusing. Canada is part of Europe. Some years ago, American weathermen would refer to a “Canadian cold front” because a cold front was coming down from Canada. Canadians protested loudly, and you will never hear that phrase again.
No one here will tolerate any criticism of Canadians. To put this in plain English, no one will be allowed to insult the poor little Canadians or the poor little black folks or the stagnant Chinese or the poor, defeated Indians or the poor oppressed Jews.
A short time ago I complained on Stormfront Britain that Scots called me a “Yankee” but I would never call a Scot an Englishman. Members of Stormfront Britain formed a united front and declared that they had every right to call me a Yankee, but I had no right to call a Scot an Englishman.
I had broken the No Criticism rule.
Which is what led to this blog.
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