Passion Week Chronology Completely Rethought

Some alternate Torah calendars have become popular online lately, in particular I’ve been skeptical of those that try to synchronize the weeks to the months or at least year, like the Lunar Sabbath Calendar or the Jubilees Calendar.

Neither of those actually make the first day of the first month the first day of the week, they come up with excuses for starting the year on the same day of the week every year yet not choosing the first day.

Christians of course aren’t inclined to support a calendar that does always start Aviv on a Sunday because then the 14th of Aviv would always fall on the Sabbath, and placing the Crucifixion on the Sabbath seems virtually the most impossible model. 

But I have been rethinking some things.

For starters I am making this theory in the context of my prior arguing against the Torah using a Lunar Calendar as well as for starting the day at Sunrise rather than Sunset. So my mind is presuming that as I think about all this, but it could still be compatible with more traditional assumptions about those two issues.

I’ve been thinking about the flexibility of the usage of the name Peshach/Pascha.  (Commonly translated Passover but I've seen some Hebrew scholars say it really means Protection or Protector.)  Christians debating Friday, Thursday or Wednesday Crucifixion models are often focusing mostly on the rather strict use of the term in Exodus 12, Leviticus 23 and some other passages for the 14th.  But by NT times common Jewish usage was treating it as synonymous with the entire Festival of Unleavened Bread which is largely how modern Rabbinic Jews still use the word.  Acts 12 clearly has it still Pascha during Unleavened Bread.  

The Hebrew Bible itself actually started that expansion of Peshach’s application in Deuteronomy 16 and Ezekiel 45:21-24.  Of the Five Books in the Pentateuch Jesus quoted Deuteronomy more than any other, the same is true of the New Testament as a whole, so maybe their definitions for Pascha are based on that book more so than Exodus, Leviticus or Numbers?

So if we study Leviticus 23 under the assumption that for the first month the days numbered a multiple of seven are the Sabbaths.  That would make two of the days that are important observances of that month fall on the weekly Sabbath, the 14th which is YHWH’s Peshach, and the 21st which is the Seventh Day of Unleavened Bread.  

For Unleavened Bread both the first and seventh days are defined as a Holy Convocation in which no servile work shall be done, obviously they both can’t be the actual weekly Sabbath at the same time, and neither is directly called a Sabbath the way the Holy Convocation days of the 7th month are later, but the last day of Unleavened Bread is defined in the text by it’s Seventhness rather then it’s Lastness which I think can be seen as implying it.  And Deuteronomy 16:8 places special emphasis on the Seventh Day of the Feast as a day of rest repeating the Sabbath like characteristics only for it not the 15th.

Leviticus 23:9-15 describes the first day of the Omer.  Which is commonly called by Christians interested in this stuff "First Fruits", however that can be confusing because in English Bibles that term is also associated with Pentecost, but the Hebrew words are different and at least the one used in this section isn’t in it’s etymology referencing fruit.  I like to call it Aparche, the equivalent Greek word which is used for The Resurrection of Jesus in 1 Corinthians 15, it rolls off the tongue easier then the Hebrew.  The Aparche is NOT part of Numbers 28, the word for Firstfruits there is the one used in Leviticus 23 of Pentecost.

The timing of the Aparche is defined as the day after the Sabbath, in context the Sabbath that follows Peshach is implicit.  I in the past and others opposing Sabbath synchronized calendars have argued it being described this way instead of simply the 16th or some other date shows that day won’t always be the same day of the month. However the Seventh day of Unleavened Bread isn’t defined as the 21st in Leviticus 23 either.  The Spring Holy Days are directly connected to each other more so then the Fall Holy Days.  The context of this section following the Seventh Day of Unleavened Bread being a Holy Convocation in which no servile work is to be done I now feel reasonably implies that day is the Sabbath being referred to in verse 11.  So in the model I'm proposing the Aparche offering is the 22nd of the first month.

And then in verse 14 we are told that bread, parched corn and green ears are things we are to not eat until this Aparche offering is made. During Unleavened Bread you absolutely are supposed to be eating Matzah (unleavened bread), some argue Lehem always means specifically leavened bread, I’m unsure on that as a general rule but in context it certainly does here.  So verse 14 basically defined this day as the day we return to eating what we were restricted from eating during Unleavened Bread in Exodus 12:20.

Leviticus 23:13 is also the only time the word "wine" appears in the KJV of this chapter.  The Hebrew is Yayin which of the Hebrew words translated Wine is definitely one that refers specifically to fermented Wine.  In Exodus 12:20 the word the KJV translated "leavened" the Young's Literal Translation renders "fermented", some Karaites believe this refers to more then just Unleavened Bread, my interpretation of the Aparche here agrees with that.  Also Yeast is used in Fermenting Wine which I didn't even originally know.  Numbers 28:24 confirms that Drink Offerings are part of the days of Unleavened Bread, so "fruit of the vine" can be drank during those days, just not fermented Wine.  

Deuteronomy 16:9 identified the first day of the counting of the Omer as the day they first put the Sickle to the Corn.  In the context of that Chapter that can only be after the Seven Days of Unleavened Bread are over because those days are a pilgrimage festival, everyone is gathered together at the Tabernacle and are not attending their Farms.

In John 20:17 Jesus tells Mary not to touch Him because He hasn’t ascended to The Father yet, since later in the same day the disciples are allowed to touch him, that implies some brief ascension happened, and people studying the Feast Days have argued this was him as our High Priest making the Aparche offering. Leviticus 23:12 refers to a Lamb being offered at this time, but doesn’t say the Lamb was killed that day.  Now don’t get me wrong I’m sure literal Lambs offered that day were probably killed that morning, but the wording here gives us room to typologically view this Lamb as the Risen Jesus presenting Himself to The Father.  1 Peter 1:19 could have a lot of Torah Scriptures in mind, but in the KJV wording it’s arguably most directly quoting Leviticus 23:12 "lamb without blemish".  

In Deuteronomy 16 it is contextually Peshach as a name for Unleavened Bread that is required to be observed in Jerusalem with animals killed in The Tabernacle/Temple, probably the same Sacrifices as Numbers 28:17-25, because the establishment of the Pilgrimage Festivals in Exodus 23:14-17 includes Unleavened Bread but not Peshach.  The 14th of Aviv Peshach was a family matter not a Levitical Sacrifice, it did not have to be in the same city as The Mishkan and was killed by the head of the Household not a Kohen.  I think that is the Supper being eaten in Bethany at the start of John 12, and then the 15th is the Day of the Triumphal Entry aka Palm Sunday.

“How does the 10th of Aviv’s significance from Exodus 12 fit in then?” You may ask. Well that is not one of the ordained to be repeated observances of Leviticus 23, there are only two other references in all of The Hebrew Bible to the 10th day of the first month being a day where something happened.  Ezekiel 40:1 where that is the date of the day Ezekiel had the vision the rest of that book is describing.  And Joshua 4:19 where it’s the day The Israelites encamped at Gilgal.  Gilgal could be related to the place called Ephraim in John 11, but speaking of John 11 it’s clear in John 11-12 that the raising of Lazarus really spiked Jesus’s popularity, in a very real sense that is the day He was chosen by the people.

