Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth-2 Timothy 2:15

This is an often overlooked verse of Scripture, which is interesting given how it's about Scripture.

There is a common attitude among Evangelical Christians that goes "how dare you suggest some parts of Scripture are more important then others", they feel the integrity of Scripture considers it important they label all Scripture equally as authoritative for every purpose.

In the same Epistle chapter 3 verse 16 Paul says all Scripture is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, instruction in righteousness.  But maybe those should be "or" rather then "and", the KJV uses neither.

As charming an Ideal as it is to try and treat every single obscure statement of Scripture as being equally as important as what Jesus said on The Cross or Moses on Mt Sinai, that's incredibly unhelpful.  The Bible is a big book, you can in theory read all of it in a few days if you really pushed yourself, or played an audio book version at double speed.  But you are not going to properly consume it or understand it that way.  So at the very least we should maybe give new Christians some guidelines to what they need to read first.

To a certain extent I think Christians should consider even the least of the New Testament higher priority then even the most vital parts of the Hebrew Bible (commonly called the "Old Testament").  That stuff is all important but Christians should always be reading it through a New Testament filter.

Top priority should be the life story, teachings and example of Jesus.  We get that in the 4 Gospels and very beginning of Acts (where many Bibles have the words of Jesus in Red) and then the entire Book of Revelation.  

Then next under Jesus in Authority would be the 12 Disciples, and almost about equal with them the Beloved Disciple/Bethany Siblings and maybe also the Maternal half siblings of Jesus.  We get their teachings in the first 15 Chapters of Acts and the General Epistles, and also arguably the narrative voices of Matthew, Mark (who wrote what Peter preached) and the Fourth Gospel.

The rest of the New Testament is basically Paul.  It might concern you that I'm aiding and abetting the Anti-Paul cultists by categorizing him as the least authoritative New Testament voice, but it's consistent with Paul's own claims, he defined himself as the least of the Apostles in 1 Corinthians 15:9.

Judaism traditionally divides the Hebrew Bible into three categories, The Law or Torah which is the Pentateuch the Five Books of Moses.  And then The Prophets and The Writings.  New Testament references commonly taken as referring to the "Old Testament" as a whole are actually just saying The Law and The Prophets.

Now The New Testament is arguably including in the Prophets some material the traditional Jewish reckoning does not, Jesus calls both Daniel and Jonah Prophets, and Peter calls David a Prophet in Acts 2, Davidic Psalms are the most commonly quoted Psalms in the New Testament, but not the only ones, for example Asaph's are quoted and there is justification for labeling him a Prophet as well based on comparing 1 Samuel 1:9 to 2 Chronicles 29:30.

But the New Testament never actually unambiguously quotes the post Torah historical books.  It alludes to history from them, and quotes Psalms they also quote, and Elijah once, but that's it, their overall narrative voice isn't endorsed at all.  They are important for providing context, but perhaps they shouldn't be viewed uncritically as history books.  I have a prior post on comparing Chronicles to Samuel-Kings.

And I have also discussed how the New Testament speaks rather dismissively of Solomon, so perhaps the writings attributed to Solomon should be ranked at the very bottom?

This post isn't me arguing anything should be thrown out.  But when dealing with things like apparent contradictions we should consider who said the verse in question and for what purpose.

Your definition of Fascism is probably wrong, including Umberto Eco.

Including myself in some of my past attempts to talk about Fascism.

Being a Leftist who doesn't like how loosely my fellow Leftists use the word Fascism is an awkward situation to be in.  The problem is we've gotten so used to Fascism as a Synonym for evil that people assume the only reason to argue someone or some ideology isn't Fascist is to defend them as not evil.

What I'm going to argue Fascism means is something I do not like, but the various things most people seem to mean when they say Fascism are things I dislike even more, Authoritarianism, Militarism, Imperialism, Totalitarianism, Nationalism, Xenophobia, Racism, Antisemitism, Bigoty, Eugenics ect, and so I kind of wish they would just use those words which already have negative connotations, saying "Fascism" when you mean one of those just muddies the waters.  The most well known Fascist regimes tend to also involve some or all of those, but what those words mean are still different.

If something I like is being called Fascist by a Leftist then the accuser probably isn't even applying their own definition properly, but if you're accusing someone associated with the American Republican Party or any form of Conservatism then rest assured they're not someone I have any desire to defend as the right path.  If I'm disagreeing with you about how "Fascist" a certain Movie or Anime or Comic Book is, I probably also disagree about how "Conservative" it is.

But it's not just people using it as a derogatory, even some of the people who've called themselves Fascists have in my view not actually understood what the term meant.  Of the three Fascist parties that existed in 1920s-30s Brittan I'd argue only Mosley actually had any idea what he was talking about.  All three were jerks who I'm glad never actually took power, but only one was using the word properly.

Umberto Eco is who I singled out in the title because a lot of Breadtubers treat his Ur Fascism as the Infallible Word of God for how to define Fascism.  The problem is he is one of many who's goal in defining Fascism was not intellectual honestly but a desire to define both Mussolini's Fascism and German Nazism based on what they appeared to have in common rather then how either of those parties defined themselves so that he could back up the mainstream liberal narrative of WW2 as a war against an evil ideology rather then a War fought for the same reasons the first one was.

Yes you got that right, I'm questioning the term's applicability even to the Nazi Party and Adolf Hitler, the elaboration on that will come later, my point right now is that's the ideology where the "Palingenetic Ultra Nationalism" was the core of what they were about, for Mussolini the appeals to nationalism were merely a means to an end.

Mussolini invented Fascism as an ideology, he made it clear what he meant Fascism to be was simply his form of the Socio-Economic system called Corporatism which in turn he defined as a "third way" between Capitalism and Socialism.

I say "his form" because I would not even call all forms of Corporatism inherently Fascist, in fact at it's broadest definition Corporatism can be compatible with Leftism.  An American in 2020 may look at that term and think it refers to "corporations" as in big business, however the Cooperatives in mind here are actually more like Unions or medieval Trade Guilds, or collectively owned Co-Ops.  The Corporatism traditionally advocated by the Catholic Church and Syndicalism is a bottom up Corporatism while Mussolini's was a top down Corporatism.  But more importantly then that it was a State run Corporatism.

The chief motto of Mussolini's Fascist party was "Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato" ("everything for the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state").  Of all the traits we commonly associate with Fascism, Statism is actually the most important.  And that's why it annoys me when certain American political movements get called (or even call themselves) Fascist that are actually strongly anti-State ideologies, from Anarcho-Capitalism to Posse Comitatus who's ideology is literally Mob Rule.  Again both are ideologies I consider wrong, one is more evil then the other with it's blatant white supremacy but both are bad ideas.

Mussolini and Hitler actually hated each other, they almost went to war over Austria in 1934.  Mussolini did not believe in Biological Racism (he was Nationalist but anyone in Italy was Italian even if you moved there just before WW1 broke out) or Antisemitism.  In 1938 racial laws were passed in Italy because at the time they had become dependent on Nazi Germany, but they were never fully enforced.  I'm not pointing this out to paint Mussolini as some Saint unfairly demonized by his forced association with Hitler, he was a Statist and Imperialist.

I'm simply pointing out that Nazism was not simply Mussolini's ideology applied to Germany.  None of the Far Right Parties of Weimar Germany called themselves Fascist (it seems only former Roman provinces actually used the term which makes sense) but there were a couple of Hitler's rivals on the German Far-Right I would say were much closer to being what German Mussolini might've looked like.  Ernst Niekisch actually had a relationship with Mussolini along with whom we could add the other National Bolsheviks (Heinrich Laufenberg, Karl Otto Paetel) or figures like Waldemar Pabst, Friedrich Minoux, Walter Caspari, Ernst Junger and Herman Ehrhardt.  I'm hesitant to mention Alfred Hugenberg or Oswald Spengler, they were influenced by Mussolini's Corporatism but still more Capitalist then he was.  

Then there Der Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten the Paramilitary Veterans organization of the DVNP that received political backing from Mussolini during the 20s and called themselves 'German Fascists" in the 1932 Election specifically to distinguish themselves from the Nazis.

