Lit by the fires of the numinous

A blog about the academic study of religion that also talks a lot about academia and other adjacent things.

[entanglingbriars]

I've recently gotten a bunch more followers (thank you!), so I decided to do a brief introduction.

I'm Dove/Briars. I have an extensive academic education in Judaism and Christianity, particularly biblical studies, and went to Yale Divinity School for a year before dropping out due to illness.

I'm Jewish, but was largely raised in a secular environment. My interest in Christianity is primarily academic rather than lived; my interest in Judaism is both academic and (G-d willing) lived. I had a fairly long flirtation with Buddhism (particularly Zen) in my 20s, and remain interested in it academically, although to a lesser extent than I am with Christianity and Judaism.

I also have a Masters degree in English and I'm working on a Master of Public Administration; I sometimes post about stuff related to those parts of my life.

I also use this blog to talk about academia and the problems I have with it. My basic position on academia boils down to "The grapes of academia are sour."

Feel free to send me asks or DMs. I also have a spirituality sideblog, @agnosticmysticism.

[boringkate]

You listen to music regularly? Why? Have you even tried quitting? Could you quit? You get music stuck in your head? Wow. You're so ruined and music brained. I bet you make your partners listen to music with you when you have sex. Music addiction has really ruined a whole generation. You know it's not realistic to expect reverb in real life, right? You're probably so desensitized that you don't even feel anything anymore when you hear a bird singing that it wants some fuck.

[paradigm-adrift]

I don't have a problem with people listening to music per se, but I do have a problem with the music industry exploiting & mistreating artists.

Personally, I abstain from all music in order to keep my hands clean but really music should just be illegal outright to protect musicians from abuse.

[terramythos]

holy shit this person in the notes

[discodyke-dogthing]

[entanglingbriars]

Poe's Law:

Without a clear indication of the author's intent, it is difficult or impossible to tell the difference between an expression of sincere extremism and a parody of extremism.

[fizzytrashcan]

[entanglingbriars]

This is, of course, Collyridianism. Mary is not one of the Persons of the Trinity.

[theonion]

What To Know About Pope Leo’s Encyclical On AI

Pope Leo XIV published his first encyclical Monday, warning about the dangers of artificial intelligence. Here’s what you need to know about the document.

[busket]

did the virgin mary ever have sex after the whole virgin birth thing. like i I were her, a young girl barely an adult and I got pregnant and had a little holy boy id be like "well obviously abstinence doesn't work. i might as well let my husband hit it. especially since hes been such a good sport and believed me when I told him the baby belonged to god and he didnt accuse me of cheating. we both deserve this"

[marzipanandminutiae]

I know this is a joke post but the answer is that it depends on the type of Christianity you follow

I was raised Presbyterian which, like many other Protestant denominations, believes that Jesus had younger brothers named James, Jude, Simon, and Joses (as well as several unnamed sisters) because it's mentioned in one of the gospels. But I know at the very least Coptic and Eastern Orthodox and Catholic people believe that she remained a virgin for the rest of her life, and the alleged brothers and sisters were actually adopted siblings, possibly cousins

If we're speaking about the historical person, since there are some non-Christian texts that attest to the existence of a Levantine religious leader named Yeshua bar Yosef around that time, it was more likely based on the norms of the period that she did not stay a virgin and had other children (I mean if you take the religion out of the equation, she wasn't divergent to begin with when she gave birth to the religious leader in question, but let's assume for the sake of argument here that that part was real)

[entanglingbriars]

According to the Protoevangelium of James, her hymen was still intact after giving birth.

[catholicapothecary]

going to start reading the encyclical now but dude they need to stop with the documents getting exponentially longer as time goes on; this thing is 5x longer that rerum novarum and i can all but guarantee it will say less of substance

[apenitentialprayer]

There was an interesting video that Brian Holdsworth made a few years ago, comparing the Tridentine documents to the Second Vatican documents. His big thesis in that video was that there has been a kind of reversal in the Catholic imagination, so that whereas before the liturgy and aesthetics of the Church were heavily embellished and the official writings promulgated were kind of dry, now the opposite is occurring. Which, I mean, the embellished writing does kind of suit my taste, but you risk losing your audience if they have to parse out all these longer passages, and it just makes it harder to communicate the substance of what you are trying to teach.

[entanglingbriars]

The Vatican II documents are intended to be pastoral and inspirational rather than to set down definitive doctrine. I'm not surprised the trend has continued.

[apenitentialprayer]

This is in no way an inherent mockery of the concept, and probably a call to look more deeply into it, but my first reaction to hearing about a community of “Anglican Jesuits” is… an Anglican form of an order known especially for their vow of obedience to the Pope???

[apenitentialprayer]

Do they get along with Catholic Jesuits? Do Catholic Jesuits even acknowledge them? There’s ecumenical dialogue between Anglican and Catholic Franciscans—do the Jesuits have something similar?