But going back to my point about Deuteronomy 16.  I think even if Pascha is always used in a singular form, it’s still a meal that is eaten every evening during this week.  That’s how The Last Supper could be a Pascha Meal but there was also a Pascha being prepared while Jesus was on The Cross in John 19:14.

In Matthew 26 I believe the first five verses should be the end of chapter 25, they tell us when the Olivet Discourse happened not anything in the following verses.  Regardless, two days before the Pascha sounds like there is one specific Pascha in mind, as does John 12:1.  It could be that the narrative voice of The Gospels is sometimes using Pascha specifically of the day of the Crucifixion and/or The Last Supper in timing statements like these.  

However for John 12:1 the Peshita reads "before the Six Days of Peshka" which sounds like a direct reference to Deuteronomy 16:8.  

Matthew 26, Mark 14 and Luke 22 are all chronologically jumping backwards when they talk about Jesus being anointed for burial and the argument with Judas then Judas deciding to betray Jesus over it which we know from John 12 all happened the day prior to the Triumphal entry.  And so likewise the following part about making the arrangements for the Upper Room and Pascha may have also been done that same day or the day of the Triumphal Entry, then it transitions back to the present for the Last Supper.  Meaning Matthew 26:2, Mark 14:1 and Luke 22:1 could be referring to two days before the Triumphal Entry.

Now I know the main objection some are going to have is that this weakens the Typology of Jesus as The Lamb which we’ve usually thought of as the Exodus 12 Peshach Lamb first and foremost.  But that Lamb isn’t a Sin Offering as The Lamb of God is clearly defined as being in both John 1 and when Paul says Jesus was made Sin for us in 2 Corinthians 5:21..  No Sin Offering is ordained for the 14th anywhere in The Torah, but Numbers 28 and Ezekiel 45 do have Sin Offerings happening during the Seven Day Festival.  Jesus ultimately fulfills all the Sacrifices not just one.

This also forces me to become a supporter of a Friday Crucifixion model, since now every reference to a Preparation day in The Gospels would have to be Friday, the preparation for The Sabbath.  In the past I’d always been bothered by the Seventh Day of Unleavened Bread having no significance to The Gospel narrative, but in this model that day can be identified with the Sabbath being referred to in those passages and called a High Day in John 19:31.  

Friday is the day Adam was created, The Last Adam goes into the Earth the same day the first Adam was formed out of it.  The Torah constantly counts days Inclusively, like how the time for Circumcision is always determined.  The "Three days and three nights" statement is said only once and in the context of referencing Jonah, exactly how long it would be was not the actual point.

That makes the Crucifixion the 20th day of the First Month, that day is never singled out anywhere in The Hebrew Bible.  But I think that’s good actually, I don’t like how often Western Christians make the Crucifixion equal to or even more important then The Resurrection.  The Resurrection is what the Point of all this was, so that being the day the Aviv Holy Days are all building up to is perfect.

The 22nd of The First Month being the first day of the counting of the Omer makes day 40 the first day of the Third Month.  Having Ascension Day by the third Rosh Chodesh of the year could be relevant because of Exodus 19:1, but also 2 Chronicles 15:10 and 31:7.

The rest of this post is more speculative and not vital to the main argument.

The Platonist Pentateuch

 The Platonist Pentateuch

Timaeus = Genesis

Republic = Exodus

Gorgias = Leviticus

Critias = Numbers

Laws = Deuteronomy

When I criticize much of Mainstream Christianity for being more Platonist then Biblical, most of the Platonist ideas I have in mind are pretty much laid out in those five dialogues.  "Conservative" Christians of course want nothing to do with Symposium or Phaedrus.

The extent to which Christians are Platonists varies in explicitness more so then how Platonist.  For many it's all indirect and plenty are in outright denial of how much their beliefs come from Plato, some Full Preterists on Facebook had the gall to suggest it's us teaching a Bodily Resurrection and Soul Sleep who are the Platonists.  Some simply think it doesn't hurt to apply methods learned from Philosophy to your Faith, some believe Plato somehow simply is compatible with The Bible both Old and New Testament.  Some fall just short of full blown Marcionism in their attitudes towards the Hebrew Bible and basically wish they could replace the Old Testament with Plato like David Bentley Hart.  The people who are explicitly Modern Marcionites are sometimes also in denial of the Platonist roots of their Theology, I've yet to see someone who actually does explicitly replace the Old Testament with Plato, but if I ever do it won't surprise me.

I listed those five in that order not because that's their chronological order, Timaeus sets itself up as a sequel to The Republic and Critias in turn is explicitly a sequel to Timaeus.

Timaeus is the counterpart to Genesis because it contains the Pythagorean Creation myth, and it references Atlantis giving it a Flood Legend as well.  A Cosmology that after being filtered through Philo, Plutarch and Numenius of Apamea would give rise to the Gnostic Ialdabaoth, the Arian view of The Logos and Neoplatonist cosmologies.

Republic has some narratives but is basically Plato's major political Constitution.  While Exodus is named for it's most well known narrative more of the text is actually about laying out Israel's Constitution.

Gorgias is one of the five mainly because it's the Chief origin of the modern idea of Hell.  Leviticus doesn't contain any explicit references to Sheol, but that's not really where modern "Hell" comes from, to the extent it's Biblically justified at all it's largely a misunderstanding of what the purpose of Leviticus's Sacrificial system was.

Critias is most well know for being the fuller account of Atlantis.  And the Purpose the Atlantis myth is supposed to serve in relation to the Republic is seeing such an Ideal Republic in action.  But what many forget is that's actually Athens, Atlantis is the Evil Empire so it in this proposed Numbers comparison could be Balaac's Moab or the Amorites under Sihon and Og.  And the Amorites did exist this far south only because of Imperialism, their homeland was the Beqqa Valley by Mount Hermon but they kind of ruled the entire Levant by this time.  Also the Baal-Peor episode is one of The Bible passages abused by Anti-Miscegenationists, and the story of Atlantis has a proto-eugenicist subtext in the degeneration of it's Kings.

Deuteronomy means ""Second Law" because much of it is Moses repeating Laws from earlier, The Laws is likewise Plato's second hypothetical Constitution.   Both books are traditionally the last their traditional author wrote. Deuteronomy is believed by secular scholars to not have the same origin as the rest of The Pentateuch, and likewise Robert H. Allen argues that Plato's Laws isn't authentic Plato.

Deuteronomy is actually the most quoted book of the Pentateuch in the New Testament, with even some NT references to the Decalogue being based on it's version. A fact which I think fits in with the NT's theme that The Law should change.  The Laws of Magnesia however are reactionary and dystopian.

The Joshua to Plato's Moses wound up being Emperor Theodosius I.

Stoicism in Early Christianity

Is the name of a book I recently bought edited by Tuomas Rasimus, Troels Engberg-Pedersen and Ismo Dunderberg, it's a collection of articles written by even more authors but Engberg-Pedersen wrote the introduction.  Engberg-Pedersen has also written books on this subject that on Amazon are way too expensive right now.