Meanwhile if you want to know what Italian Nazism would look like I'd say look no further then Julius Evola.

The fact is Nazism (and what gets called French Fascism) was much more homegrown then this lazy "Hitler copied Mussolini" narrative implies.  The philosophical core of Nazism was laid out by Houston Stewart Chamberlain in his Foundations of the Nineteenth Century in 1899 and there were Antisemitic German Nationalist movements even before then, Hitler's style was very influenced by Gerog Ritter von Schonerer, there were groups like the Pan German League and the Fatherland Party, but even before them the Berlin Movement of the 1870s-80s.  Meanwhile Ernst Haeckel and Alfred Ploetz laid the groundwork for Nazi Eugenics.

Sometimes people seek to define Fascism based on it's methods of obtaining power rather then actual ideology.  In this case however Hitler actually failed when he tried to copy the March on Rome, meanwhile the Kapp Putsch and various Freikorps came before the March on Rome.  Mussolini's Black Shirts were also predated by the Camelots du Roi founded in France in 1908 and the Red Shirts of the American south in the late nineteenth century who's height of political influence were the elections of 1900 (they actually did much of what Birth of A Nation and the books it's based on attributes to the KKK).

What's interesting about the French far right people we call Fascists of the 20s and 30s is that many became Collaborators with the Nazis and the Vichy Regime during the War like Charles Maurras, Marcel Bucard, Marcel Deat, Jacques Doriot, Eugene Deloncle, Joseph Darnand, Pierre Sidos, Robert Brasillach, Louis-Ferdinand Celine, Peirre Plantard and if you count Belgium Henri de Man. But some became part of The Resistance like Georges Valois, Georges Loustaunau-Lacau, Marie-Madeleine Fourcade, Jacques Arthuys, Henri Giraud, Colonel Passy, and some would argue Charles de Gaulle himself had Fascist leanings.  Others played both sides like Perrie Taittinger, Francois de le Rocque and Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour.  Those who were unambiguous collaborators certainly can't be said to have actually cared about Nationalism, they were clearly more about opposing Democracy, though Maurras probably cared about Antisemitism more then anything else.

While Mussolini's Corporatism defined itself as neither Capitalist or Socialist, it's not the only way to be neither of those things.  The Nazi Party was originally partly founded on that too, particularly co-founders Drexler and Feder were explicitly opposed to both Capitalism and Bolshevism and that legacy was carried on by the Strasser brothers.  However under Hitler's Leadership the Nazi Party betrayed it's anti-Capitalist roots in 1932 when while in debt they made a deal with IG Farben and Krupp, Hitler's alliance with Emil Kirdorf in 1927 also helped lay the ground work for this change.  Friedrich Flick was another key business partner of the Nazis, along with the Thyssen corporation, and François Genoud was their Banker.

A fact that people today forget is that in the early modern era Capitalism was still new and was itself still seen aa Progressive in that context, even Marx viewed it as an improvement over Feudalism.  Throughout the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries you were only socio-economically conservative if you wanted to maintain or return to Feudalism.  

Reactionary anti-Capitalists included the Confederate States of America with the whole "Southern Gentlemen" stereotype being based on their Neo-Feudalism, the Royalists of Nineteenth and early 20th Century France, Houston Stewart Chamberlain mentioned above along with Theodor Fritsch and Guido von List in Germany and the British Empire Union founded in 1916.  All Reactionary Anticapitalists also opposed Socialism, Communism, Anarchism and Marxism, which is what's left out when Procapitalists talk about the anitcapiitalism of the Fascists, Nazis and Confederates.

Today I feel like Reactionary objections to Capitalism still exist on the American Right, especially among Evangelical Christians, they just don't want to admit they're being anti-Capitalist.  When you're complaining that "degenerate" Art is popular because it sells, when you want Drugs, Gambling, Prostitution and Pornography to be illegal, you are not taking the "Free Market" position.  Also the general attitude that Rural Life is morally better then Urban life is founded upon objections to the influence of industrial capitalism.  Also the Protectionism favored by Trump and Paleo-Conservatives is not a Free Market position, literally the only actual policy position Adam Smith was arguing for was Free Trade in opposition to Protectionism.

And because the Left has forgotten that you can be to the Right of Capitalism, on the modern internet a lot of reactionary objections to Capitalism get mingled in with the progressive ones and unwittingly supported by Leftists.  Cyber Punk is a popular genre of fiction among Communists who feel technological innovation is inherently bad, this also gets tied in with supposedly Leftist objections to the Basic Income, instead of preparing for the inevitability of workers being replaced by machines they would rather stubbornly fight it.  I also feel like anytime you just generically say Consumerism is bad you are being unwittingly Conservative.

I've kind of gone a bit off topic.  The gist of what separates Fascist Corporatism from other "Third Positions" is that it's specifically Top-Down and run by the State.  Putin's Russia actually defines itself as Corporatist, so see I'm still allowing you to call one of the modern Left's contemporary boogeymen a Fascist.

In The Doctrine of Fascism written by Mussolini and Giovani Gentile there are sections about opposition to Marxim and Individualism but also a section called "evolution from Socialism".  In the section "the Totalitarian Fascist vision of The Future" Mussolini defines Fascism as being from his own POV at least Progressive not Reactionary, stating it's not about returning to before 1789 and saying that he's drawing on Marx the same way Marx drew on the "Utopian Socialists" who came before him.  In this Manifesto the word "Capitalism" isn't used instead it's referred to as "Economic Liberalism" which is what Capitalists called themselves back then.  Mussolini did use the word Capitalism elsewhere like when he coined the terms Heroic Capitalism and Supercapitalism where it's clear he views Capitalism as inherently bad.  

My pointing out that Mussolini saw himself as Progressive doesn't mean I'm agreeing, one only has to look at Plato's Laws and Sparta to see how the core of Fascism is really quite Ancient.  I also think Mussolini has more in common with Robespierre then he was willing to admit in this text.

The same points about Corporatist AntiCapitalism apply to the French Fascism of Georges Valois however he combined it with the Orelanist Royalist French Nationalism of Mauraas.  And again the same is true of Oswald Mosley.

My most important point in bringing up TDoF however is that there isn't a hint of Palingenetic Ultranationalism in it, in fact because of points I just made it's outright incompatible with the Palingenetic part.  There is a section on "tradition" but it's the shortest section and really vague in what it's saying.  But he outright rejects the idea of a PreLabsarian Utopia.  "But what about his obsession with Rome? The word Fascism itself comes from a Roman symbol!" you may object. Borrowing terminology and symbols from Ancient Greco-Romans politics was also done by Liberals and Socialists throughout the post 1789 period, that was simply the norm across the Political Spectrum, and it's hard to avoid in a nation that's speaking a descendent of Rome's language.  In fact that same Roman Symbol was already associated with Unions and Syndicalism in Italy by 1889.  That symbol is a Collectivist symbol meaning "stronger together" which does show the absurdity of when people try to paint Fascism as Individualist.

TDoF also says "It is not the nation which generates the State; that is an antiquated naturalistic concept which afforded a basis for XIXth century publicity in favor of national governments. Rather is it the State which creates the nation, conferring volition and therefore real life on a people made aware of their moral unity."  That is absolutely the opposite of what a Nazi or "Palingenetic Ultra Nationalist" would say.  It also later say "Race: it is a feeling and not a reality", meaning no room for Race realism.

The reason that Fascissm, Strasserism and National Bolshevism aren't Marxist theories in-spite of how much they borrow from Marx is that they reject the Class Struggle narrative in-favor of Class Collaboration.  This aspect of Fascism is one of the traits it inherited from Giuseppe Mazzini.

Peter Coffin said in one video, I don't recall which one, that "Communism that's only for White People isn't Communism", I'm sure people defining Communism from the outside won't always agree with that, but my point here is that Communism for Whites Only is exactly what Strasserite Nazism is.

