The Herodians were the Essenes

This post is meant to add some context to The Sects of First Century Judaism.

I'm not the first to suggest the Essenes of Josephus were the Herodians of The Gospels.  The objections to that claim are dependent entirely on the assumption that the Dead Sea Scrolls were written by the Essenes.  Since those scrolls are very seemingly the product of a separatist sect that wanted nothing to do with any Government ruling in Jerusalem.

But objections to that identification are common, I own the DSS translation done by Michael Wise, Martin Abegg JR., and Edward Cook.  Their introduction lays out many of the flaws in that theory, but their own theory is that the Qumran community were a sub-sect of the Sadducees which I'm not sold on either, in fact their clearly not being Torah only contradicts them being Sadducees.

There is also the theory that those caves were simply used to hide scrolls from many different origins as the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD approached.  I'm sure you can find online articles about all these theories.

I think they could have been Essenes, but if they were they were a peculiar group not representative of the whole.  The biggest problem with the Essene theory to me is that Josephus clearly tells us the Essenes did not marry, while the Qumran community clearly did marry.  But Josephus does at one point refer to a group of "marrying Essenes", maybe those are the Essenes who wrote the DSS, I don't know.

What I do know is Josephus divides the Jews of pre 70 AD Judea into three major sects,  The Pharisees, the Sadducees and the Essenes.  (And then later the Zealots sprung from the Pharisees, and the Sicari from the Zealots).

The Gospels mention often the Pharisees and Sadducees, but by that name at least never the Essenes.  However Matthew 22, Mark 3 and Mark 12 seem to similarly depict the Jews of Jesus day as having three major sects, those two and the Herodians, with no group known by that name mentioned in Josephus.  So the Clark Kent rule tells me the Essenes are probably the Herodians.

Josephus account of the rise of the Essenes revolves around a fellow named Menahem, in Antiquities Book 15, Chapter 10 Section 5.

Now there was one of these Essens, whose name was Manahem, who had this testimony, that he not only conducted his life after an excellent manner, but had the foreknowledge of future events given him by God also. This man once saw Herod when he was a child, and going to school, and saluted him as king of the Jews; but he, thinking that either he did not know him, or that he was in jest, put him in mind that he was but a private man; but Manahem smiled to himself, and clapped him on his backside with his hand, and said," However that be, thou wilt be king, and wilt begin thy reign happily, for God finds thee worthy of it. And do thou remember the blows that Manahem hath given thee, as being a signal of the change of thy fortune. And truly this will be the best reasoning for thee, that thou love justice [towards men], and piety towards God, and clemency towards thy citizens; yet do I know how thy whole conduct will be, that thou wilt not be such a one, for thou wilt excel all men in happiness, and obtain an everlasting reputation, but wilt forget piety and righteousness; and these crimes will not be concealed from God, at the conclusion of thy life, when thou wilt find that he will be mindful of them, and punish time for them." Now at that time Herod did not at all attend to what Manahem said, as having no hopes of such advancement; but a little afterward, when he was so fortunate as to be advanced to the dignity of king, and was in the height of his dominion, he sent for Manahem, and asked him how long he should reign. Manahem did not tell him the full length of his reign; wherefore, upon that silence of his, he asked him further, whether he should reign ten years or not? He replied, "Yes, twenty, nay, thirty years;" but did not assign the just determinate limit of his reign. Herod was satisfied with these replies, and gave Manahem his hand, and dismissed him; and from that time he continued to honor all the Essens. We have thought it proper to relate these facts to our readers, how strange soever they be, and to declare what hath happened among us, because many of these Essens have, by their excellent virtue, been thought worthy of this knowledge of Divine revelations.

So Josephus paints a pretty clear picture of the Essenes being politically tied to Herod, or at least shows some saw them as connected.  Josephus had also said as much at the end of the section just before this.

This Menahem of Josephus is also thought to possibly be the same as the Menahem The Essene of the Talmud.  According to Mishnah Tractate Hagigah 16b he was the original Zugot with Hillel but left the Sanhedrin and was replaced by Shammai.  The Jerusalem Talmud says he left to be appointed to a position in the Government.