I have already on this blog talked about potential affinity between Biblical Theology and Stoicism in God and The Universe and Spiritual and Heavenly what do they actually mean and opposed the common Platonist Interpretation of Biblical Theology in those as well as Pagan Greek Origins of Puritan Sexual Morality, the post on Divine Impassability and Divine Immutability, and also mentioned it in the post on The Sects of First Century Judaism.

These authors however argue for a Stoic Context to the New Testament and other Early Christian texts because they believe in the 1st century AD and even still early 2nd century Stoicism was the mainstream default Philosophical viewpoint and that Platonism took over during the 2nd Century. Which is true, the picture painted in Acts 17 for the Sermon on Mars Hill does imply only the Stoics and Epicureans were really relevant at that time and the Epicureans were the Atheists/Deists so their Philosophy wouldn't have been useful to Christians.  And so the Stoic texts they engage with are mostly the Roman Late Stoicism of Cato The Younger, Cicero, Thrasyllus of Mendes, Seneca, Musonius Rufus, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius.  But earlier a key transitional figure in Stoicism abandoning it's more radical roots was Antipater of Tarsus.

I however believe Christianity was a fundamentally Rebellious religion at it's inception, Pacifist but Rebellious.  Within their Jewish Context the Early Christians were Pharisees but ones who rejected many of the traditions the Pharisees had developed during the Intertestamental period.  And likewise the Stoicism I see in the New Testament is a return to the Old Stoa of Zeno, Cleanthes and Chrysippus.

One of the articles in this book talks about how during the period of Middle Platonism and Later Stoicism the two schools borrowed a lot from each other.  That Platonism that seeped into later Stoicism was the source of it's problems just as it would become the source of Christianity's problems.

The worst thing these Roman Stoics had taken from Platonism was the rigidly Pythagorean Sexual Morality of The Laws, particularly the argument that males lying with males is wrong because it's "Para Phusis".  The Laws was Plato's last work, so late some have argued he didn't actually write it, it is Platonism at the height of it's Pythagoreanism.  Symposium was one of Plato's oldest dialogues, possibly before any of the Pythagorean influence, and the Eros teaching of Diotima is the one thing in the Platonic canon that could have been compatible with Zeno's Eros or New Testament Agape at least in some ways.  But these Roman Stoics ignored that and followed The Laws instead, Musonius Rufus in Rome in the 50s AD used the Para Phusis argument verbatim and Epictetus repeated it.

But famously that argument that Homosexuality is wrong because it is "against nature" or "unnatural" technically appears in the writings of Paul, in Romans 1:26-27.  The context so many fail to get is that Romans 1:18-32 is not Paul's own opinion, it's him laying out the opinions that the rest of the Epistle is systematically refuting.  Romans is like a Breadtube response video, 1:18-32 is them simply playing clips from the PragerU video(s) they disagree with, then it proceeds with the take down.  In chapter 2 verses 1, 3 and 17 are Paul explicitly saying that part was someone else's argument.

The argument that this part of Romans 1 is Paul quoting or paraphrasing someone else isn't even limited to those trying to argue The Bible doesn't condemn Homosexuality, it's made by people who probably still think it's a Sin because of other mistranslated/misinterpreted verses.  It is well known that Romans 1:18-32 is largely based on Wisdom of Solomon 13:1-10 and 14:22-31.  [Update: and here is an article on how the influence of Philo was possibly also relevant.]

One article in this book also says that Wisdom of Solomon is an ultimately Platonist text even though it borrows a bit from Stoicism.  So someone who sees Paul as somewhat of a Stoic should easily agree that if Paul is quoting Wisdom it's a quotation made in disagreement.

Romans goes on even to refute stuff from Wisdom of Solomon not included in that specific paraphrase, like in Romans 5 when Paul says Death and Sin entered the world because of Adam's Sin, he's directly disagreeing with Wisdom of Solomon 2:24 which says Death entered the world because of the Envy of The Devil.  But the main argument of Wisdom and Romans 1:18-32 is that God gave up on the heathens and surrendered them to their sins.  In Romans 11:30-32 Paul says that God consigned ALL to disobedience so that he might have mercy on ALL, God doesn't give up on anyone, in Romans 5 he says ALL will be made righteous in Christ.

However the Para Phusis argument is the one thing in Romans 1:18-32 not taken from Wisdom.  To people in Rome in the 50s AD this might have seemed like a direct reference to the teaching of Musonius Rufus in Lecture XII.  But as I said it came from Plato's Laws (though was probably a Pythagorean teaching before that) and so that is why it fits in with the Platonism of Wisdom of Solomon.  And in a first century Jewish Platonist context the basic concept is found in Philo even if not the exact phrase.

Paul in all his writings uses the phrase "Para Phusis" only twice, this section of Romans 1, and then again in Romans 11:24 where he uses it to describe what God does grafting Gentiles into Israel. Now Paul saying God did something that is "contrary to nature" sounds like something those who argue for a Stoic reading of Paul need to explain, since in Stoicism God and Nature are in a sense the same thing.  Well the explanation is that the context is Paul using this wording to refute the anti-Homosexual argument he quoted in chapter 1.  If males lying with males is "Para Phusis" because it can't result in biological reproduction, then God making people who don't biologically descend from Jacob into Israelites is even more "Para Phusis" since it's reproduction without sex.  

Diotima argued that all Love is Generative whether it results in an actual new baby person or not because you are generating the mind of both yourself and your lover when you love, and to me that fits in well with Zeno's understanding of Eros as well New Testament Agape.  1 John 4:7 says that all who Love are Born(Gennao) of God.  Isaiah 53 speaks of the Suffering Servant having Seed, but to Christians that Prophecy is of Jesus and He didn't biologically reproduce, His Seed was His Disciples who He called the Children of the Bridechamber (Matthew 9:15, Mark 2:19 and Luke 5:34).  In Galatians 3 Paul says that all who are Christ's are the Seed of Abraham.  Revelation 12:17 says the rest of the Remnant of the Seed of the Woman are those who keep the Commandments of God and Testimony of Jesus Christ, John's Gospel and 1st Epistle repeatedly teach that the commandments of Jesus are to Love one another.  This Spiritual generation is what Romans 11 is all about, that is how the Fulness of the Gentiles will be Grafted into Israel and then ALL Israel shall be Saved.

Romans 1 isn't the only time Paul has been painted as more "Conservative" then he really was because he quoted someone to refute them.  1 Corinthians 14:34-35 is also taken at face value by Engberg-Pedersen in his Paul on Identity book, but I've studied the chapter and it's clear to me those verses are Paul quoting someone else that he then immediately calls an idiot in the following verses.  

1 Corinthians 7 is Paul responding to being asked a question, and he more then once pretty much says that this is his personal thoughts and not God speaking, I think Paul was personally Asexual and so knew this wasn't his areas of expertise, but with all those qualifiers I still think what Paul says here is not as prudish as it's made out to be, most importantly he clearly contradicts the notion that marriage and sex are for biological reproduction.