The difference between Fascism and Nazism is that in Fascism the State is more important then the Nation however much it may appeal to Patriotism, in Nazism the State is powerful only to serve the Nation and Citizenship in said nations is usually limited to specific ingroups, often biological "race".  Eco came up with a good thesis for identifying the underlying soul of Nazism ("Nazi" was originally just a derogatory diminutive form of the German word for Nationalist), but it isn't universally applicable to Fascism.  In Brittan Arnold Leese was really a Nazi in-spite of what he called his Party.

Of all the fictional Empires that have been called "Space Nazis", the only one that really fits the proper philosophy of Fascism is maybe the Cardassians of Star Trek Deep Space Nine.  And I'm yet to see one I'm willing to properly call Nazism.  The Empire in Star Wars is more inspired by Bonepartism. [Update: now that I think about it maybe Britannia in Code Geass is sufficiently Nazi.]

American "small government" Conservatives are wrong when they try to define Fascism and Socialism as being the same thing.  But the problem with how Liberals try to prove them wrong is that it is Socialism these Conservatives are defining incorrectly, their definition of Fascism is mostly correct, or at least more correct then how most people define it.  Socialism is not Statism but Fascism is.  And unfortunately too many modern YouTube and Twitter Socialists are still dealing with that problem the same way Liberals do.

Calling Nazism a form of Fascism isn't that far off all things considered, "Reich" by that time basically meant "State".  The real problem with trying to paint the entire Axis with the Fascist brush is Japan, but that's mostly off topic.  

And at the same time there were Fascists and Nazis who fought on the Allies side, the French ones I already alluded to, but also Wilhelm Canaris, Otto Strasser's Black Front and the NazBols in Germany as well as some remnants of the Austrofascists and the Metaxas regime in Greece.  Meanwhile in The U.S. MacArthur, Patton and George Lincoln Rockwell.

Update 2022: Peter Coffin recently told me on Facebook that "defining things base don ideology is an expression of Liberalism" which is typical Marxist "we need to make our definitions for everything" nonsense.  Like or not Fascism was a word coined to define an ideology.  If you want to create a theory on what the Fascists, Nazis and other similar reactionary movements of the 1920s and 30s have in common that's fine but Fascism isn't the word to use for that.  

However defining what these groups had in common isn't that complicated, they were Anti-Communists, they were reactions to the Bolshevik Revolution, it really is that simple.  Now you may respond "not all Anti-Communists joins these kinds of groups" and in this context I will distinguish between being a non Communist from being a militant Anti-Communist.  Robert Taft had less ideologically in common with Communism then the Fascists, but he also believed in the right of people who disagreed with him to exist.

The Church of Ephesus and Cessationism

First of all don't read too much into this premise.  I'm not arguing every Cessationist congregation is an Ephesus or that you need to be Cessationist to be an Ephesus.  And even though I'm a Continutationist making this observation, this potential relationship could be true even if Cessationism is true.  Ephesus has the third best review of the Seven Churches so it's by no means an inherently derogatory association, and the two with better reports are NOT praised for their Doctrines.

One of the main things Ephesus is praised for is exposing and rejecting False Apostles, and while in the immediate context I think this refers to the same "ravenous wolves" Paul warned the Ephesians about at Miletus in Acts 20:29, in terms of applying this to then future and now contemporary Church issues I feel it can tie into how I in-spite of being a Continuationsit on the Spiritual Gifts in general do believe the Office of Apostle was only for the first generation of The Church, that being one required being an Eye Witness to The Resurrection and that Paul defined himself as the last to become an Apostle.

So I get uncomfortable when people like the host of The Prophecy Club calls himself an Apostle, but I think this can also apply to the Catholic/Orthodox concept of Apostolic succession, and to the Temple Lot Mormons calling their leaders a Quorum of Apostles.  And any other Pentecostal or Charismatic leaders calling themselves an Apostle.

And I have other areas of disagreement with many of my fellow Continuationists, I have been considering rejecting the usual identification of Thyatira with the Catholic Church and instead seeing it's False Prophetess as embodying many of the excesses of the more problematic Charismatic tendencies.  

My reading of Corinthians on this issue is Paul taking the same Contiuationist position I do and needing to deal with both Proto-Cessationists and overly reckless Charismatics causing problems in the Corinthian Church.

The main criticism of Ephesus is that they lost their First Love.  I feel like rejecting the Spiritual Gifts is quite possibly the only way to truly do that.  But even if Cessationism is true, I think many Cessationsits especially the Baptists should consider that their reactionary response to what some Contiuationists are doing wrong can potentially lead to that.

The fact that Paul's Epistle to Ephesus is one that gets into Spiritual Warfare a lot could also be evidence that Congregation was slowly becoming one that neglected the Spirit.

In which case I also think it's also highly likely for Sardis churches to be Cessationists since they are spiritually dead.  They would be churches with Ephesus's vices but not it's virtues.

I reject calling Mary Theotokos because it's UnBiblical

To me that's what should matter to Sola Scriptura Christians. It's technical accuracy or one's opinion on other issues related to the Nestorian Schism should be irrelevant.  If you want to call Mary a title it should be something Scripture directly says of her.

This issue is not my only area of affinity or at least sympathy with Theodore of Mopsuesta, Nestorius and the Ancient Church of The East.  The main thing that makes me hesitant to simply identify as a Nestorian is that they like Cyril and Augustine strongly stress the Platonic doctrine of Divine Impassibility and are thus hostile to the Theopaschite Formula.  To me that it was the "Fullness of the Godhead" and not merely a Man suffering on The Cross is what makes the Atonement truly work, regardless of what theory of Atonement you take.  But I'm not prepared to make a full post on that topic yet.

I've seen people use Luke 1:43 as Biblical support for Theotokos as a title for Mary, where Elizabeth says.

"And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?"

Problem is if you want to use this verse as your defense of a Greek title for Mary it should be the Greek words used in this verse.  Which are Meter and Kuriou not Theos or Tokos.  

So yes I'm kind of rejecting even the Tokos part as well.  We tend to translate this phrase as "Mother of God" (and Nestorius's alternative Christtokos as "Mother of Christ") but that's not truly accurate.  Tokos is a very technical term for the act of carrying a baby, you could equally apply it to a incubator.  Meter is the familial title of Mother which I think is far more fitting to describe Mary's relationship to Jesus.

But back to what people are usually disputing.  Using this verse to defend Theotokos is based on assuming every use of a form of Kurios in the New Testament must be merely the Jewish custom of using it to stand in for the Tetragramaton, the Holy Name of God, Yot-Heh-Vav-Heh which I prefer to pronounce Yahuah.  However I believe that assumption is never correct of any occurrence of "my Lord", I believe "my Lord" is always a translation of the Hebrew Adoni which in pre-masoretic texts is sometimes difficult to distinguish from Adonai.

Psalm 110 in the KJV begins with "The LORD said unto my Lord" which in the Hebrew is "YHWH said unto Adoni".  All three Synoptic Gospels quote this with the "my Lord" being in reference to Melchizedek as a type of Christ.

I want to mention the Peshita briefly.  Luke's Gospel is one of the many NT books where I consider there to be no basis for Peshita primacy, the book was definitely originally in Greek.  But looking at it as a witness to how Early Semitic Speaking Christians translated it can still be useful.  For Kurios verses the Peshita uses Mar-Yah whenever it's a stand in for YHWH but simply a form of Mar when it's merely a form of Adon.  This verse in the Peshita uses Mari (my Lord) not Mar-Yah (but the Peshita does use Mar-Yah in reference to Jesus elsewhere).

So the Greek title for Mary I would construct from this verse is one using a form of Kurious and a form of Meter.  But as a Weeb I think I'll go with AkaaSan-no-Sama, or I could use Mikoto instead of Sama but that is a bit more obscure a reference for westerners.

I agree with the Theology and Christology of the original Nicene Creed including Homousian.  However while The Bible supports Jesus being God in a Trinitarian sense, The New Testament is far more interested in stressing Him as Christ, The Lord and most importantly the Son of God.  That's Peter's essential dramatic Confession, and Martha's in John 11 and what the first verse of Mark says, and what 1 John 4:15 says anyone who confesses that God Dwells in them.  