It may be they were called Herodians only by outsiders, and that label had gone out of use by the time Josephus started writing.

Another sect sometimes speculated to be the same as the Essenes partly on the grounds of both never showing up in the same source are the Beothusians. Apparently Talmudic sources only mention the Beothusians while Josephus only mentions the Essenes.  Of course as mentioned above a key Essene figure, Menahem, is possibly mentioned in the Talmud.  While the Kohen family linked to the Beothusians are talked about in Josephus.  But yet as a sect it seems only Josephus knows the Essenes and only the Talmud knows the Beothusians.

Well the relevance here is that the Beothusians are also not mentioned in the New Testament, and the Herodians are also not mentioned in the Talmud, at least not by those names.

The Family of High Priests linked to the Boethusians are also linked to Herod.  Simon ben Beothus was appointed by Herod, and was one of the longer lasting High Priests Herod appointed.  And Herod married his Daughter.

So perhaps the Boethusians can also be the same as the Herodians, and thus The Essenes were known by three names at least.  Perhaps only Josephus called them what they called themselves (he claimed to have spent some time studying under all three sects, so he could have had some inside knowledge of each even though he ultimately chose to be a Pharisee).  While other people tended to call them by the names of significant people they were linked to.  Like how Catholics don't call themselves Papists, and originally at least Protestants didn't call themselves Lutherans or Calvinists.

But, a key difference is that the Boethusians=Essenes connection is viewed as possibly supported by the DSS=Essenes connection, while as discussed above that is viewed as an obstacle for the Herodians=Essenes view.  Again, it may be that the DSS were written by a specific sub group of the Essenes not representative of the whole.

Simon ben Beothus came from Alexandria so his house could descend form Onias IV who is a possible candidate for the 'Teacher of Righteousness".

However the big problem with the Beothians being Essenes theory is that the Talmud presents the Beothians as basically Sadducees on the core no Resurrection or After Life issue, they were really just an internal division like that between Hillel and Shammai within the Phairsees though that internal disagreement was I can't find out.

Philo of Alexandria also depicts the Essenes as having the support of many "great kings".

The Essenes I think were largely Jewish Neo-Pythagoreans, their Metaphysics and Monasticism both fit, and the Pythagoreans were also supporters of Tyrants in Samos and Crotone.

The Disappearance of The Altar of Incense.

The Author of Hebrews (who I believe is Paul but I won't belabor the point here) in chapter 9 talks about the Menorah and the Table of Shewbread in the Holy Place, and then The Golden Censer and The Ark in the Holy of Holies.

There is a common claim that this is an error or contradiction because many people assume that by "Golden Censer" the Author must mean the Altar of Incense even though you would use completely different words for that. Revelation 8:3-5 and Hebrew 7:13 use completely different words for Altar.  The word for Incense is related to this word for Censor but distinct.

This is the only time this precise Greek word for Censer is used in the New Testament, Revelation 8 does use a different word. However the Septuagint uses this word twice in 2 Chronicles 26:19 and Ezekiel 8:11 where a Hebrew word for Censer is what it's translating.

The problem is the definition given to this word in the Strongs Concordance will say it means the Altar of Incense, but that's wrong, the Strongs is mistaken in this case.

Because the word or phrase "Golden Censer" doesn't appear in the Hebrew Bible anywhere some might mistakenly think there are no Golden Censers in the Pentateuch.  The Hebrew word for "snuffdishes" in Exodus 25:38 and 37:23 is the same word used for Censer in Leviticus 10:1 and 16:12.  Later 1 Kings 7:50 refers in the KJV to Censers of Pure Gold.

Now it is true that normally even Censers would not be in The Holy of Holies either, but one is taken into The Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur as made clear by Leviticus 16:12.  And I believe the rituals of Yom Kippur are the thematic focus of much of Hebrews especially in this section even if it's not being mentioned by name.

The main argument of those who refuse to accept this explanation, both among Bible Skeptics invested in seeing a contradiction here and Apologists who try to imagine some more creative explanation, is that if the Golden Censer is just the Golden Censer then why is the Altar of Incense completely missing?  

The simple answer is the Author didn't mention it because they didn't feel like it.