Some other books on Stoicism I own are The Making of Fornication by Kathy L. Gaca, The Stoic Idea of The City by Malcolm Schofield and Cities of The Gods: Communist Utopias in Greek Thought by Doyne Dawson.  These books tend to fall into the outdated trap of thinking Paul was a Platonist, but they are useful in how they are in part attempts to reconstruct Zeno of Citium's Republic, and in doing so argue that the original Stoics were both the Communists and Free Love Hippies of the Hellenistic world.  And that is useful for the Christian Stoicism argument because I agree with Roman A Montero's All Things in Common that Jesus was a Communist and that the Church continued to be even for awhile after Constantine, but I do disagree with his conclusion on the Essenes who I feel were the Pythagoreans of 1st century Judaism, the most Stoic Jews were the Zealots.

One subject covered in those books is how Zeno essentially tried to redefine Eros, Eros in the classical Pagan Greek understanding was uncontrollable Passion, Zeno wanted to make it something more genuinely positive.  I talked in a prior post about how Agape was rarely used at all by Polytheistic Greeks, well my new theory is that among some Stoics, perhaps specifically Hellenized Jews in Galilee and/or Tarsus, Agape become their word for Zeno's Eros, and this is the Agape meant in the New Testament and the Septuagint version of Song of Songs, especially 1 John where God is Love.  Eros is also the name of the City in Zeno's Republic, in Romans 9:25 Paul uses a specific form of Agape as a title for God's people, which like some other forms is translated Beloved in the KJV, the only other time that exact form of Agape is used is of the Beloved City in Revelation 20:9 but I think one justify translating the word order different to instead read The City of Love.  Diogenes Laertius in Book VII of Lives of Eminent Philosophers in the chapter on Zeno does use a form of Agape.

In Revelation 21 it is stated that there is no Temple in New Jerusalem.  On my Prophecy Blog I've explained that entirely in the context of Old Testament Prophecy.  But perhaps in addition to that it was also meant to remind some of the Greek readers of how in Zeno's Republic the ideal City of Eros should have no Temples.  One of these books (I currently forget which one) argued this and other things the City is not supposed to have is a response to Plato's Laws where a major Temple is at the center of Magnesia, but it's also been argued that Temples are abolished in Zeno's city because his God doesn't need Temples but rather is Imminent and Omnipresent, which sounds a lot like Stephen in Acts 7:48. 

1 John 5:6-8 gives Biblical support to the Stoic World Soul

My somewhat Stoic readings of The New Testament are also consistent with Hebrew Bible ideas, when it says that for God the Heavens are His Throne and the Earth His Footstool (Isaiah 66:1 quoted in Acts 7:49), that to me shows He's not Outside the Universe as we have come to traditionally think of Him but within it as He is in Stoicism.  That God made Adam a Living Soul by breathing His Breath of Life into him, and how Ezekiel 37 describes the coming Resurrection the same way fits the Stoic view of Pneuma pretty well I think.  Even the association of God and His Pneuma with Fire has roots in the Hebrew Bible stuff I talked about in my Baptism of Fire post.  Ecclesiastes 12:7's description of the Spirit returning to God who gave it also anticipates The Stoic ideas about Pneuma, the same idea is also in Psalm 104:29.  Isaiah 46:9-11 also agrees with Stoics over Middle Platonists on divine foreknowledge.  And when you fully understand the nuances of the Hebrew and Greek words translated "living" then God being called The Living God does support the Stoic view of God being corporeal.

Before I got into this research of Stoicism I was very hostile to using any kind of Greek Philosophy in studying the New Testament because I don't like trying to explain anything in it in a Greek context rather then Hebrew.  And some of this Stoicism in Early Christianity stuff can seem like it too is going there.  But the key difference is Zeno was a Phoenician, and so was Chrysippus, so some of their ideas may have been Semitic in origin and that's why Stoicism is more compatible with the Hebrew mindset then any other school of Greek Philosophy, and so their ideas made a good context in which the Early Christians could explain their ideas to the Greeks.

At first one is inclined to assume those the Greeks called Phoenicians were simply the Biblical Canaanites particularly of Tyre and Sidon.  However I think the Greeks used that term of maybe even all the ancient Israelites, but particularly the Tribes of Dan and Asher had strong ties to the same coastal regions that the Greeks and Romans called Phoenicia.  But even the Canaanites while Polytheistic still spoke a similar language and I think had basically similar ideas to the Hebrew Bible on Metaphysics simply using Polytheistic rather then Monotheistic framing.  Some have already argued Zeno's ideas about Eros could be related to the cosmology presented in Philo of Byblos, Byblos is part of what I believe became Danite, but also in that same Danite region was Apheca with it's cult of Aphrodite and Adonis.  The Danites became Pagan Polytheists, but even if there was a minority who tried to stay faithful to YHWHism they wouldn't have had a text of The Hebrew Bible as we know it, that Canon was developed in the Southern Kingdom, up North even The Torah was only Oral Tradition.

Zeno of Citium was contemporary with when the Septuagint is traditionally said to have been written.  I think the actual history of the Septuagint is more complicated, it developed over time and it's final form we have comes in part through Christian copyists.  But the process may have still began then, and thus some of the key words Stoic Philosophers used could have come from Zeno independently making similar translations of Semitic words/concepts into Greek, while perhaps translating some others differently.

That includes Theos/Dios/Zeus being El/Eloah/Elohim. And from something like Psalm 33:6 he could have gotten both The Logos being the Dabar/Deber (1697 and 1698 in the Strongs Concordance) and Pneuma being Ruwach, but Nshamah is sometimes used interchangeably with Ruwach. Also Psyche for Nephesh, Sophia for Chokmah and Phronesis for Binya.  And then Zeno's Eros could have been a translation of Ahav/Ahavah.

The main thing the Stoics lacked was the Resurrection, but their Cyclical view of the Universe is what I'd expect from getting most of the basic metaphysics right while still lacking The Resurrection.

Further evidence that even the Hebrew Bible can be read Stoically are the existence of Modern Jewish Philosophers who's Theology and Metaphysics sound fairly Stoic, from Baruch Spinoza to Moses Hess to Aaron David Gordon.

The Three Types of The Hebrew Roots Movement

The Hebrew Roots Movement can be divided into three different types.  However it is a very diverse movement where on each of these levels there can be a variety of disagreements on interpretations of various Scriptures and Bible Prophecy and related issues like the Sacred Name Movement and which version of The Hebrew calendar to use ect.

Type 1 would be people like the late Chuck Missler who believe Christians should study the Torah and Hebrew customs to help understand The New Testament's cultural context and symbolism.  But they still believe in the basic Christian Doctrine that we are not under The Law anymore, they believe it can be good to do things like observe The Holy Days of Leviticus 23, but they should never be made obligatory.

Now maybe someone reading this has had some very limited and specific experience with American Evangelicalism that makes them think there are none who aren't at least Type 1.  However there are Independent Baptists like the Pastor I do not like to name who engage in what I call Reverse-Legalism considering it sinful to do any "Jewish Customs", and to some extent that problem goes all the way back to Ignatius of Antioch..  And related to that is the belief of hyper KJV Onlyists that you should never even check the original Hebrew Text or even the Greek for that matter.