So I do think it's bothersome how often modern Western Christianity obsesses over Jesus as God and forgets to stress that The Trinity is a Family that we are being Adopted into.  The relationship between God and Jesus is that of a Father and Son.  

And as a Weeb I like to refer to The Holy Spirit as Onee-Sama.  Proverbs 7:4 is the basis for calling Wisdom(Sophia) a word for Sister and I've argued elsewhere for her being The Holy Spirit.

The French Revolution is still one of the most misunderstood subjects of History

[Update: My conflation of the Girondins and the Society of the Friends of Truth was a Mistake and Brissiot was ultimately a Liberal.  But it is still true that the primary perpetrators of the Terror were not the Communists and the people who were became victims of it.]

You can be a Zionist and still be critical of the Israeli Government

Of the political disagreements I have with my fellow Twitter Leftists, my belief that Israel has the right to exist is perhaps the most contentious.

I am a Zionist, but I am also an Anarchist, I hate all Governments and much of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians is atrocious.  But as long as Nation-States are going to be a thing, on that land it needs to be a Jewish one so the world's most oppressed minority can have a safe heaven to flee to, the Muslims have more then enough.  But I do believe Israel should give the Golan Heights to Jordan, give full citizenship to all Palestinian living in Israel, and stop responding to Hamas in Gaza so badly since their attempts to fire rockets at Israel never even do anything.

None the less every time I allow myself to get involved in one of these twitter threads, they keep trying to make me feel ashamed of my Zionism by talking about things the Israeli government is doing which have nothing to do with Zionism as a principle.  Remember these are the same people who don't like seeing Marxism blamed for the Human Rights violations of Stalin and modern China.  And likewise don't want Islam being blamed for what the Saudis do.

I believe all similar major minorities have a right to a home land, the Kurds, the Yazids, the Ainu and Okinawa and every Native American tribe that still exists.  But the "Palestinians" already have one, it's called Jordan, they are the majority of Jordan's population, the only thing keeping it from being a strictly Palestinian State is that it isn't a Direct Democracy..

I am confident that there is enough habitable room in Israel for all of the world's Jews plus twice the number of Gentiles who currently live there.  It is Capitalism not Zionism that is making these people fight over land and resources.  But it is only with Israel where it is appropriate on the Left to say the answer is one of these people groups shouldn't even be allowed to be there.

They keep calling Zionism a form of Colonialism.  If it's appropriate to refer to Post-Colonial things you don't like as Colonialism then it's also valid to call Pre-Colonial things Proto-Colonialism.  And it was Proto-Colonialism that removed the Jews from that land and placed Gentile "Holy Sites" in Jerusalem in the first place.

The Jerusalem of the Hasmoneans was basically completely annihilated in 70 AD, then in 132 Hadrian began plans to build a Greco-Roman city on the spot named after himself and that sparked another Jewish uprising which he brutally put down.  Then he built his gentile city and renamed the province and Jews were forbidden to even set foot in the city, a policy that shamefully the Christian Emperors kept.

However Jews were never completely gone from the region, many stayed in or settled in Galilee where they had a couple revolts agaisnt Christian Emperors.  But when Calif Umar captured Jerusalem he allowed Jews to return there creating what is now known as the Jewish Quarter which has been continuously inhabited by Jews ever since.  However later Califs eventually built Mosques on The Temple Mount, specifically Abd Al-Malik built them where Mecca was under the control of Rebels, their creation was always political.

There have been a lot of controversies lately about the American Government and/or Corporations building things on Sacred Native land.  I don't understand how religions that are inherently younger then Judaism building Churches and Mosques on the only land Judaism considers Sacred isn't viewed the same way?

So yes, religion is a major factor in why this land specifically was the land we gave to the Jews.  Thing is when you go back to their actual founding Sacred Texts, every still existing religion that gives any amount of sacredness to that land 100% agrees on who it belongs to.  The Koran says that the land of Israel belongs to the Children of Israel.  Muslim opposition to Zionism is a product of modern Wahhabism funded and prompted by the Saudis.  And New Testament Christianity is not interested in tying itself to any specific pieces of geographical real-estate at all.

The cultures that existed in this land before the Ancient Israelites no longer exist, whether or not some Palestinians have a connection to them in terms of genealogical ancestry is irrelevant, they no longer practice the same religion or customs, they are mostly Muslims, some are Christians, some may now be Atheists, and I'm sure some Canaanite Neo-Pagan group exists but there would be no actual continuity there.

Dog Whistles are a term we on the Left use to condemn things not explicitly bigoted as bigotry via guilt by association.  But when it comes to Antisemitism, the only thing constantly said by Antisemites you are NOT allowed to say is inherently Antsemitic is saying the Jews don't have a right to their homeland.  You can't utter the words "international banker" without being called a closet Nazi, but saying something that is definitely unambiguously bigoted when said about any other oppressed minority is perfectly fine.

I think maybe those of us who oppose Capitalism should be concerned about there being an entire subgroup of super rich Capitalists that have become free from criticism because the small number of them who have Ashkenazi surnames are the only ones most people have heard of.  But still it is true 90% of people singling out "international bankers" of all super rich people to complain about are at least indirectly influenced by Antisemitic conspiracy theories.  And likewise Anti-Zionism was founded upon Holocaust Denial and Anti-Rothschild conspiracy theories long before anyone in the west gave a damn about a sub group of Arabs naming themselves after the Latinized form of the Hellenized form of the name of a people who haven't existed since Alexander The Great burned their last city to the ground.

And sometimes people will try to use things like the 1933 Transfer Agreement to say "Zionism and Antisemitism actually go together".  Hitler at first tried to just kick the Jews out because he didn't think he'd have the ablity to do the Genocide he always preferred. But that arrangement was one he was inevitably going to back out of just like the pact with Stalin.

The people currently running Israel can go f--- themselves, but I will not apologize for defending The Jews right to their ancient sacred homeland.

Zionism is an inherently Leftist ideology in origin and in fact predates Marxism, the crimes of the Israeli state should not invalidate the ideology of Moses Hess anymore then those of the USSR, China and North Korea invalidate Marx and Engles.

BTW you may notice I didn't even bring up any Prophecy.  I actually reject certain Eschatological positions assumed to go with being a Christian Zionist.  I'm not Pre-Trib or a proper Dispensationalist and I don't even expect there to be a Third Temple, and I view the Gog and Magog Invasion as after the Millennium.  I actually don't currently solidly believe much of anything specific in regards to Israel's role in the End Times.  While that geographical land definitely has a role to play in what I think will happen, a modern Jewish State being there is not required at all, I only presume Israel relevant because that is the current geopolitical situation we have to start from.  My theories about "the antichrist" focus on their probable relationship with The Church not Judaism.  But at any-rate I don't think the Temple's actual site is on either those Mosques, I currently favor the Dome of the Tablets theory.

So my Zionism is more in-spite of my Eschatology then Because of it.

The New Testament is Collectivist not Individualist

First of all to properly understand what I mean by Individualism and Collectivism in this post I suggest you watch this Peter Coffin video Individualism V. Individuality, it's only half an hour.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eijYEYzAQu0

In the modern world Indivdualism is associated with certain ideologies that in America at least are generally classified as Conservative.  Now a lot of these people are Conservative Atheists, Ayn Rand was an Atheist, she knew her brand of Individualism was utterly incompatible with proper Christian values.  But some of these Conservatives are Christians like Jordan Peterson who's technically Canadian but the thing about Canada is if your a Conservative in Canada you probably obsess over America in reaction to how much Canadian Liberalism is founded on hating America.

However a more obscure figure in the modern YouTube Right is a channel called TIK who have made some interesting videos on Hitler and Mussolini being one of the few YouTubers interested in acknowledging their differences, both are bad but they had differences that make Hitler worse, however being better then Hitler is not a grand endorsement.  In one video of his I watched he talks about the history of states and power systems from his POV and then says Jesus introduced the concept of the Individual.  So I assume that means to him the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament is that the Old Testament is Collectivist since it's about Israel and the New Testament's innovation was that now God made Covenants with Individuals not a Collective.