I honestly could just end it with that, but I'll continue.

I once noticed that the Arch of Titus depicting Titus and Vespasian's Triumph after conquering Judea in AD 70 shows the Menorah and Table of Shewbread as spoils of war but the Altar of Incense is missing.  Then I read Josephus's account of that Triumph in Wars of The Jews Book 7 Chapter 5 Section 5 and noticed that he likewise mentions The Menorah and the Table of Shewbread but not the Altar of Incense.

At the very least these other First Century depictions of the contents of The Temple show leaving out the Altar of Incense during this period was not unique to Hebrews.

However I now have a theory that an Altar of Incense was never in Herod's Temple.

The Books of Maccabees and Josephus describe an Altar of Incense being included in the Purification of The Temple that marks the first Hanukkah.  But Antiochus Epiphanes' plundering of The Temple wasn't the last one to occur before the New Testament era.

Josephus in Antiquities of The Jews Book 14 Chapter 7 describes Crassus's plundering of all the Gold in The Temple right before he's killed.  This plundering is in truth principally why Herod's renovation of The Temple was necessary.  I think for whatever reason the Herodian renovation neglected to include The Altar of Incense.

The Maccabees Books describe their Menorah as still having the Three Legged base that the Pentateuch describes, but the Menorah on the Arch of Titus has an Octagonal base showing it's Hellenistic influence.

All Christians are Christians (for the most part).

Ready to Harvest is a YouTube channel that seeks to as objectively as possible discus the differences between different Christian Denominations.  But they also did a video on the question of defining what it means to be a Christian.

He doesn't seek to definitely answer the question in the video, but there is a general sense that he feels "Anyone who follows Jesus" is too lose a definition, that at least within the Church there needs to be allowance for denying the status of Christian to Christians who are sufficiently heterodox.  The Problem is Scripture is more interested in what absolutely proves someone is a True Believer then insisting anything can prove someone is not.

First verse I want to bring up is 1 Corinthians 12:3.

"Wherefore I give you to understand, that no human speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no human can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Spirit."

The last part of that verse is a pretty bold statement, Paul doesn't even consider it hypothetically possible for a person to say Jesus is The Lord if they don't have The Holy Spirit.

Now I am inclined to believe that every time The New Testament says "The Lord" it's meant to be understood as a reference to YHWH, in The Hebrew Bible Adonai is a title only for YHWH, and by NT times the Jewish habit of refusing to actually say the Name but say Adonai/The Lord instead was already being established.  So that can make what it means to say Jesus is The Lord a bit more specific then a plain English reading of this verse at first implies and would prevent this verse from applying to Marcionites or JWs.

But regardless the implication is any person saying that must have The Holy Spirit no matter what else they are wrong on and no matter how bad their behavior is.

A Second verse to bring up is 1 John 4:15.

"Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God."

Again, anyone confessing that Jesus is The Son of God is a true regenerated Believer, no matter what other doctrines they are wrong on or what they actually do. Later 1st John 5:4-5 says that anyone who believes Jesus is The Son of God overcomes The World because they are Born of God.

The importance of that being the defining Confession is backed up by a number of passages, it's the first verse of Mark's Gospel and then what the Centurion proclaims in 15:39, it's what Peter confesses before he's given the Keys to the Kingdom in Matthew 16:19 (and again in John 6:69), it's Martha's confession in John 11:27, and what John 20:31 says we are given Life by believing, and it's the only thing the Ethiopian Eunuch has to confess before being Baptized in Acts 8:37.

Okay most of those verses also include believing Jesus is The Christ, Christ being the Greek equivalent of Messiah.  In the modern world what it means to believe Jesus is The Messiah has become a bit watered down as now any kind of prophesied Hero figure can be called a "Messianic Archetype" even if not from an Abrahamic culture, but back then that Language for a promised Savior was uniquely Jewish.  Believing Jesus is The Christ meant believing He was the instrument of the fulfilment of YHWH's promises to Israel, so again Marcionites and Gnostics putting Jesus in conflict with YHWH don't actually believe Jesus is The Christ no matter how much they appropriate that Language.

But let's get back to the Son of God issue. 