But even among people who aren't Reverse-Legalists there is still a common lack of interest in studying The "Old Testament" beyond what we absolutely need to know, or will quote a Torah Law only when it suits their conservative politics.  Being even a Type 1 Hebrew Roots person requires more then just a willingness to check the Hebrew when you're unsure what a verse is saying, or the basic understanding of how Passover works required to even have an opinion on Easter chronology.  

Type 1 is what I consider myself, though to what extent I externally act like it may depend on my mood.

Type 2 are those who reject the basic Christian Doctrine that we are no longer under The Law, but while still keeping Paul just reinterpreting him.  

Type 2 has become the most well known form even though back in the 2000s people like Chuck Missler were more common.  Type 2 has became what you're assumed to be if you engage in Hebrew stuff at all.  Though a lot of Type 2s don't like to be called Hebrew Roots because they don't want to be associated with Type 3 and will prefer to be called Torah Observant.

Type 3 are those who reject Paul as a False Apostle.  Though not all Anti-Paulians are even doing Hebrew Roots stuff, some Anti-Semites think even Paul was too Jewish (like Alfred Rosenberg), some Anti-Paul people blame what they see as wrong with him on the Pharisees rather then the Greeks, kind of shows the duality of Paul when you think about it.

As I said there are disagreements even within each type, and among Paul rejecters the disagreements include whether or not to add Hebrews and Luke-Acts to what texts they condemn as Heretical.

The Reverse Legalists probably feel the existence of Type 2 and especially Type 3 vindicates their condemning even Type 1s like me, they will insist it's a gateway drug that inevitably leads to the more full blown heresies.  

However I have been a Type 1 Hebrew Roots Believer since long before any of this was as popular as it's become, since long before I started these blogs, and the ways I've changed has if anything gone in the opposite direction, I've become even more of an Anarchist, even more Antinomian.

Semitic vs Greek Primacy for the New Testament

I've talked about my thoughts on New Testament Linguistic Primacy disputes before, but I've perhaps slightly changed my mind on some things since then, I'm going to give a sort of Tier list style break down here.

New Testament books that based on their stated original audience and/or who wrote them I am 100% certain were originally written down in Greek.

Luke-Acts, all 13 Epistles that Explicitly Self identify as being written by Paul, 1 Peter and Revelation.

Books that I think were more likely then not written in Greek but are at least open to dispute.

The Fourth Gospel and the 3 Epistles definitely by the same author as the Fourth Gospel, 2 Peter and Jude.

Books that I feel are 50/50 on if they were Greek or something else.

Mark and James.

Books that based on what the oldest Church Sources say on the subject I am 100% certain were originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic.

Matthew and Hebrews.

For Greek texts I still favor Textus Receptus Primacy and for Semitic Texts I favor Peshita Primacy not random Medieval Hebrew manuscripts of dubious origin.  And the Latin Mark theory I've already talked in depth about.

Capitalism is Atheistic in Nature.

The current Justifying Ideology of Capitalism is what I mainly mean by Capitalism for the purpose of this post.  

Adam Smith is often called the "Philosopher of Capitalism" as if he is to Capitalism what Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels are to Communism. Adam Smith was also an Atheist, there is some dispute about this technically, some try to argue he was more a Deist (which was basically Atheism with plausible deniability) but from my research he was definitely an Atheist.

Before Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations he wrote The Theory of Moral Sentiments which was basically an attempt to explain the development of morality naturalistically.  His Economic Philosophy was built on this secular moral philosophy.  David Hume was an English Economic Philosopher who came just a little before Smith and overlapped with him, in some ways his ideas are more inline with the beliefs of modern apologists of Capitalism them Smith's and he was even more of an Atheist.

A French laissez-faire Economist contemporary with Hume and Smith was Paul d'Holbach who was also an Atheist, as was Denis Diderot and Jacques-Andre Naigeon, meanwhile Voltaire and Montesquieu were Deists and also didn't speak much on Economics directly.  The Physiocrats were also definitely Secularists though exactly what they believed about Religion I can't pin down.  And don't think you can pretend Voltaire could have bene a socialist, he was a Bourgeoise intellectual who "never intended to enlighten shoemakers and servants".  The only Socialist among the major French Philosophs was Rousseau who was also the most Christian of them.

The most actually religious Economist of the late 18th early 19th Century was Thomas Malthus, but while some of Malthus's most well known ideas were influential on future Capitalist Economists he himself was not one, he was critiquing the rise of Capitalism from a more old fashioned late Feudalist perspective.

Later in the 20th Century a woman named Ayn Rand would develop a philosophy that is essentially Capitalism in it's purest most unrestrained and unapologetic form.  She was also a rabid Atheist who was frequently enraged at seeing American Christians try to co-opt her ideas to serve their Christianized Capitalism.  Rand was also a stated influence on the philosophy of Anton Levy the founder of the Church of Satan, which is exactly the Satanism people mean when they say Satanists are actually Atheists and Satan is just a symbol to them, their Satan is a symbol of Capitalist Individualism.  Another influence on Levy was the 1896 individualist text Might Is Right.

Between Smith and Rand it continued to be Atheists making vital contributions to Individualist philosophy, from the Atheist Existentialist Philosophers cited in Josh McNamee's Man of Steel video, to Charles Bradlaugh to Nietzsche and Social Darwinists like Herbert Spencer, to H.L. Mencken, Charles Lee Smith, James Hervey Johnson and Irving Fisher.  John Stuart Mill was also an Atheist though this wasn't publicly known while he was alive, between Mill and Smith were Jeremy Bentham, Francis Place and James Mill.  And to more specifically look at mid 20th century Economists, whether you're looking at the Austrian School, the Keynesian School or the Chicago School, secularists like Milton Friedman, Keynes, Murry Rothbard and Hayek are always at the center.  

Capitalism as a Mode of Production was very much forming already before we reach Hume, d'Holbach and Smith, but that happened because of economic developments that were not exactly pre-planned or premediated.  The Philosophers of Liberalism who came before them were not thinking much about economics but mostly focusing on what they and the Socialists had in common, opposing Absolute Monarchy.  The 1640-1660 English Revolution was Socio-Economically speaking an internal dispute within Feudalism as it had been operating in England for Centuries, the only group involved in all of that who were calling for a total reworking of how society is Economically structured were the Diggers lead by Gerrard Winstanley who were Anarcho-Communists, and they were basing their ideas on The Bible.

John Locke is the one commonly cited exception to all that, he is frequently given the credit for truly innovating the modern Capitalist notion of Private Property.  But James Tully in A Discourse on Property: John Locke and his Adversaries showed that what Locke actually said is more compatible with Socialism.  David Hume was actually quite critical of Locke, the problem is Locke's Labor Theory of Value would be co-opted by d'Hollbach, Smith and their followers.  The Labor Theory of value is often associated with Capitalism because of it's association with Locke and Smith, but the truth is only Socialists and Communists believe in it unconditionally, Capitalists keep needing to qualify it.