This view of the New Testament doesn't hold up.  Anything you can make sound Individualist about the New Testament was already there in The Torah, the punishments already punished individuals for example.  The actual innovation of the New Testament is that it's expanding the Collective, or rather returning God's focus to all of Adamkind.

The TNAK starts out about all of Humanity, the first 10 and a half chapters of Genesis. And on occasion YHWH reminded Israel that he still cares about the rest of the world like in Ezekiel 16 (the parts about Sodom) and Daniel 2-7.

In Matthew Jesus talks about gentiles entering the Kingdom before some of the Children of the Kingdom, that's not an expression of Individualism but of outsiders being let into the Collective.  

The Sheeps and Goats Judgment in Matthew 25 is defined as being of "Nations" not Individuals.

Paul in Romans 5 talks about all being made Sinners because of one Man's Sin, but then all being made righteous because of one Man's righteousness, similar to how he discuses Death and Resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15.  Then in Romans 11 he says the fullness of the "Nations" will be grafted into Israel and then ALL Israel shall be Saved.  And that God consigned ALL to disobedience so that He might have Mercy on ALL.

Elsewhere The New Testament talks about The Church being the Bride of Christ and Body of Christ and Temple of God.  Inherently Collectivist symbolism.  Even when Paul brings our Individual being Individual Temples of the Holy Ghost in 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 and 6:18-20 it's tied into that grander doctrine and clearly arguing agaisnt Lockean Self Ownership (or Body Ownership as some modern libertarian prefer to rephrase it) our Bodies are ultimately owned by God but also collectively shared with the rest of the Community of Believers.

It was the advent of Calvinism V. Armianism that laid the foundation of Individualizing The Gospel, in both those systems Salvation is a covenant with an Individual they only disagree on who to give the agency in that Covenant.  ColdCrashPictures calls Objectivism "Prosperity Gospel for Atheists" an analogy that immediately reminded me of my own calling Existentialism is Atheistic Arminianism.

But not all Collectivist Ideologies are good, Fascism is very Collectivist as is Nationalism.  That's why I stress how The Gospel is an Inclusivist Collectivism.

It was Gerrard Winstanley who introduced Universal Salvation to the Modern-English speaking world, and he was also a Communist.  What untied the true Gospel and Communism so naturally is that both are founded on the true Collectivist perspective of The New Testament.

Update: Here is another good Peter Hiett Sermon.

https://youtu.be/HfT5YDD_-tM?list=PLehrY6axvoewN-jVBcGc5qH5sZog5RzT3

The Truth about the Hamiltonian v Jeffersonian conflict

First of all it's a bit of an oversimplification even to make it seem like all the "founding fathers" fell neatly into two simple camps.  Even Adams was not quite a pure Hamiltonian.

Meanwhile Thomas Paine was literally a Pre-Marx Communist.  And for nearly 200 years everyone knew that, he was disowned from being counted as a Founding Father by Patriotic Americans for most of the 19th and 20th Centuries during which time the only people who liked him were Marxists and other Socialists.  But then Ronald Reagan started quoting Paine as if they agreed on anything and only then did even Paine become a founder the modern American right thought they could appropriate.

However the greater point of this post is the absurdity of the desire Americans have to see our current political debates as a neat linear continuation of the debates between Hamilton and Jefferson.

Alexander Hamilton was a big government Conservative while Thomas Jefferson was a small government Liberal.  In modern American politics those terms seem like inherent contradictions, but the historical fact is the modern American way of thinking about that is the aberration.  During the age of Revolutions the idea of being a small government Conservative was a complete and total oxymoron completely unprecedented in 6000 years of human history.

On the modern American political spectrum the closest group we have to modern Jeffersonians are the American Libertarians, but even that analogy has flaws.  Plenty of Libertarians are aware of their overlap with Jefferson and like to then paint the Democrats and Republicans as merely an internal dispute among the Hamiltonians.  However even that doesn't pan out.

The modern Democrats and Republicans in addition to each breaking with Hamilton in some way on where they disagree with each other are in fact in even greater conflict with Hamilton in the areas where they agree.  Neither party wants the Presidency to be a lifetime appointment, neither wants to limit the right to vote to only wealthy land owners and both support legal immigration only disagreeing on how much leniency to give "illegal immigrants".

On some of those issues it may seem like many Republicans would like to take Hamilton's position but just know they can't get away with it currently.  But their fundamental belief in "states rights" and "cutting taxes" make them firmly incompatible with Hamiltonian Federalism.  The only modern parties that kind of agree with Hamilton on having a strong federal government are completely opposed to Hamilton in terms of what that government power should be used for.

I'm going to be consistent and not call Hamilton a Fascist since I am someone who criticizes when that term is used too loosely including by my fellow Leftists.  There is at least one core ingredient of Fascism Hamilton was hostile to and that was Populism, Hamilton was disgusted by the very idea of trying to gain political support from the unwashed peasants.  But his actual position on Immigration would get him called a Fascist by most of Tumblr and Breadtube.

There is no actual Hamiltonian party in modern American politics, and no that's not based on allowing any minor disagreement to rule someone out, every Party or Politician capable of gaining even 1% of the vote in a modern election has some major break with a core foundational principle of Hamilton's ideology.  That's why he was the least celebrated Founding Father before a certain Rapper decided he weirdly identified with him as that Musical laments at the end. 

However the United States is ironically the only nation where Hamiltonianism is completely dead.  I would say Alfred Hugenberg was basically the Hamiltonian of Weimar Germany.  The Party that has dominated Japan for most of it's post-War history the LDP is Hamiltonianism for Japan as purely as any party could be.

Now remember Anime is a Niche interest even in Japan.  Most Art tends towards being at least a little left of the center of the culture that produced it, but Anime in particular makes most of it's money off less then 10% of the total population.  So with few exceptions most Anime is made by people who's political leanings range from Jefferson to Paine.  Though obviously none of them would use American figures to define their politics, Franklin, Jefferson, Paine and Lafayette don't even show up in any of the many Anime depicting The French Revolution (which Hamilton btw absolutely opposed long before the Terror gave him an excuse).

Update April 2021:  I stumbled on this YT video which in fact already existed when I first wrote this.

https://youtu.be/Zt4lmLK_OUc

That video is not the Libertarian perspective I criticized above, but rather part of the Genre of trying to make the Federalists sound like modern Democrats and the Jeffersonians sound like modern Republicans.  The deception in this video is mostly lies by omission, and it generally misrepresents Hamilton more then it does Jefferson.  Because yeah if Jefferson were alive today he probably would vote Republican at least during Primary season.

Hamilton wanted the Government involved in the Economy, in that sense he looks more like a modern Progressive.  But he did NOT want that interference to be on behalf of the workers or the poor, he wanted the Government getting involved to help big business.  He would absolutely be a Union buster if Unions were a thing yet.  He was for higher Taxes then Jefferson was, but he didn't want it being the wealthy who were Taxed but the workers.

The Federalists were also in bed with the Congregationalists who really wanted the Federal Government to enforce their Puritan Christian Moral Values on everyone which made that party greatly feared by the South (which was believe it or not fairly irreligious back then, and nominally what they were was Anglican/Episcopalian with Presbyterians in Appalachia) and all of the religious minorities in the Northern Colonies.  

Jefferson's "wall of separation" letter was to a Baptist Pastor (Baptists back then were still far from becoming the nation's largest Sect) in the context of promising to protect them from the Congregationalists.  Hamilton meanwhile constantly used Jefferson's lack of devoutness against him in his public attacks.  Hamilton was the only Founding Father who used Religion Politically the way modern Evangelical Republicans use it, even though Benjamin Rush was closer to agreeing with them Doctrinally (minus his belief in Universal Salvation).  Hamilton would absolutely have called Obama a Muslim.

His position on Immigration was openly Racist, he wanted the Untied States to be a WASP Ethno-State.  The Hamilton Musical presents Hamilton as an "immigrant" and stresses that repeatedly, but that was the most technical of technicalities.  He was a WASP who was born in one overseas WASP colony and moved to another overseas WASP colony.  No one would have thought of him as an Immigrant.