I do believe this requires believing in Jesus as The Son of God in a very unique distinct sense separate from how all Believers and ultimately all people are God's children.  In Brigahmite Mormonism Jesus is the Son of God only in being the Firstborn of humanity.  

I believe the statement that Jesus is God is Biblically supported, Colossians 2:9 says Jesus was the fulness of The Godhead made Bodily giving support even specifically to Homousianism, and in the opening verses of the Fourth Gospel The Word fits the modern definition of capital G God, the Uncreated Creator of the Universe.  I am also a Trinitarian having a post on this Blog about how even The Hebrew Bible is Trinitarian.

But Confessionally and Creedily speaking Jesus as The Son of God is the Biblical emphasis.  Romans was an Epistle Paul wrote to a community he hadn't known in person yet so it features his personal statement of Faith at the beginning and it never directly calls Jesus God but stressed Jesus as The Son of God. 

The Rule of Faith documented by Irenaeus and Tertullian and the Old Roman Symbol each emphasize Jesus as The Son of God not Jesus as God.

So I kind of am uncomfortable with how often modern Statements of Faith put all the emphasis on Jesus being God with His Sonship relegated to "The Son" as a title.

In 1 John and 2 John three things are defined as being Antichrist, denying that Jesus is The Christ, denying the relationship of the Father and the Son and denying Jesus came "in the Flesh".  The Qur'an is hostile to God having a Son in any sense, it utterly rejects the idea of God as a Father, so that's why Muslims can't count as Christians.  But they do believe Jesus was the Messiah and came in the Flesh so those who say Islam fits the Antichrist Heresy perfectly are wrong.

I have decided not to make a Physical Bodily General Resurrection or Universal Salvation requirements for truly qualifying as a Christian because of these Biblical observations, even though it is my opinion that those two doctrines are the definition of The Gospel based on 1 Corinthians 15 and thus definitely more important then any of the nuanced Greek semantical issues debated at the seven Ecumenical Councils or for that matter what the Protestant Reformation was originally about.

Now one might make an objection that a given group "doesn't mean the same thing we mean by Son of God", and that could be a valid argument if the Arians or Unitarians were the ones blatantly twisting the very definitions of those words.  But the truth is we Trinitarians are the ones departing from what it normally mean to call someone the Son of someone else by believing The Son and The Father are Co-Eternal.

Now my way of addressing that criticism of Trinitarianism involves my belief that Jesus became The Son during the Incarnation.  But most mainline Christians don't like that argument because they're bought into the Platonist Heresy of Divine Immutability, everything Jesus is He must have always been somehow, but that idea isn't Scriptural.

So yes any form of Nicene Christianity is real Christianity but also plenty of Non Nicenes could be as well.

Update January 6th 2025: So I've gotten pushback on this in a Facebook Group by someone citing Titus 1:16 to prove there are Professors who aren't "Saved".  That verse is about people Professing to Know God not that Jesus is The Son of God.   But also nothing there says they aren't Believers, it is because Believers are Temples that being "Pure" is a concern.

Also Galatians 1 with the "another Gospel" reference.  doesn't even deny these people are Christians, just calls them Accursed meaning they will suffer some Punishment for their bad doctrine.  

Forgivness explained

In recent years there's been a growing trend among certain Social Justice inclined Leftists on YouTube and elsewhere to say that society's overvaluing of Forgiveness is bad actually, especially the Christian value of it being a moral failing not to Forgive.

The first problem is that the word "forgive" itself is another one of those words used in English Bibles that was still an accurate translation in 1611 but in how it's usage has evolved has become misunderstood.

The expression "forgive and forget" is often said with the implication that the former can't be done without also doing the latter, but that is not what Biblical Forgiveness is.  In The Bible only God is said to Forgive and Forget in Jeremiah 31:34 "I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more." and Hebrew 8:12 "For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more." and also 10:17, but that is ultimately Eschatological, it's about how things will be when the very existence of Sin has been eliminated.