[entanglingbriars]

It's entirely predictable but still wild to me that people take the extremely clear answer to the question "what must I do to be saved?" in Mark 10 and change it from a universal commandment to Christians to sell all they own and give it to the poor to some nebulous thing about how this specific guy cared too much about his wealth.

[entanglingbriars]

modern doctors are far less educated in astrology and the use of star charts to determine effective treatment than (european*) doctors in the seventeenth century were

*I assume African and Asian doctors also used astrology and star charts, but I don't have actual knowledge of that

[argumate]

so can we like trick people into being in favor of the government spending money on actually good things by calling it a war? like uhhhh, "war on illiteracy", pouring money into schools! "war on blackouts", improving the electrical grid! "war on congestion", funding mass transit!

what terrifies the average voter at the fundamental gut level is the thought that somewhere out there someone might be getting a better deal than they are, so if the government is spending their money on shooting people then they can relax knowing that some bastard out there has it worse.

[entanglingbriars]

So the term Pareto efficiency defines a state where no change can be made to the system without making at least one person worse off than they currently are. Achieving and maintaining Pareto efficiency is generally seen as a Good Idea by policymakers. The problem, is, of course, immediately evident. Taxing Elon Musk to pay for housing makes Elon worse off, so that choice isn't Pareto efficient.

The reality is that almost any policy to improve someone's life is going to have a negative effect (however small or negligible) on someone else and a lot of people think that maintaining the status quo is better than losing any amount of Pareto efficiency.

[priisakilljoy]

[grey-and-lavender]

Some exam writing advice from someone who wants to beat her head against a desk because of how rough these exams are.

If you are asked to define something, make sure your response includes a noun. Do not immediately talk around it, start by thinking "how would I explain this to someone who has not taken this course."

Pay attention to how many marks something is worth. I have students who are writing two sentences for a question that is worth 8% of their final grade. What the hell can I do with that?

Highlight the key words in the question, so you actually know what you need to answer. Don't start word vomiting everything you remember related to a key word, make sure you know what you need to do.

If you don't remember something, approximate. If you can't remember a full name, use initials. If you can't remember the percentage, don't guess and get it wrong, use a ballpark number instead. Not remembering details is less detrimental than putting in the wrong information.

Take a minute to rough out an outline for your essay. There needs to be some structure. If you only string keywords together and the sentences and organization don't make sense, you haven't demonstrated an understanding and I cannot give you marks for this.

Do your fucking readings oh my god. The amount of essays I have read that are meant to respond to a reading where students don't mention the reading, let alone tie it to other ones? I am despairing.

[cazort]

seriously if you do 100% of the assigned readings (i know this is HARD TO DO, you really need to set aside HUGE amounts of time to do it, college reading is HARD and there is a lot of it)

you will find college SOOO much easier.

like i took so many "hard" classes where literally all I ever did was do the assigned readings, on the schedule that the professor had assigned them on the syllabus, and i came to every class on-time and stayed the whole time and paid attention.

and literally that was it. i put no other work into the class.

and then i'd ace the class. A or maybe A-. no other prep for exams, just show up, do my best. BAM, A.

and around me person after person was failing. like intro psych? that's all I did. read the assigned readings and came to class and literally half the class failed. it was nuts.

i would ask people if they did the readings and the answer was always the same. "no".

seriously you are paying HOW MUCH in tuition?

if you aren't ready to go to college no one is forcing you. i didn't go to college right out of high school.

wait till you are ready to do it for real and then fucking do it. it will not be as hard if your heart is in it and you go all-out.

[entanglingbriars]

If you can't do all the readings (and sometimes you can't for any of a number of reasons) learn how to skim intentionally. Depending on the length of the text that can mean anything from reading the first sentence of each paragraph to reading the first and last paragraph of each chapter. Also, if you're reading a book? First thing you look at after the preface and table of contents should be the index.

[night-windows]

[spaghetti-machete]

@apocrypals

[entanglingbriars]

literally no one asked but Arminianism as a soteriology comes out of Calvinism and should not be applied to non-Calvinist soteriologies because while they are in dialogue with Calvinism they are not responses to Calvinism

[smoke-in-the-winds]

Me, talking to Paul of Tarsus whom I brought to the present: so, the Calvinist stance, called double predestination, follows that Christ only died particularly for the elect, who are unconditionally saved. The Arminian stance, however, argues that elect are only foreseen by God, but that Christ still died for all people who are saved conditional on their independent faith.

Paul: What do you mean it’s been two thousand years?? And he hasn’t come back yet?

Me: Yeah, anyways, see the thing is both sides use your writings as proof of their arguments, and I was just wondering what you actually meant, especially in Romans where you wrote-

Paul: Wait, are you sure you guys didn’t just miss him?

[entanglingbriars]

We know there are Pauline epistles that were not preserved. We don't necessarily know if that's because they weren't thought to be as worthy of preservation as the ones that were, or for some other reason. But they're definitely a thing that existed that we don't have. Which is why Philemon is so weird. It's undisputed, but it's also Paul talking to One Specific Guy about something that was not, to our knowledge, one of the big controversies in the Early Church.