Another thing about that Musical that bugs me is how it tries to present the debate about getting involved in the post-French Revolutionary wars as analogous to the 2002-2003 Iraq War debate.  Now I am a Pacifist on nigh universal principal, but Hamilton was taking this position for the wrong reason.  And later when we got pulled into those wars on the other side of what Jefferson wanted the Federalists were the ones responsible for that, because Hamilton weirdly actually loved Britain in-spite of how he just successfully rebelled against it.  So no he didn't actually want us out of the War, he just wanted to wait till he could get us in on Brittan's side.

Since we're dealing with Europe which then like in the 1930s-40s was geo-politically the center of the world.  The debate over involvement in that war should perhaps be considered more analogous to the debate about World War 2 then Iraq.  The French Republic abolished Slavery and Emancipated Jews, but Brittan under Pitt's government was determined to re-enslave the Hattians.  Jefferson did change his tune on supporting the Republic when the Terror got out of control under Robespierre, but Hamilton and his modern selective fanboys paint The Revolution itself as inseparable from that madness.

In what way do I possibly still qualify as an Evangelical?

You can consider this a follow up of sort to What Kind of Christian am I.

That's a question one might ask when they see how Leftist I have become Politically and Progressive Socially with a healthy dose of my old Libertarianism still in tact, combined with my now rejecting theologically the traditional view of Hell, and yet I still call myself an Evangelical from time to time.

Religion for Breakfast recently appeared in someone's video about Evangelicals and the Republican party however doing so only to define Evangeliclaism in religious terms separated from the politics.
https://youtu.be/zpLCIc5PvQw?t=148

He laid out four characteristics and I feel I line up with all of them.

1. Born Again Experience

On this one you can argue I'm not semantically since I now believe the Biblical use of Born Again in places like John 3 is about the Bodily Resurrection not something that happens at Conversion. But I still see importance in the Conversion experience, often preferring "Begotten Again" analogizing it to a new Conception rather then Birth.  Because of my Soterology I don't think only believers are Saved, and I don't think every "true believer" has to have a particularly dramatic experience, my own was relatively gradual.  However this conversion importance is why I'm with the Baptists on Baptism at least.

2. The Personal Relationship with Jesus I definitely value, and ironically this is exactly something most Evangelicals have been losing in their obsession with conservative politics.  And my status as a Continuationist makes me more Evangelical then most Baptists interestingly.  Andrew Henry cited Wesley as a founder of Evengelicalism, he condemned Slavery and called out the Founding Fathers on their hypocrisy.

3. Evangelism is another one I may relate to differently as a Universal Salvation believer.  But to me that just means I more accurately know what the Evangelion is.

4. I do believe The Bible is inerrant and the final authority.  The Conservatives are simply interpreting it wrong.  However I am still a Young Earth Creationist and a Pre-Millenial Futurist. 

I'm also a Zionist technically but that doesn't mean I have to think the Israeli government does no wrong, quite the contrary I think Israel's government is as bad as any other State and that their treatment of Palestinians and other Muslims within their borders should try harder to follow the advice of Leviticus 19:34.  But on principal I prefer that land be ruled by corrupt authoritarian Jews rather then corrupt authoritarian Muslims who have plenty of lands to rule already.

Facts don't care about your Feelings, but God Does because God Is Love

I think my contribution to the argument that Homosexuality isn't a Sin is my most important Internet accomplishment.  While I certainly think many others could make my arguments more eloquently then I do, only I take the correct perspective on each relevant passage.  And that I approach them and Scripture in general from a hyper literalist perspective means lots of people will be more open to my arguments then the arguments of more theologically liberal theologians.

I'm not quite so happy with my past attempts to allude to Trans issues on this blog.  My original main post on the subject was written this month five years ago, weird coincidence since I didn't know about June being Pride Month back in 2015.
https://solascripturachristianliberty.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-refusal-to-accept-claims-of.html

Back when I wrote that I didn't yet know that not all Trans people experience Dyphoria or Dysmorphia about their bodies.  And that's not the only thing I wasn't nearly as informed on as I am now.  That was before the Game Over Charles crisis, before I started following a lot of the Trans and Non-Binary people in the Anime Community on YouTube and Twitter, and before I ever watched a ContraPoints video.  And I'm sure I still have more to learn.  But that issue is most directly relevant to why I feel that post is problematic now.

I made an argument predicated on comparing being Trans to people born with disabilities and other issues and that I believe everyone will have the body they're meant to have in The Resurrection.  I know that Trans people don't want to be viewed as a mistake, it's just that in the context of those who feel deeply uncomfortable in their own bodies, that is a problem I don't view as God's intent and still one I feel will be eliminated at The Resurrection.  But those who are okay with or even like having physical features Society says doesn't match their Gender Identity, their situation will probably be different, I don't want to speculate too much.

Of course another thing that has changed since I made that post is I now believe in Universal Salvation.  I no longer believe it is only Trans people who become Christians that will find happiness in Jesus, Jesus Loves and will inevitably bring All of them to Salvation.

The beginning of dealing with any gender issues Biblically should always be the end of Galatians 3, "neither Male or Female" in The Church.  A passage that has been relevant to many posts I've made already.

There are no New Testament verses that are even remotely about Crossdressing.  Some Sermons from independent Baptist Pastors may trick you into thinking otherwise, but there are in fact none.  Deuteronomy 22:5 is the only passage in the entire Bible that is even at face value relevant to that issue.  Here is an article on a Jewish website dealing with the complex history of Jewish interpretations of this verse.
https://www.beki.org/dvartorah/crossdressing/

The observation that it should have lead with is how in context the passage is about doing it for the purpose of deception.  It is not at all relevant to Crossdressing as self expression.

But let's return to the real question that makes the Trans issue difficult for Christians, how can they exist?

I think most Christians casually take the view on the origins of Souls that they are individually created by God either before or during the body's formation as a result of the sperm fertilizing the egg.  However I have already expressed on this blog (but it was another issue I didn't know about 5 years ago) that I take the Traducian view, that our souls reproduce the same way our bodies do.

So since there are sometimes bodies born with "biological sex" ambiguities, there can also be Psyches with Psychological ambiguities and Spirits with Spiritual ambiguities.  And maybe them being ambiguous is more common then the Flesh.

InspiringPhilosophy has a video on the scientific evidence that conciseness isn't solely the product of the Brain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOFGKhvWQ4M

But even if it were, studies have also shown that many Transgender people's Brains are wired like what is more typical of their preferred Gender not their assigned Gender.

But such Scientific Justification should be irrelevant because Christians aren't Materialists, not in the Aristotelian sense anyway.  We don't hate and disregard the Flesh the way Gnostics or Marcionites do, or view it merely as a lesser copy of some higher form the way Platonists do, but it is still only part of what we are.  But when it comes to Gender mainstream Western Christians act like Materialists.  And of course "Christian" Sexual morality actually has it's roots in Plato not The Bible.

When Genesis 1 says God made Adam Male and Female, I think it's referring to all the aspects of Human Gender being there already in the first Human, or maybe it could be just referring to him having both Chromosomes.  It was never meant to rule out the possibility that many of Adam's descents will relate to Gender in ways that defy or flat out don't fit into a simple Binary.

Evangelical Protestant Soterology

American Evangelicalism, and to an extent Protestantism as a whole, has gotten it into their heads that being Saved is synonymous with not being punished for your sins.

That's why they can't accept the multiple Scriptural witnesses about God's Punishments being for Correction, or YHWH promising Israel He will Save them AFTER He Punishes them.

The reason they can't even entertain any alternative theory of Atonement to Penal Substation is because to them Penal Substitution is what the word Atonement itself means.  But the truth is in Ancient Israel the idea behind making a Sin Offering or Trespass Offering was never that you aren't being punished because the Goat is being punished in your place, the idea was losing this Goat, or the money you had to spend to obtain it, was your punishment.  It was essentially a ritually glorified way of paying a Fine.

Salvation is about not being punished for our sins in a sense, in the sense that the original required punishment for eating the fruit was death, and likewise the Torah throwing around the Death Penalty pretty liberally.  Because of Jesus's Death and Resurrection we are all saved from that maximum sentence.