The word "forgive" is an economic term in origin, to forgive a debt is to relinquish any expectation or even desire to be repaid.  And The Bible especially The New Testament's discussions of the concept are explicitly linked to that economic understanding, the "Parable of the unforgiving servant" in Matthew 18:21-35 is textually entirely about debt forgiveness, it's relevance to moral forgiveness is the metaphor.  That's why "earned" forgiveness is any oxymoron, if they somehow actually made up for what they did (which is usually not possible) then in this analogy they repaid the debt, no forgiveness is necessary.

Forgiving someone doesn't mean trusting a person who's proven themselves untrustworthy, or acting like nothing happened.  And Forgiving an abuser doesn't mean staying in or returning to a relationship with them.

The New Testament's emphasis on Forgiveness is entirely about rejecting Retributive/Punitive Justice.  And so this post is not me saying this common SJW position on forgiveness is actually perfectly compatible with Scripture, because these people mostly are in favor of Retributive Justice, even if they say they are not, you can say you prefer "Restorative Justice" all you want but if you have the attitude that it's a horrible injustice for a person not to be "punished" even though punishing them will not actually undo any of the harm they did, that's retributive justice.

But I'm not done yet talking about areas where I'm on their side of this issue.  One of the few morals common in Anime I don't like is how some seem to say children always owe something to their parents no matter how abusive and/or neglectful they were, this is part of joyce-stick's problem with the Mahou Shoujo Site Manga (the Anime hasn't gotten that far), and it bugged me in Clannad After Story.  On the blog that is primarily me talking about Anime I did a psot on After Story before I'd finished it appreciating it's found family element with an MC who's biological father was a drunken neglectful failure finding a surrogate father in Nagisa's father.  The problem is the show later devotes an arc to him reconciling with his father and even goes so far as tell him he did nothing wrong.

And I know a lot of Christians think this sense of unconditional loyalty to a sperm donor is Biblical because of the Fifth Commandment.  But in my opinion one has to do more then give birth to you and let you live in their house till a certain age to be worthy of the title of Father or Mother.  The New Testament is all about how true Family has nothing to do with biological relation.  So you can forgive a bad parent in the proper understanding of forgiveness I laid out above, but to "Honor" them as your Mother or Father when they weren't one would actually violate the Fifth Commandment by diminishing that Honor.

The Biblical understanding of Forgiveness and Atonement and Redemption is also easier to understand when you properly understand what Sin means and the materialist understanding that no one is entirely responsible for their own actions.

There is also the Psychological fact that for many people forgiving someone was good for their own mental health, finally being able to do it felt like a burden being removed.  The Bible even applies this to God Forgiving us in Isaiah 43:25 "I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins".

I guess it's time to get into how this ties into the discourse surrounding Redemption narratives in fiction.  One fairly well known Video Essay on the topic I can't remember the name of right now talks about a distinction between passive redemption and active atonement, being redeemed vs redeeming themselves, the former is as they acknowledge what The Christian Gospel is about but the latter is what she prefers.  The thing is this preference for "earned" redemption is a form of Meritocracy, a key pillar of the justifying ideology of Capitalism.

That video was cited in a Sailor Moon Video that's not watchable anymore because of Toei's incomprehensible copyright standards, I'm pretty sure it was a Unicorn of War video but I could be remembering that wrong.  It was about The Blaok Moon Saga of Sailor Moon and comparing different versions of it.  Now for this saga I am mostly in agreement that the 90s Anime version was a failure.  But this issue came up in the context of how they don't like the redemption of the Spectre Sister because it's passive redemption, and their redemption arc is one of the few aspects of the 90s Anime version I like.  Now in fairness the 3 episodes that cover their redemptions are not all equal, the forcing Calaveras and Petz to share the same spotlight episode again was ill advised, and Bertheir's felt uninspired.  But the Koan episode is one of my favorite episodes of the series and like most good episodes during this saga was written by Katsuyuki Sumisaya.

Ya know how there was this variation of Universal Salvation that framed it as those in Gehenna being let out when the Saints themselves ask Jesus to show Mercy?  Augustine alludes to it in City of God as the second most popular soteriology he doesn't like, and it's the form presented in the Apocalypse of Peter.  Well the Koan redemption episode of Sailor Moon really works as an analogy to that version of Universal Salvation.