Nicolas Barbon was another Christian Whig who contributed to economics, but he was mainly advocating for Paper Money which in the short term Communists are more supportive of then Austrian School Liberals.  John Law continued his work in that regard.  Their ideas were first put into practice in a Proto-Capitalist context but still not necessarily inherently Capitalist.

Some people both for and against it like to tie the origins of Capitalism to the "Protestant Work Ethic", and yeah to a certain extent early Primitive or Proto Capitalism emerged in Protectant parts of Europe earlier then it did in Catholic countries.  You could even parallel different forms or elements of Capitalism to different forms of Protestantism, Lutheranism was it still mixed with late Feudalism, Arminianism the hyper Individualism, Calvinism would be Fascist-Capitalism, and then Britannia is where they all mixed together before being transported to her Colonies.   

But it's important to remember that during the first 2 or 3 centuries the Reformers really wanted to be seen as more rationalist then the Catholics and rejecting of their superstitions, that's why Cessationism was invented by the Reformers and why for a long time they didn't do Exorcisms.  

And that in turn is why a lot of things Atheists believe in are partly protestant in origin but simply taking the next step.  A lot of the bad history New Atheists perpetuate began as protestant myths to demonize the Catholic Church, the Hypatia and Library of Alexandria stuff came form Edward Gibbon (as does many bad ideas about how and why Rome fell) and the comparative mythology stuff started with Alexander Hislop, and the Christmas is actually Pagan stuff started with the Puritans.  As I've said on this blog before, Existentialism is basically Atheistic Arminianism, and others have called Objectivism Prosperity Gospel for Atheists.

All that said I also have a lot of skepticism of the "Protestant Work Ethic" thesis.

A lot of Internet discourse over the last decade or so has been tied to how the Skeptic Community on YouTube and other New Atheists revealed their true reactionary colors (Christopher Hitchens' Legacy is lucky he passed away just before all this started, because if you look into him you'll see he'd absolutely have been with them), and that came with them being bold evangelists of Capitalism, seeing Capitalism along with Democracy as a great Enlightenment accomplishment of Secularism overthrowing the "Dark Ages" of Feudalism which they incorrectly blame on religion.

Atheists on the True Left still exist, but people making Atheism the first thing they care about, the core of their identity, are even when trying to distance themselves from the Reactionary New Atheists usually Social Democrats at best.  

New Atheism isn't actually new, Antitheists co-opting Gibbon's bad history began with Voltaire.  And then during The French Revolutions the immediate successors of d'Holbach were the Hebertists who showed a lot of Proto-Fascistic tendencies with their forced Dechristianization campaign and helping send many of the Communists (called the Enragés at the time) or even just Liberals who wanted to Redistribute Property like the Girondins to the Guillotine.  

Even the Antifeminism that started the 2011 downward spiral was already there in how they Martyred early Feminists like Olympe de Gouges, she was beheaded 7 days before the Festival of Reason and she was later used specifically as an example to silence other women by supporters of the Dechristianization campaign.

Then in the 19th Century Bruno Bauer began popularizing the absurd thesis that Jesus did not exist which went hand in hand with his well known opposition to Karl Marx.  You see Marx and Engels were Atheists but like sane Atheists they believed Jesus existed and that the Early Christians were ancient Proto-Communists and thus part of his thesis of all history being Class Struggle.  So to Bauer refuting the very existence of Jesus was an attack on the Marxist understanding of History as much as it was mainstream Christianity.  Bauer was also the Anti-Semite who wrote The Jewish Question.

And speaking of the Marxist understanding of history, every time a New Atheist talks about Wars being caused by Religion, that is fundamentally incompatible with a Marxist analysis of history which always looks for the economic causes and sees them as the primary cause.  And in turn Evangelical/Conservative Christians seeking to "debunk" the notion of Religious Wars by emphasizing the Economic Causes are unwittingly engaging in Marxist analysis.

Max Stirner was another Atheist Individualist Philosopher who connected Christianity and Communism in his opposition to both.  

Another problem with letting yourself get lost in the nominal Anti-Religionism of Marx and Engels is that Marx actually had a lot of good things to say about Capitalism, he considered it an improvement over Feudalism and a good contributor to Human advancement that was simply now beginning to outlive it's usefulness.  Contemporary Christian Socialists like Philpe Buchez, Edward Vansittart Neale and Frederick Denison Maurice were actually more Anti-Capitalist then Marx was though sometimes they did have their own problems, I have come to believe there's a lot Christian Communists can and should learn from Marx and later Marxists, but I still disagree with Marxism on some key issues.

Marx and Engels "Opiate of the masses" quote is misunderstood, at that time no one thought of Opium mainly as a harmful addictive drug but rather it was still most well known for it's medicinal use.  Neither meaning of "Opiate of the masses" fits how New Atheists view Religion however, they see it as Crack.

Honestly I'm growing skeptical of Marx and Engels even being as Atheist as they seemed. After all Liebknecht family tradition says they were Karl Liebknecht's God Parents at his Baptism at the St. Thomas Lutheran Church.

Christian Capitalists exist because since we became the Mainstream Religion of The West we've made it possible to force anything to be compatible.  But when it comes to Socio-Economic Systems it's always been clear Capitalism is the most difficult to make fit given everything The New Testament says, the truest Reactionary Christians inevitably give away that they really want to go back to Feudalism where the ruling class had some incentive to at least pretend they cared about those beneath them, Noblesse oblige.

There are degrees to how much various kinds of Christians in the modern era have embraced Capitalism.  Megachurches and the Prosperity Gospel are Capitalist Christianity at it's worst, to me they are the modern Laodicea.  But I find it interesting how many Christians on YouTube seeking to preach agaisnt them are unwilling to straight up say or admit that Capitalism is the root of the Problem, like a Secular Centrist they don't want to admit that you can't separate that extravagant Greed from our Socio-Economic Mode of Production, everything about how the world works encourages it, they are people eager to condemn the most egregious symptoms but unwilling to address the root cause of the Disease.

Then maybe you'll have some willing to go a bit further then that.  They might say "Christians shouldn't be Capitalists but the world is certainly less evil under Capitalism then it is when it's COMMUNIST".  Or maybe they'll say "yes Capitalism is bad but that doesn't mean we should support SOCIALISM".  The problem is opposing Capitalism without supporting Socialism leads to Fascism, Nazism or Neo-Feudalism.  You need to also promote the good alternative.

And there is also the way that these people preaching agaisnt Laodiceanism will focus on it's Aesthetics just as much if not more then the Substance of what's wrong with them and wind up tying their Social Conservativism into it, including the Sexual Morality that comes from Plato not The Bible.

The branding of Communism as Godless and Capitalism as Godly was the result of Cold War Propaganda. Communism was inherently Christian for 100% of it's history until The French Revolution when some Communists started borrowing from the Atheism of the Liberals they were fighting alongside against the Monarchy and Feudalism.  Capitalism is what wouldn't exist without the Secularism of the Enlightenment, and now thanks to the Climate Crisis the entire world is paying the price for the Godlessness we embraced.