Philemon himself must have thought it important because he didn't need to share it with anyone else. Paul wrote it for him specifically. So clearly he showed it to other people and they also thought it worthwhile.

The main issue Philemon (the epistle) addresses is slavery and the relationships permissible between Christians. But there wasn't, afaik, much debate in the Early Church over slavery. The very early church, if we believe Acts, tried for near-total egalitarianism, but by the time Paul started writing we know that ideal had been abandoned.

ETA: we also have no other examples of Paul writing to One Specific Guy; even if you think the Pastorals were written by Paul, they're still clearly addressing things beyond the One Dude's problems. Did Paul never write to anyone else? Or did they just not feel like Philemon felt?

tagging @apenitentialprayer @apilgrimpassingby @idylls-of-the-divine-romance

[jewish-hot-takes]

I’m honestly so extremely over having to pretend that Reform, Conservative, etc are valid movements. They aren’t. It isn’t Judaism. There may be some Jews in the movements, but the movements aren’t Jewish and the “converts” aren’t Halachically Jewish. If you don’t want to keep Jewish law, don’t convert to the “keeping Jewish law” religion. If you want to pick and choose how you keep Jewish law, don’t convert to the “keeping Jewish law” religion. If you think Jewish law isn’t binding, don’t convert to the “keeping Jewish law” religion! I’m so over it. Orthodoxy (a term Conservative and Reform Jews have placed on us, by the way!) is simply the framework in which Jewish law eternally binding and unchanging…aka Judaism. Creating a whole new religion where Jewish law isn’t binding or is able to be changed as you please is not Judaism, it’s a whole new religion masquerading as Jewish. Please stop acting like contracts can just be amended by one party without the consent of the other party.

This is going to piss a lot of people off but sorry I don’t know what to tell you. You went the route of essentially going to a non-accredited university and now you’re mad that your useless degree can’t get you into law school. 🤷‍♀️

..

[jewishgay4il]

anon i assure you orthodoxy did not exist 200 years ago the way you think it did lmao

[diamondsandphoenixfire]

Per the Talmud, conversion necessitates only:

mikveh,

brit milah as applicable,

a sacrifice while the Temple stands (not currently) and

learning / motivation / beit din (bundling these because the beit din judges learning and motivation so they’re kind of inextricable).

Therefore, halachically, converts who undergo these steps are fully Jewish.

Non-Orthodox converts do this.

They are fully, halachically Jewish.

End of.

Per Halacha at least.

Orthodoxy has added its own reinterpretations. And I’m not opposed to new interpretation in general, I believe that each generation adds to our knowledge, we learn more and improve, etc etc, but to pretend that Orthodoxy is More Authentic or somehow Unchanged is asinine.

Examples:

the Talmud specifically accepts conversion for the purposes of marriage (Yevamot 24b:6), whereas Orthodox Jewish groups today do not

the Talmud does not say you have to send your children to Jewish as opposed to public schools in order to be a valid convert but Orthodox Jewish groups today do

Charedi clothes are not ancient Israelite clothes. They were not wearing fur hats and black coats in ancient Judea.

the Talmud also indicates that many people had pretty limited Jewish knowledge immediately post conversion, indicating that the Orthodox practice of only converting people once they are up to community standards is novel

And again, I don’t think it’s wrong that Orthodoxy has its own interpretations of Halacha, just as Reform and Conservative do. We are one people but we are not automatons who always think and feel and need the same things. Someone needed to figure out how to navigate electricity, airplanes, IVF, chemotherapy, and other things that did not exist in Talmudic times.

Just generally, I think that every person on earth would benefit from sitting awhile with the concept of “with very few exceptions, everyone always thinks they’re right.” That’s just being a person. Most people don’t wake up in the morning and go “you know what? I’m going to be a bad person.” Or “I’m going to do Judaism wrong.” Definitely people do that. But we all think we’re right. We’re all only human.

Anyway, Nonnie, if YOU want to cut YOURSELF off from us, I can’t stop you but… We all think we’re right. You’re not special for that. 

[entanglingbriars]

I think a lot of people have a picture of pre-Haskalah Judaism as a culture in which everyone was scrupulous about keeping the mitzvos and that this golden age came to an end with the creation of Reform Judaism. But the reality is there have always been Jews at varying levels of observance within Jewish communities. There are complaints from rabbis and prophets going back to Moses about how the people are Doing Judaism Wrong and need to get back on the derech.

The reason the Torah reading for Yom Kippur is a list of sexual prohibitions is because a lot of Jews in that era only attended shul on Yom Kippur and the rabbis wanted to make sure they knew the rules regarding sexual immorality (since that's a lot more complex than the rules for murder and idolatry).

Now, that's obviously more about people born into Judaism than gerim, but my point is that what it means to be Jewish and observance of the mitzvos have always been closely related but not identical.

I also think a lot of Orthodox Jews would be surprised at the diversity of mitzvah observance among Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist Jews.