Now there are many variations on this anti-Forgiveness attitude out there.  Lily Orchard is not representative of most, but I feel I have to bring her up because she's the most extreme, she is very vocally Revenge is Good actually and it's kind of insane to see a supposed Leftist being this in love with Retributive Justice, she kind of just debunks her own worldview by actually saying it out loud.

Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine

[Update June 2025: Upon further research I cannot still support what this Party has become, only what it started as.]  [Further Update July 15th: I've also softened my position on the Two State Solution, I can support it now.  https://kuuderekun.tumblr.com/tagged/Two%20State%20Solution] 

Circumcision is Good Actually

Anti-Circumcision rhetoric can be found all over the political spectrum, but I shall in the secular part of this post mainly be thinking of Left Wing opposition to the practice since I am Left Wing and consider Conservatives and "Libertarians" people who's opinions on such matters shouldn't be taken seriously in the first place.

The first problem to complicate the perception of Circumcision is how Female Genital Mutilation is often incorrectly called Female Circumcision.  FGM is both in terms of what it does and why it's done not in any way similar to Circumcision, it should be called Female Castration because that is far more parrel to what's actually being done.  

There is I suspect a direct connection to that barbaric practice being wrongly equated with Circumcision and the way many people decided to start describing Circumcision as "cutting part of your dick off".  The Forsaken is part of the dick in the same way hair is part of your head or fingernails part of your hand.  But the best comparison is actually the ambilocal cord, both serve a function while in the Womb but are obsolete as soon as the infant is born.

It angers me to see so many of the same people chanting "Believe the Science" when the Science seems to be contradicting something religious people believe in, will then ignore the endless scientific studies that have proven the health benefits of Infant Circumcision.  There are many health benefits to Circumcision in general but what's most directly relevant to Infant Circumcision is Urinary Tract Infection, Uncircumcised AMAB children have a significantly increased risk of developing UTI before they even turn 2 years old.  It is absurdly hypocritical how some of the same people who support mandatory vaccinations of children even when the parents are uncomfortable with it to also then turn around and try to ban allowing parents to circumcise their children.

The Science has shown that the benefits of Circumcision far outweigh the hypothetical risks. In addition to the UTI issues it also reduces risk of STDs and HPV and cervical cancer  Now I've seen people seek to respond to all these health arguments with a weird little slogan of "wash your dick", thinking it's that simple is clear evidence of having the privilege of being Cut your whole life.  

Science has also debunked the notion that Circumcision effects male sexual enjoyment one way or the other.

The only Anti-Circumcision claim that has any statistical validity at all is the claim that it has a negative psychological effect and even that is inconclusive.  But the thing is even if that is true that is Socially Constructed.  We live in a society that conditions people of every gender but especially Cis-Males to place much of their self worth in their sex organs, and then idiots start telling Circumcised people that they had part of their dick cut off when they were a baby.  Putting all that value on a piece of vestigial skin because it can technically be considered "part of the dick" is pure Toxic Masculinity.

There is also an obvious overlap between anti-Infant Circumcision arguments and the arguments of TERFs and other Transphobes, this idea that anything related to the natural state of a child's reproductive system is sacrosanct and shouldn't be allowed to be altered until they are unambiguously an adult.  Puberty Blockers weren't even originally created for Trans People but for the rare condition of young girls starting puberty way too early.  The foreskin being technically "natural" doesn't make it not harmful.

But the real bigotry behind Anti-Circumcision rhetoric is Anti-Semitism.  It fascinates me how many things are considered Anti-Semitic dog whistles online simply for being something also believed by some past Anti-Semites.  But all this demonizing of a ritual custom that has been foundational to Jewish cultural identity since the first book of The Bible is apparently fine.  But it's not just Jews, it's also part of the cultures of a number of indigenous peoples of the Americas and Australia and other places.

I still remember the first Anti-Circumcision webpage I ever stumbled upon.  I was reading it genuinely sympathetic to the author's concerns, but then they just casually inserted an unsourced claim that "Rabbis lick the blood off the circumcised Baby's penis" and my jaw just dropped, that's literally an allusion to the Blood Libel and they just dropped it in there and moved on like it was nothing.