The YouTube Channel Praxis & Theodicy has a series on the Sin of Usury and how Capitalism as a system is dependent on Usury.

Update August 2023: I rewatched a bunch of the Anime Tanya The Evil recently and that show is kind of aware of what I'm arguing here, the main character absolutely connects their Atheism to their "Free Market Principals". [Update 2026: And in the Movie and Season 2 their Rabid Anti-Communism becomes more apparent.]

You should also check out the sister post to this The Reformation and The Resurgence of Democracy.

https://solascripturachristianliberty.blogspot.com/2022/05/the-reformation-and-resurgence-of.html

Calling Zionism Colonialism is completely Backwards.

Zionism means the belief that the Jews have the right to self determination and sovereignty over their ancient homeland.  If you replace “Jews” with any other group of people traditionally marginalized in the Western world, the Left is inclined to agree with that statement.  Treating Zionism differently is pure Antisemitism, I don’t care what your excuse is.

I am a Labour Zionist and a Communist, that means I wish Israel (like every other nation) was a Proletarian Direct Democracy.  I absolutely consider the Israeli State’s handling of the Palestinian situation in both Gaza and the West Bank to be pretty bad. 

I'm undecided on the Two State Solution.  

Until we have a Global Communist Utopia the Jews need a state that is their own, and I feel the same about other Marginalized Stateless groups like the Kurds.  

The Palestinians kind of already have a State, it’s Jordan, they are over 80% of the population of Jordan, the British Mandate originally covered both Israel and Jordan, Jordan was pealed off to be the Muslim State.  And that’s just one of many Arab states, the Arabs are not a people lacking Nations where they are the privileged ethnic group.  If Jordan were a direct Democracy the Palestinians it would be unambiguously a Palestinian state. 

Calling Zionism Colonialism is backwards because it’s actually if anything Decolonization, it was the Colonialism of Ancient Empires that removed the Jews from their homeland and placed Geco-Roman Christian and Muslim populations and places of worship there.

There is a common perception out there that it is anachronistic to use the term “Colonialism” to describe the actions of any pre-1492 Empires.  Rome especially tends to be popularly depicted as always simply invading and conquering people with no high minded excuses at all.  This is a very Modernist bias, the notion that it took till the Renaissance for Imperialism to ever start trying to disguise itself as something more benevolent.

What supposedly separates Colonialism from other forms of Imperialism is the claim that it’s simply about founding colonies in new lands but leaving the local populations to govern themselves while we trade and peacefully coexist with them.  But of course that peaceful coexistence always eventually turned out to be a sham.  Well guess what, that is how Rome operated in some parts of their Empire, especially in Judea.

Cities like Caesarea Martiima were the settlements while the Jews had carefully controlled nominal self rule via the Sanhedrin, the Priesthood and the Herodian monarchs.  In time even those were taken away over the course of various failed rebellions, and after the Bar Kochba Revolt Hadrian banned them from even setting foot in Jerusalem and rebuilt that city as a Roman colony named after himself.  And the Christian Emperors maintained that policy throughout their rule over Jerusalem.  However the Jews always had some presence within the borders of Modern Israel, especially in the Galilee where Jewish Rebellions against Christian Roman rule in Israel were chiefly based.

The Qurran is actually a Zionist text, Muhammad never intended his Arab State to extend beyond Arabia.  But while Umar and the other early Caliphs after him were violating Muhammad’s intent in their conquests, they still at first by and large let the local populations govern themselves, especially the Jews and Christians in Judea.  It was Umar who in fact allowed the Jews to finally return to Jerusalem after being denied access for five centuries of Roman rule.  The earliest references to Muslim presence on the Temple Mount I believe can be interpreted as Muslims actually allowing the Jews to worship on the former site of The Temple.

It was under Abd Al-Malik this began to change.  He began building the Dome of The Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque while Mecca was under the control of Rebels to be an alternative to Mecca. The modern notion that they are the third and fourth Holiest sites in Islam after Mecca and Medina (too Shiites they’re not even that highly ranked being topped by several sites in Iraq) is later cultural white washing of the actual origins of those structures.  That said I do not believe the actual proper site of Solomon’s Temple is either of those exact locations so a Third Temple could peacefully coexist with them.

Anti-Zionists either pretend Israel had no Jewish presence between the Bar-Kochba Revolt and the First Aliyah in the early 1880s.  Or as I saw on Tumblr recently will claim that “before the Zionists came Muslims, Jews and Christians all lived peacefully together in Jerusalem”, that is literally a Pre-Lapsarian Utopia fantasy, Leftists should no better then to make such claims, in any other context we’d call it out as being part of a fundamentally reactionary world view.

Karl Marx himself, who wasn’t a Zionist, debunks that fanciful claim in a piece he wrote in relation to the Crimean War in 1854.

“the sedentary population of Jerusalem numbers about 15,500 souls, of whom 4,000 are Mussulmans and 8,000 Jews. The Mussulmans, forming about a fourth part of the whole, and consisting of Turks, Arabs and Moors, are, of course, the masters in every respect, as they are in no way affected with the weakness of their Government at Constantinople. Nothing equals the misery and the sufferings of the Jews at Jerusalem, inhabiting the most filthy quarter of the town, called hareth-el-yahoud, the quarter of dirt, between the Zion and the Moriah, where their synagogues are situated – the constant objects of Mussulman oppression and intolerance, insulted by the Greeks, persecuted by the Latins, and living only upon the scanty alms transmitted by their European brethren. ”

Mark Twain would later confirm that Jews were over half the Population of Jerusalem already well before the First Aliyah.  And they had presence in more than just Jerusalem but also in Tiberias in the Galilee and down in Hebron.

In the early 1880s it wasn’t just Jews migrating to Israel, increased waves of migration of Muslims to this region from other Ottoman lands also started then, under Imperial encouragement.  So a good deal of the Muslim population of the region can’t even claim to go back to the original Arab Conquests.

The origins of the Zionist movement are very Socialist, with Moses Hess being a pre-Marx Socialist and the author of one of the first modern Zionist texts in 1862.  Later two Labour Zionist parties would be founded during the truly modern Zionist movement, one Marxist the other non-Marxist, they were the most popular parties all through the Cold War.  The earliest Zionist settlements were Communes.  One important Labour Zionist was Albert Einstein.

The association with Britain is the main basis for calling it Colonialism, everything else Britain was doing at this time was Colonialism at its worst after all, and their influence is largely why Israel was founded as a Capitalist state despite the Socialist parties overwhelming popularity.  However the Jews under the British Mandate never truly felt that the British authorities were actually on their side.  Brittan used the mandate as an excuse to continue controlling the region during a period when old fashioned Colonialism was waning in popularity and starting to be phased out.  It took the outcry of Jewish sympathy in the wake of the Holocaust to make them take it seriously, and that's why Holocaust Denial is specifically Anti-Zionist in origin.

