taking a bite out of jesus would fix me actually

the title of this blog is brought to you by me being very sleepy and asking "is theophagy cannibalism if jesus" and the ensuing conversation

[queerprayers]

the protest sign says "the closet is an awful place to die" (or, in which I ponder creationism) | johanna e. hall | published in fruitslice: a queer quarterly issue 6: queer ecology | art by apb photography | text below

The Protest Sign Says "The Closet is an Awful Place to Die" or, In Which I Ponder Creationism

In the Beginning—after the angels and animals had settled into their hierarchies, after the wild and waste had become something that could hold a garden, after Day and Night were gently pulled apart, Earth and Sea shepherded into place— Male and Female He created them.

A little while later, the Smithsonian shows me a fossil long abandoned by its ocean, the shadow of an animal that evolved before eyes did, still learning how to be looked at. We crawl out of shells carefully furnished by our ancestors and leave tentative footprints in the sand, hoping the museum plaques will be kind to us. Mine will begin:

The woods I grew up in hold sunsets well, Day and Night admitting their overlap, the stories we tell a map but never the land— and how beautiful the land is, the beaches and horizons, the way we carve out a life, neither beast nor angel, cursed to labor and blessed to cultivate.

Evolution continues creation the way I loved before I could speak love into being, the way I forget my friends' old names but never the first girl I held hands with, the way my lover is in the story the way I tell it, and the God they say created Male and Female— who hovers over the face of waters where some are just now learning to swim— hands us the plow.

[cryptotheism]

"someone should do Esperanto for religion"

Theosophy. Also lowkey Manicheanism.

[cryptotheism]

I think the gnostics can be usefully defined by their soteriology. The idea that salvation can come through cultivation of mystical knowledge of Christ/sophia, not through participation in the church, is their most politically consequential piece of doctrine.

[elodieunderglass]

[elodieunderglass]

A little visit

[forthesakeofthespirit]

a compilation of posts that contributed to my conversion

image descriptions in alt

[havingapoemwithyou]

go to the limits of your longing by Rainer Maria Rilke

[cryptotheism]

I have no problem understanding the difference between Catholics and protestans but I can't seem to comprehend what orthodox are. Did they come before Catholics? I read the Wikipedia but I'm still not sure what are the main differences besides them not believing in the Pope. I'm also confused as to what type of christian are Arab christians, since I thought they were orthodox but it turns out a lot of them are catholic

the short version is that while Christianity was forming, there was a lot of political infighting as to which powerful city states would be considered centers of power. The current Catholic Church, the Latin Church, stemmed from the people who wanted Rome to be the center of power. Orthodoxy wanted each city to be run by its own bishop (patriarch in this case). And they would all get together every once in a while to talk about their business.

Arab Christian communities are very diverse, there is no one Arab Christianity. They are generally Catholic or Orthodox, but many communities have unique histories that stem back to the earliest days of Christianity, like the Coptic church.

[allbutterfliesknow]

hi!! i studied Roman Catholic theology in college and am now Orthodox, so i thought i’d weigh in :)

cryptotheism’s summary is essentially correct historically. there’s other theological and cultural elements to the schism, but i would agree that the disagreement over the papacy (both politically and theologically) was the real kicker.

the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) asserts that the bishop of Rome (aka the Pope, currently Leo XIV) is the primary authority of all of Christianity, which grants him (or ought to grant him) authority over every church in every city. the Eastern Orthodox Church, otoh, believes that there is no one sole authority of all of Christianity other than God. so the bishops of various cities have jurisdiction over their own city, but they don’t get to interfere in a city that’s not under their jurisdiction.

anon’s question about which came first is ultimately up to a matter of interpretation. both churches claim to be the true/sole inheritor of the Christian faith as taught by Christ’s Apostles. so both churches say they came first. historically, the split ended up being fairly mutual. an unbiased third party would likely consider them to be twins (albeit with a distant and strained relationship).

i think the other major difference is in their respective approaches to theology. if we’re just talking broad strokes, Catholicism has overall favored an academic/intellectual approach, while Orthodoxy has preferred mysticism. TO BE VERY CLEAR, both churches absolutely have both approaches; there are Orthodox academics and Catholic mystics aplenty. but Catholic theology’s foundation is decidedly more academic (see the Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas, a collection of argumentative proofs for just about any question you could think of), while Orthodoxy’s foundation is more mystic (see Symeon the New Theologian’s Hymns of Divine Love, which is a collection of poetry as opposed to a series of logical proofs).

i hope this helps!! there are a lot of other differences when it comes to the details of various issues (divorce, confession, Mary’s whole deal, just to name a few), but i hope this clarifies as to the major distinctions :) if you have (genuine and respectful) questions, i would be open to answering!

[animate-mush]

The thing about the whole AD vs CE vs whether it's all just cosmetic discourse is that it totally ignores where this numbering system comes from. We should just call it what it is: Bede notation.