But if you really want to see just how insanely conspiratorial Anti-Circumcision people can get, watch this video on the Silent Hill Wiki.

That's the secular arguments, now I shall get to specifically Christian attitudes towards Circumcision.

Everything Paul says that sounds Anti-Circumcision is in the context of his opposing those who want to make it mandatory for Adult Gentile Converts.  But those I call Reverse-Legalists abuse these passages to claim Circumcision and other Jewish Customs are outright sinful for Christians to engage in.  

Paul also talks about how the true Circumcision is spiritual, but he does the same with Baptism often in the same passages and no one argues that the physical Water Baptism ritual is abolished by those verses [correction there are sects like The Quakers that do basically argue that, but they're outliers].  

In Acts 16 Paul helps Timothy get Circumcised, so he was clearly not entirely agaisnt doing it even for adult gentile converts.  

First Century Christians were still a sect of Judaism, and Jewish Paulian Christians like the Nazarenes continued practicing it at least into the late Fourth Century.

As a Credo-Baptist I believe the false Doctrine that Baptism has replaced Circumcisions is partly to blame for the origin of Infant Baptism.

Free Will and Personal Moral Responsibility.

On the issue of Free Will vs Determinism I am a type of Compatibilist, I reject hopeless Fatalism but also believe there are enough mitigating factors in the world to render no one truly ultimately fully responsible for their own actions.

My perspective on this has changed some but this is no complete reversal of any prior post I've made on the subject.  This is somewhat true of me in the past but it's especially true going forward that when I seem to speaking as a pro Free Will person I'm speaking agaisnt Calvinist Total Depravity and Irresistible Grace or Augustinian Original Sin or the Reprobate Doctrine as it is taught by some Arminians.  And I've also argued against Free Will being inherently incompatible with Universal Salvation.

However when I seem to be anti Free Will I am advocating a form of Determinism not Calvinist Predestination.  Determinism is what any Atheist who says they reject Free Will is talking about, but it's not only Atheists, if you're any type of Materialist then you're also some type of Determinist.

Determinism has unfortunately become a contentious topic among many people it shouldn't be.  Much of what I'm arguing in this post is controversial not just among my fellow Christians regardless of their politics but also among fellow Leftist regardless of their religious affiliation.

For example some Leftists think because we reject Scientific Racism and Eugenics then we should also reject any conception of "Biological Determinism" or inheritable traits.  The specific claims of those pseudo sciences are both factually wrong and morally repugnant.  But it's still true that we are the way we are in part because of how are brains are wired.  And acknowledgment of those factors should be a cause for sympathy and understanding not a justification for hate and discrimination.

Here's one good YouTube video on Determinism, but it is by someone not as Left Wing as I am and probably not as Compatibilist either.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0GN4urbA_c

And all of that is just one aspect of Determinism, we Leftists also care about Historical Materialism, Material Conditions and Systemic Oppression and so on.  

As a Christian Compatibilist it is my position that when people do good they are by the Grace of God acting in their own Free Will.  But when they do Evil it is them falling victim to their conditions in some way.  That is equally as true of both the morally best people who've ever lived as it is of the morally worst.

To many in the Ancient World including Socrates and I firmly believe every author of the New Testament, it was oxymoronic to even consider debating if a evil act someone committed was or wasn't committed by their own free will because they believed Humans are innately Good and so any Evil deed one commits is by definition a deviation of their true nature and not something they could have possibly done of their own free will.  

To Socrates it seems it is chiefly Ignorance that is to Blame, and that can be supported by what Jesus said on The Cross "Father forgive them for they know not what they do".  But also when Jesus called Matthew and some objected He said that Sinners are sick people who need a doctor not criminals who need punishment, so that implies other factors as well.  

Mark 7:11 and John 8:31-36 talk about Jesus making us Free, as does Romans 8 verses 2 and 32 and Galatians 5.  Grace is spoken of as a Free Gift by Paul because we don't have to pay anything for it, it is given to everyone, permission is not asked.  The only NT verses that seem to truly speak of metaphysical Free Will are in Revelation 21-22 in the New Heaven and New Earth.