Plenty of Arabs and Muslims in the region at the time supported Zionism, like Sharif of Mecca, Hussein bin Ali and his son, King Feisal of Hijaz and then of Iraq, as well as As'ad Shukeiri, a Muslim scholar ('alim) of the Acre area, the mayor of Haifa, Hassan Bey Shukri and Sheikh Musa Hadeib. 

But more important than those figures who you could dismiss as privileged collaborators with the British, is the support Zionism had and still has from certain entire Muslim communities in Israel, the kind who would still be just as demographically marginalized under a Palestinian State as they are under a Jewish one.  The Negev Bedouins who are in fact the oldest Arab population west of Jordan, the Druze who are often not counted as Muslims but I consider them essentially an offshoot of the Shia, and the Circasian Muslims who migrated to Israel as refugees in the 1800s to escape the Genocide that was being carried out agaisnt them by Tzarist Russia, so under circumstances similar to the Jews.

The people of Abu Gosh also supported the Zionists during the Israeli War of Independence.

That’s the thing, the Arab Nationalists opposing Jewish migration to the region during the 1880s through 1940s are to me just the same as European Nationalists refusing Jewish Refugees at the exact same time.  It’s the same Xenophobia and Antisemitism that was going on in Europe, only here in Islamic dressing rather then Christian.

Now some Right Wing defenders of Zionism on the Internet talk a bit too much about the Arab Nationalists who colluded with the Nazis during WWII, Amin al-Husseini is not solely responsible for giving the Nazis the idea to do the Holocaust, that was Hitler’s stated goal from Mein Kamf and anything that was pragmatically holding him back from it became irrelevant when the War started.  And they will often ignore the Muslims and Arabs who fought on the Allies side of the War, but the important fact here is that the Muslims who sided agaisnt the Nazis were the same ones who already supported Zionism.

Most of the Arab Nationalist leaders who allied with Nazi Germany did so just as begrudgingly as Mussolini, they knew Hitler was just using them and didn’t actually care much about what happens in the Middle East at all.  But not Amin al-Hussein, he was given the Honorary Aryan status and actually helped SS Leader Harun el-Raschid Hintersatz organize Muslim SS units in Bosnia, he was a true Arab Nazi, and during the 50s and 60s he had the backing of Nasser.

Stalin supported Zionism between the end of the War and 1948 then stopped, I feel he simply gave up on Israel having a Communist Revolution too quickly. However the USSR did not truly start backing Arab Nationalists till after Stalin, it began with Khrushchev's alliance with Nasser.  Nasser was a member of the Young Egypt Party also called the Green Shirts who were Egypt’s openly pro-Fascist and pro-Nazi party of the 1930s.  He also employed surviving SS Officers including Johann von Leers, Otto Skorzeny and Leopold Gleim as key advisors.  Leers and Skorzeny were already important even before the Nazi regime fell.  Khrushchev is a figure even many Tankies don’t like, TheFinnishBolshevik has argued he had Stalin murdered.  Nasser had banned Egypt’s Communist Party, Khrushchev asked Nasser to legalize them again but he refused, yet Krushchev kept the alliance anyway.  Nasser used quasi Socialist rhetoric that a lot of modern “Anti-imperialist” MLs like Caleb Maupin fall for, but this was no more legit Socialism than the National Socialist Workers Party.  François Genoud was the Nazi Regime’s Swiss banker who spent his post war life financing both Neonazis and nominally Left Wing Arab Nationalists, openly standing by his support of Hitler till he died in the 1990s.  

It is my thesis that the truest Nazis are those for whom the Antisemitism was their main driving motivation, everything else is in service of that.  During the first half of the 20th Century Antisemitism and Anti-Communism frequently went together because as a marginalized group many Jews were inclined towards Communism.  Some people were Anti-Communists because they were Antisemitic, and some were Antisemitic because they were Anti-Communist.  But during the 1950s as it became clear that Israel and the Soviet Union were going to be on opposing sides of the Cold War, this began to shift.  Otto Ernst Remer was a former high ranking Nazi Official who in the 1950s lead a Neonazi Party in West Germany called the Socialist Reich Party that was financed by the USSR.

In the United States there were two men who literally worked for the SD during the War and became Neonazi leaders after the War and developed ties to Remer, Leers, Skorzeny and Amin al-Husseini and began arguing that USSR was not controlled by Jews anymore thanks to Stalin and Khrushchev's purges and that the Far Right and Far Left should work together against their common enemies of Israel and the United States, they considered American Style Capitalist society far worse and more degenerate than the Authoritarianism of Stalinist Russia.  They were H. Keith Thompson and Francis Parker Yockey, there is evidence Yockey possibly traveled to Russia and even spoke with Soviet leaders.  In the US their brand of Nazism didn’t catch on, The American Right is over all more Anti-Communist then Antisemitic, so George Lincoln Rockwell’s firmly anti-Communist American Nazi Party was more popular, but in Europe Yockey’s approach was very influential including on Alexander Dugin.  Willis Carlo carried on the legacy of Yockey and became a close associate of Lyndon LaRouche.

That is the origin of the NazBol Vortex, but the modern Anarchists, LibComs and Breadtubers who oppose the NazBols still keep falling for the Anti-Zionist propaganda they popularized. 

Nazis of the Rockwell variety were still too Antisemitic to support Israel, they generally tried to convince people that Israel was secretly actually with the Soviets.  And yeah Socialist parties were still popular in Israel, but after the developments of the 50s none of them were Bolsheviks.

The current head of Fatah and the Palestinian Authority is Mahmoud Abbas a known Holocaust Denier.  In fact his most recent quotes are the worst kind of Holocaust denial, which is not denying it happened but alleging that the Zionists collaborated with the Nazis to make it happen.  He is the leader of the movement you are claiming solidarity with when you Tweet "Free Palestine".

Update January 2026:There are no descendants of the Philistines still alive today.  

Whether or not anyone technically has some biological genealogical descent form Ancient philistines, their Language, Culture and Religion were dead centuries before the Common Era.

Even before what I'm about to list it can be argued the Philistines had already been pushed back to just Gaza by David.

Gath was destroyed by Hazael of Aram-Damascus around 830 BC as documented in II Kings 12:18, and further by Uzziah in 2 Chronicles 26:6-15

Ashdod was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar in 605 BC, but before that it was also destroyed by Uzziah at the same time as Gath.

Ashkelon/Ascalon and Ekron were destroyed, burned and depopulated by Nebuchadnezzar in 604 BC.

Gaza was destroyed by Alexander The Great in 332 BC, one of only three times he completely destroyed a city and only time wiping out the entire population.  The city was then repopulated with Bedouin Arabs and became Nabatean by Roman times.

Hadrian renamed the entire land of Israel Palestine as a deliberate move to De-Judaize the province.

And in modern history Gaza has once again been an outpost of Egyptian within the land of Israel, being occupied by Egypt from 1948-1967, and the base of operations of Nasser's SS trained fedayeen, one of whom being the Egyptian Yasser Arafat, and home to offshoots of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Same with the Canaanites, if any descent from ancient Canaanites still exists today, it's via those who were absorbed into the Israelite population.