But that's another thing, even though these Evangelicals will quote verses about "the wages of sin is death", they don't' actually believe that, they think the modern concept of "Hell" is what "death" actually means when Paul says that.

Now you can be forgiven for your Sins, as Ezekiel 18 lays out forgiveness is a result of Repentance.

I was accused recently of "denying repentance" because of my current Soterology.  But the truth is it was before I believed in Universal Salvation, or at least while I was still transitioning into it, that I made posts on this blog agaisnt repentance.  Where I argued you did not need to make a serious attempt to change your ways for God to forgive you.

That's why I find it really offensive when Evangelicals accuse advocates of my Soteorlogy of denying that actions have consequences when they are the ones who think the point of believing in Jesus is a Get Out of Hell Free Card.

I believe that unrepentant sinners will be punished.  But I also see more then one passage in The Bible that implies Believers will be punished more then Unbelievers (like Luke 12 and Ezekiel 16), because we're without excuse, we can't claim we didn't know what the rules were.

Now some particularly Eternal Security believing Evangelicals do have some nuance on this issue.  Kent Hovind I believe once said that Sin is a "legal matter" if your an unbeliever but a "Family Matter" if your a believer.  Because they feel God only considers believers His Children.

But Paul said at the Sermon on Mars Hill in Acts 17 that all Human beings are Offspring of God. 

Meanwhile how can Sin ONLY be a Legal Matter for exactly the people who never consented to this Law Code in the first place?  Certain American Christians keep saying "consent of the governed" is a Christian Principal yet they don't actually think God operates that way.

Papirius and Melito of Sardis

Polycrates of Ephesus in the letter he wrote to Bishop Victor of Rome as it is preserved for us by Eusebius of Caesarea says something interesting when he gets to Sardis.

"or the blessed Papirius, or Melito the Eunuch who lived altogether in the Holy Spirit, and who lies in Sardis, awaiting the episcopate from heaven, when he shall rise from the dead?"

I should remind people that the word Eunich in antiquity was not used only of people literally castrated, there is a lot of evidence that "Born Eunuchs" were anyone assigned male at birth who was pretty much incapable of being sexually aroused by women.  That can apply to a number of modern Sexual/Gender identifies, Gay Cis-Men, Straight Trans Women, Asexuals and more.

Now I think a relationship between these two is implied even in Eusebius wording here, but the grammar seems kind of awkward like someone tried to de-emphasize something.

I definitely feel Eusebius version of this letter is slightly corrupted, maybe not by himself but rather by how it was passed down in Rome before it got to him.  Chiefly I theorize that the name of "John" was not originally in this letter, that will possibly be the subject of a future post.

As far as this section goes, here is my theoretical reconstruction.

"or the blessed Papirius and Melito the Eunuch who lived together in the Holy Spirit, and who lie in Sardis, awaiting the episcopate from heaven, when they shall rise from the dead?"

I didn't change that much at all really.

Lexical vs Impressionist interpretations of The Bible.

When you say you take The Bible literally, some people (I'm addressing specifically fellow believers here) will then act like that means I'm not being logically consistent unless I think every figure of speech where God has wings means he's actually a giant bird.  No other book is treated this way, but whatever.

One Independent Baptist Pastor who's Church I attended a few times said he prefers to say he takes The Bible seriously rather then literally.  But that's being disingenuous, Allegorists believe they're taking Scripture seriously, in fact they argue we're not when we treat it like a Fantasy Novel.

And I'm not actually the most absolutely hyper literalist Christian anyway.  So I do somewhat struggle with how to define how I view Scripture.

Then Digibro who I follow for Anime reasons started a serious of videos categorizing the way different people think, both real and fictional.  The third video is the one to finally inspire me to make this post, it kind of presumes you saw the prior two longer ones but if your not interested in an hour of Digi categorizing every Anime character he cares about then you can skip them, the third one is only about 15 minutes.

How Anime Character Think
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1ndTCR4aKg

Updating and Explaining
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSyGye7D2ao

Lexical vs Impressionistic Thinking
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt60-Hf1Duk

[Update: You'll now have look for those on the InternetArchive.

https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Digibro%2FDigi%22

They have been reuploaded on YouTube including a channel called The Neurotypeline, who have this Playlist.  Also Digi now goes by Trixie since she came out as Trans.]

Now what I'm about to say is perhaps not where you thought I was going, but hyper Allegorical approaches to Scripture like those popularized by Origen and Augustine are in fact a highly Lexical approach.  It comes from thinking a certain word or string of words must always be saying the same thing or being said for the same reason.

Take for example when InspiringPhilosophy argues that because in many later Bible narratives someone goes to sleep before they have a dream that turns out to be a divine symbolic vision.  Then Adam going into a Deep Sleep in Genesis 2 must mean what follows is merely a symbolic vision.  When it seems to me far more obvious that God is putting Adam to sleep for the same reason any doctor puts a patient to sleep before performing an invasive surgery.

Some who you can argue are way more "Literalist" then I am are perhaps also hyper Lexical in their own way.  But once you decide a certain term must always be being used consistently, it's far easier to force an allegorical approach to an obviously literal passage then a literal approach to an obviously symbolic one.

Still the "Law of first mention" is an example of a highly lexical fallacy used by Christians of all camps.

Interpreting The Bible highly Lexically is a problem since obviously God is a more Impressionist thinker, He can communicate Lexically since the first words ever spoken were His words, and His Son is called The Word.  But He also existed before Words and I believe always wanted His message to be able to transcend the original language it was written in.

My Impressionist approach to Scripture can even allow me to view some entire books as fictional narratives that didn't necessarily actually happen, like Job and the Song of Songs.

But the general Impression of The Book Genesis is that it's telling us the actual origins of Humanity and Civilization and then more specifically The Israelite people.  That doesn't mean it's not also teaching important lessons, but they are important because they literally happened, it's documenting Humanity's first mistakes so we of later generations can try to learn from them.

The Hyper Allegorists are indeed perhaps also very Linear in thinking, you see contrary to how they often try to paint literalists, we are not denying the deeper truths that matter regardless of if it actually happened or not.  No most people labeled Literalists are the ones who understand a passage can serve different purposes at once.  Origen however was a bit more Lateral minded then his descendants.

Revelation is a book where no interpretation is free from some level of seemingly picking and choosing when to take it literally and when not to.  No one actually believes Revelation 13 is saying the world will be lead to worship Satan by a pair of Kaiiju.  But it's equally silly to then turn around and take nothing literally when the intent of The Book is still clearly that it's telling us what will happen in the future.

My Impressionist understanding of The Bible's meta-narrative is that the TNAK's prophecies of a future Temple or Tabernacle are fulfilled in The Church being The Temple of God, if that conflicts with taking certain passages literally even though they seemed literal at the time then so be it.  However I also believe we are a Temple still under-construction.

Part of why is because it is equally my Impressionist understanding of The Bible's meta-narrative that The Resurrection of The Dead is a physical bodily Resurrection, and so we are His Tabernacle already but we won't be a complete Temple until all Flesh is Resurrected.  Getting lexically lost in certain details of 1 Corinthians 15 is where the justification to Spiritualize The Resurrection comes from, but the closing verses finalize what the Impression is supposed to be.

And that leads me back to Universal Salvation and how we tend to discus it.  The clear Impression The Bible is trying to give about God's Character is that He is Love in 1 John, that His Love endures forever as the Psalms repeatedly claim.  That He is not willing that any should Perish as Matthew 18, 2 Peter 3 and 1 Timothy 2 make clear.

So who even cares if the word "Eternal" is a technically accurate translation in Matthew 25 or not.  When we remember that the Chapter Divisions weren't there originally so the start of Matthew 26 is indeed the close of that narrative, even that story in it's own Context is ending on The Impression that Jesus is about to take this Eternal Judgment upon himself.

It is the doctrines of Annihilation and Endless Torment that are dependent on the same Lexical obsessions that create allegorist heresies.  Yet we ourselves get bogged down in Lexical exercises trying to argue with them on their terms.

My own mind has too many Lexical tendencies, so on these blogs I will probably continue to employ Lexical methods in how I argue my views.   But the starting point should always understand that God is an Impressionist.  So the point of what's being said is more important then the details.