It was invented by one person for a specific purpose - to have a universalizable way of establishing historical dates, rather than having to deal with dynastically based date systems. And it was a really good idea. This is not surprising, since Bede is basically the father of Historiography. He also is the guy who gave us the notion of Primary Sources. Bede is amazing.

When a guy revolutionizes the entire way calendaring is done, he has the right to set his zero point wherever he pleases.

People have pointed out that one problem with CE notation is that it presents itself as neutral when it is exactly the same system as AD. What exactly is "common" about this era? The zero point doesn't become neutral just by effacing its source.

(Also BCE is nonsense. Just use negative numbers)

It makes sense for scholarly tradition to not want to be tied to a specific religion. But scholarly tradition is very enthusiastic about being tied to earlier scholarly tradition. The convention of AD was established by a scholar for a scholarly purpose. We know his name. We know what he was doing, and why, and how. And he was doing it better than anybody else. That is worth honoring.

Rather than pretending that it's a neutral system, acknowledge that it's not. It's not some naturally occurring "common era," it's the system developed by Bede, centered around dates that were important to him personally (but which he intended to be universally applicable).

Like we should be honest about the facts that (a) an awful lot of people have been measuring dates this way for nearly 1400 years and changing it in a non-cosmetic way would involve a lot of seriously obnoxious bookkeeping, and (b) the zero is where it is because that's where the guy who invented the system decided to put it. "Anno Domini" is meaningless to people who aren't into that particular Dominus, and "Common Era" is meaningless period (and imparts a false appearance of neutrality). Pinning it to its creator, though, is already scholarly convention and is objective. It may or may not be the year of Our Lord, and it certainly isn't Common (whatever that means) but it is unarguably the schema developed by Bede, for better or for worse. So unless we're actually going to rebuild it from scratch, we may as well call it that. And even if we do rebuild it from scratch, we should still call it that. Because that is what it is.

[animate-mush]

Reblogging in honor of the feast of St. Bede today.

I have been informed that Bede notation may in fact have been first devised by Dionysus the Humble of Scythia to calculate the date of Easter more accurately. But my broader point stands.

Bede, yo.

[charlesoberonn]

Do theologians in Omegaverse worlds argue about what Jesus meant when he said "I'm the Alpha and the Omega"?

[charlesoberonn]

[charlesoberonn]

That makes a lot of sense, actually.

[brainscrems]

Does anyone know the history as to how that ended up in the bible? Idk, it seems weird that a judean guy who, by historical consensus, spoke aramaic, and possibly hebrew as well, would be using greek letters in a speech. Is this passage thought to be thrown in by the council of nicea on their own? Is this a bad translation and he said the first and last letters of aramaic which was made into greek letters for western audiences? Why is this in there at all? Has the history of this passage been traced as to how it ended up in the canonized version of the bible? I find this very strange that he’d be using greek letters and I gotta know how this came up

[charlesoberonn]

The historical Jesus is believed to have spoken Aramaic but the New Testament was written in Greek, likely by people educated in Greek literature and rhetoric.

They also wrote for a largely Greek-speaking audience since most Christian churches at the time were outside of Judea.

[mirielvairenen]

Also, that speech is from Revelations- so the Jesus saying that is in a vision seen by a guy imprisoned on a Greek island. (John of Patmos, historically identified with John the beloved disciple, and IIRC imprisoned by Domitian towards the end of the 1st century). So it’s… not really attributable to a historical Jesus.

[charlesoberonn]

Historical Jesus spoke Aramaic but Dehydration Hallucination Jesus can speak whatever he wants

[charlesoberonn]

[helldevilsfromsatanland-deactiv]

it's probable that the appellation "great physician" for god was inherited through the nestorian church in china as an assimilation of the daoist 天醫 (tianyi, "heavenly physician"), a transference which almost certainly would have been aided by the exploitation of certain medico-spiritual parallels between scripture (e.g. consideration of the kidneys as a seat of basal consciousness in the book of job & the laozi zhongjing, etc.)

[helldevilsfromsatanland-deactiv]

palm sunday at qocho

[fatehbaz]

[helldevilsfromsatanland-deactiv]

heaven is changing and earth is changing and me i feel not so immutable either

[kaijutegu]

this is the nicest thing anybody has ever said about me

[f-a-b-l-e]

@bismuth-209

[iwilleatyourenglish]

a great tragedy of this world is that many things that are bad for you also look very sexy. smoking. riding a motorcycle. that crazy shit they did to saint sebastian

[heresylog]

Hello! If you have the time and energy, i have a slightly weird question for you about Jesus Christ. Did Christ have a sense of humour? Are there stories of Jesus laughing, or seemingly joking, or taking the piss at some of his disciples? I was raised catholic but can't really recall any "knee-slapping" moments, and I genuinely think that's a bit of a loss. If He was both fully Divine and fully Mortal, that means He must have had belly laughs and ugly snorts at least once, and that's a story I feel could help more people connect to the Church

Hello!