In Ancient Greek Gentile schools of Philosophy it is surprisingly only Atheist Determinism I can't find.  The Epicureans were Atheist Existentialists and Objectivists, the Stoics were Compatibilists but often seen by their Platonist rivals as more Determinist, the only hard Determinist was Aristotle who basically invented Deism.  And the Theistic Existentialists were the Middle Platonists like Plutarch who wrote against the Determinism of the Stoics.

In Josephus's descriptions of The Sects of First Century Judaism, the Essenes seem like Middle Platonists or Neopythagoreans on everything but their position on Fate vs Free Will, while the Sadducees seem like Aristotleans on everything but Fate vs Free Will.  It looks like Greco-Roman era Jews for some reason swapped that one part of those two ways of thinking.  However the Pharisees out of whom came the Zealots and Early Christians seemed to agree with the Stoics on both Fate vs Free Will and other metaphysical issues, the Stoics merely lacked knowledge of The Resurrection.

Pelagianism is a trend in Christianity that already existed before the person for whom it is named (in Early Arianism it's shown how the Arians were proto Pelagians).  That trend is the bizarre notion that it's because Humans are innately Good being made in the Image of God and given Life by the Breath of God that we are supposed to believe in Absolute Free Will and that each human is personally responsible for their moral failings.  It's actually absurd to believe those two things at the same time, but because Augustine normalized The Latin Church taking the exact opposite position on both those things Christians were conditioned to think they go together.

However I feel a lot of modern Internet SJWs are basically Secular Pelagians.  They claim to believe in the innate goodness of Humanity at least when they're refuting the Authoritarian Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes.  But then turn around and are very against allowing "excuses" for the people they consider evil.

Like for example the notion that suggesting someone's Mental Illness or Trauma was even partly to blame for their wrongdoings is offensive to the people with the same issues who didn't do anything like similar.  And I wish they could see how that same Logic is applied to Economics by the Right.  Conservatives who keep thinking they can refute everything about how inherently unfair our current system is by pointing to "Rags to riches" stories of people who succeeded in-spite of their disadvantages.  And we correctly explain how that probably had as much or more to do with Luck then it does Merit.

Instead of jumping to call it Ableist to suggest that Crimes are a result of Mental Illness we should start considering that there is no such thing as a person not Mentally Ill, we just haven't diagnosed all the illnesses we have yet.

But another factor is how many of them have the same Vengeful Emotional Desire for Retributive Justice that leads to Conservatives attacking Democrats for being Soft on Crime have, simply directed agaisnt "The Nazis".  And make no mistake it is better to direct your desire for Righteous Vengeance agaisnt those with real Power, but at the end of the day it's still an unhealthy mindset.

We should be seeking to dismantle our current Criminal Justice System entirely, not redirect it.

Too many of the people who've figured out how Evil Capitalism is, are still buying into parts of it's justifying ideology.  Meritocracy, Individualism and Personal Accountability are all vital fundamentally linked to each other pillars of neoliberal ideology, believing in one of them will always eventually lead to the others.

In Platonist Philosophy 80- BC to AD 250 by George Boys-Stones chapter 12 talks about how the Middle Platonists and Stoics disagreed on Free Will, it's not prefect as the author seems to be on the Platonist side in this chapter.  He notes how the Platonists didn't even believe God is All Knowing, so even Bible Verses on God knowing the End from the Beginning (like Isaiah 46:9-11) make it more compatible with Stoicism then Platonism.

He says one of the problems with Stoicism is that it "removed moral responsibility" and doesn't explain why that's a problem, that conclusion is as an argument itself.   It reminds me of In Praise of Shadow's YT video on Lovecraft, after an hour of basically utterly debunking the notion that Lovecraft had Free Will he suddenly asserts that "he chose" to be a Racist.  Personal Moral Responsibility is such a given in our Capitalist Society that even many who say they oppose Capitalism refuse to question it.

Update April 2023: I've since learned that most Epicureans were not strictly Atheists but just as Deist as Aristotle.  So the Sadducees can then be viewed as Jewish Epicureans.  

The Essenes I think were ultimately more Pythagorean then Platonist and so that could explain why they had such a different position on Free Will from Middle Platonists.