I am not a biblical scholar or even aspiring to be one. Unfortunately, my answer will not be satisfactory.

What we do know is that if there were any jokes written in the Bible, we wouldn't necessarily get them right away. In the same way when we watch old comedian acts, we don't understand the humor unless we know the historical context that makes it funny.

There is one story that comes to my mind that is funny. That parable of the widow bothering the unfair judge. That story always makes me laugh: imagine an abeula banging on the door of her local judge/sheriff's office and generally being so loud and annoying she gets what she wants in the end. I don't know if it was meant to be funny. Is it possible the crowds that heard it and roared with laughter? Maybe. Is it possible there were other parables that were obviously funny or humorous at the time but the humor has since been lost? Also possible.

[ohholydyke]

What immediately comes to mind is how after the resurrection, we’re told that Mary Magdalene thought Christ was the gardener. Now, walk with me:

We’re told that Christ’s garments were taken during the crucifixion and that he left his wrappings in the tomb. Now, I don’t know enough about ancient Jewish burial customs to know if he was given clothes before being wrapped or not, but he probably wasn’t naked when Mary found him, which means one of the following must be true:

1. He was given clothes that are gardener-like, or at least plausible for a gardener to wear

2. He acquired gardener-like clothes after the resurrection. Maybe he divine miracle’d them into existence, maybe he grabbed them from the actual gardener or from a garden shed type thing, who knows.

That’s funny enough if it’s option 2. But on top of that, what was he doing between the resurrection and when Mary noticed he was Christ after he called to her? Was he gardening? Just chilling in the garden? We don’t know. He was at least not doing anything uncharacteristic of a gardener.

Maybe he just wanted to fuck with Mary a little. For the bit. We don’t know, but it’s possible.

Regardless, it makes me think of the following poem/passage from Anthony Oliveira’s Dayspring (the words of Christ are in red, black is the speaker/John/it’s complicated)

[autisticandcatholic]

OOO also! when Jesus disgusted Himself after the resurrection

Luke 24:17-19

[17] And he said to them, "What are these words, which you are discussing with one another, as you walk and are sad?"

[18] And one of them, whose name was Cleopas, responded by saying to him, "Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?"

[19] And he said to them, "What things?" And they said, "About Jesus of Nazareth, who was a noble prophet, powerful in works and in words, before God and all the people.

I think this was pretty funny, He had a sense of humor, especially playing dumb. Our Lord and Savior played dumb sometimes. He probably laughed when He left their sights too.

[mysticismmess]

This may seem a bit stupid but how do we go about believing being gay is not a sin. The Bible kind says it is in some parts, and whilst I like to counter the argument by saying, yeah and the Bible also forbids you from eating bacon…I dunno. I would like to find something more definitive other than “Almost nobody practices levitical law in modern society” as an argument FOR lgbt people.

This is about renegotiating an approach to scripture, more than anything else. If we look for affirmation of lgbtq+ identities in a text that was written by flawed human beings in a context where those identities were understood in a fundamentally different way, we won't find it. The same applies to biblical passages about marriage and heterosexual relationships. They operate in a completely different cultural and historical context, so we have to use critical thinking.

Quite frankly, the Bible has very little to say on sexuality of any kind at all. When it does come up, it's usually tied to some kind of other sin and presented as a kind of comorbid thing (and we can safely say Paul's opinions on the matter were personal views anyway). We have blown it out of proportion and hyperfixated on it culturally for so long, that we ignore the MANY very explicit passages about financial sins in favour of reading wole encyclopedias' worth of meaning into passages about sexuality, for example.

The Bible primarily teaches us the nature of God, and His approach to humans. What I have learned from the Gospels, in particular, is that God values us treating each other with love, respect, dignity, and humility. There is absolutely nothing to indicate that being in a loving, consensual relationship with someone of the same sex is something that would violate God's desires for us. In fact, to me, the very fact that people of all sexualities are born with the capacity for love beyond mere procreative need is a sign of God's grace and the beauty of the world we live in.

The Bible as a text is not God. God can be found within it, but you have to use your God-given capacity for reason to discern His presence and evaluate the text for what it is.

God is not frozen in time on the pages of a collection of books written 2000 years ago but an active and loving presence in our daily life.

[oldshrewsburyian]

No one asked me, but: there is, in fact, a book that really helped me negotiate my own understanding of this, because it does take scripture and scriptural exegesis and scriptural authority seriously:

Reasonable and Holy: Engaging Same-Sexuality

Engaging Same-Sexuality

The Episcopal priest who wrote it is retired now.

[cuteitem-deactivated20220720]

Have you guys seen the golden cow its pretty cool. probably even cooler than God

[newyorkkiss]

girl on club dancefloor has her feet cooled by a friend pouring smirnoff ice over them (2000)

[2000three]

Mary Magdalene washing Christ's feet

[cazort]

I love how every time I log on, this site attains new levels of heresy. I can't wait to see what is next.

[cartoonscientist]

their heresy, our modernist syncretism