What Jesus taught matters, but The Gospel is The Resurrection

Saying The Gospel is even partly Jesus moral and ethical teachings is to fundamentally miss the point of New Testament theology.  The context of the Sermon on the Mount in it's introduction in Matthew chapter 5 is the futility of trying to earn Salvation.

Now people like MaggieMayFish in her video about Kirk Cameorn's Christmas movie don't like when Christians feel that way, saying all this over emphasis on The Resurrection is because people don't want to actually follow her interpretation of what Jesus taught.

I find it amusing how in a prior video of this series she pretends she's on the protestant side of the original Reformation when in fact her attitude on "good works" is exactly what Luther found anathema and pretty consistent with how reactionary Tridentine Catholics feel to this day.  Also Luther was not a populist reformer who's message was later co-opted by the rich and powerful, he personally aligned himself with the Feudal Nobility of northern Germany and Denmark and the proto-Capitalists of the Netherlands and in turn persecuted the Anarcho-Communist Anabaptists and Jews.

There are other forms of basically this same thing, from both the right and left, people acting like the message of unconditional Grace somehow detracts from seeing what Jesus taught as the key to true good ethics.

And I as a Communist, Universal Salvation preaching Queer affirming YEC Pre-Millennial Futurist am looking at this Teachings vs Gospel dichotomy going.

Neither Kirk Cameron or any of these other Right Wing Conservative Christians she's opposing react to our Leftist interpretation of what Jesus said with "that doesn't matter because Resurrection, Faith Alone, yadda yadda yadda".  They all believe they are being consistent with what Jesus taught however absurd that looks to us.  And Trust me you can find economic and social conservatives among those who allegorize away The Resurrection to support a Platonic or Sadducean view on life after death.  So no they aren't going to change their minds on morality, ethics or economic policy if they changed them on The Resurrection.

Everyone interprets Jesus as saying what we want Him to have said to some degree.  I have little confidence that my own approach is completely without bias.  And people observing Jesus from the outside don't entirely agree on what his message was either, some of course are instead biased towards making Him the enemy of their beliefs.  That I am at least trying I hope is demonstrated by the fact that I have changed my mind on some issues over the years.

Also according to Josephus in Antiquities 18 the Zelots agreed with the Pharisees on theology and metaphysical matters, they were the Anarchist Revolutionaries of first century Judea.  So even before Christianity it was the Resurrectionists who believed in taking action to change the world.  The Essenes who were the Platonic "Spiritual is what really matters" viewpoint practiced a form of Communism but in a purely voluntary sense, they were not revolutionaries interested in changing the world.

Even the Maccabees seem to have been Pharisees originally, Aristobolus turned against them when a group of them called his mother a whore and implied he was actually a bastard son of Antiochus Epiphanes.  The only Jewish Ruling Queen of antiquity, Salome Alexandra, was a devout Pharisee unlike her husband.

For me it's because Jesus defeated Death and Unconditionally Loves every single one of us without exception that I consider what He had to say about Ethics and Morality more valuable and trustworthy then anyone else.  A "Savior" who intends to leave us in the dirt or save only those who "Merit" saving is little better then the God of Calvinism and therefore not someone who's opinions matter to me even slightly.  The only context in which I'll care what a person from 2000 years ago has to say on anything is if He Rose from The Dead.

As a companion of sorts to this here is my latest post on my Prophecy Blog.

P.S. This isn't the first BlogPost I made partly inspired by this YT Video Essay.

There is a theory that Mark's Gospel was originally written in Latin.

I've already argued on this Blog from Biblical References that John Mark spent time in Rome but not Peter.

Mark contains over half of the New Testament's Laitnisms, Laitnisms are inevitable just because of Rome's influence at the time.  But Mark a couple of times actually explains Semitic words using Latin ones.

Now I should clarify that no one proposing this thinks The Vulgate version of Mark is the original Latin version of Mark.  That text is still viewed as Jerome's translation of a Greek Mark as it is for the rest of the New Testament.

David Bruce Gain is one scholar who's been a proponent of this theory.  He has made his own personal reconstruction of what he thinks the original Latin text was, and his own English Translation of that Latin version.  I do disagree with him sometimes, for one he ends Mark with Mark 16:8 which is a theory I reject and may be the subject of it's own post in the future.

And on the subject of Mark 16:1 I disagree with "the Sabbath was past" being an interpolation "based on Matthew 28:1".  What Mark says here is distinct form how it's phrased in Matthew, and because neither Latin or Greek had a word for "week" in the first century this detail was necessary to clarify that the Sabbath following the Passion was over.  Torah literate readers would see it as referring to the instructions for First Fruits.

There is a limit to how much I'd be willing to change Mark based on this theory.  If Mark was originally in Latin I still feel the Textus Receptus (not any Alexandrian manuscripts) version of Mark is a very accurate Greek Translation of that Latin.  And I also think the Peshita version of Mark is a translation of the original Latin not the Greek.

I believe the Simon of Matthew 16 and Mark 14 was a Jar-Maker not a Leper, what that would mean for the textual history of Mark or Matthew (which I believe was originally written in Hebrew) I can't say for certain yet.  Though the ablity of the Peshita to get it right if it was using a Latin source even though the Greek got it wrong from the same source implies that Latin text transliterated rather then translated the title.

The robe placed on Jesus at his Trial and Execution I believe was a red robe that the soldiers described as purple mockingly and that's how we reconcile apparent contradictions there.  What's interesting is how only Mark mentioned the Color Purple.  So Mark has Jesus seemingly clothed in Purple with a Crown of Thrones and a staff, and presumably blood on his face.  Mark is making Jesus look like the Triumphitor of a Roman Triumph.  Yet there are two roles in the Triumph Jesus is playing, he's also the enemy of Rome (proclaimed King of The Jews) being humiliated and sacrificed to the Heavenly Father.

Now there are reasons why my Universal Salvation allies might be a little worried about suggesting any book was originally in Latin, we like to blame Latin translations for the issues we have with how certain passages read in modern English.

However Mark has no equivalent to Matthew 25's parables, I have argued for Universal Salvation being compatible with the KJV, and again we don't think the Vulgate is the original.  4th and 5th Century Latins are a factor in these problems, but Greek speakers like Cyril of Alexandria also helped.  I think we've perhaps been too hard on Tertullian for example.

David Bruce Gain's translation of his reconstruction of Mark 3:29, the only verse in Mark where the KJV uses "Eternal" in reference to punishment.  "but one who blasphemes against the dedicated breath will be penalized.He will be guilty of wrongdoing for ever".

This reading fits pretty well with how I interpret the "unpardonable sin" issue based on studying it mainly via Matthew.  This is the one sin where you can't get out of the punishment by genuinely repenting.  But that doesn't mean the punishment is Endless Torment or Annihilation.

Later in Chapter 9 David Bruce Gain's proposed original Latin does use a Latin transliteration of Gehenna every time you see Gehenna in the Greek, it's never simply "translated" infernus like the Vulgate often does.  I don't know if he has pre-Vulgate texts to support that or if it's just an inference.

However I do feel Gain is wrong on verse 49, he removed all references to Salt and has that verse just refer to being consumed by fire.  Now I think it's possible his version of verse 50 could be correct, but even he still has salt being referenced in verse 50, he has pay off with no set up.

He recognizes that this section is drawing on the very last verse of the book of Isaiah.  But that's not the only Old Testament reference in mind here, there is also Leviticus 2:13 and Deuteronomy 29:23., and maybe also Ezekiel 16:4, 43:24 and 47:11.

Update:  I'm starting to feel like I'm guilty of some hypocrisy in how I treated the Vulgate up above.

I strongly advocate for favoring the Received Text when it comes to the Greek (Textus Receptus over Alexandrian variations) the Aramaic (Peshita) and even for favoring the Ethiopic version of the Apocalypse of Peter over the Akhmim manuscript IF I were to entertain treating it as canonical.  But once I became aware of the possibility of a book being originally in Latin the anti Vulgate sentiments of my Protestantism clouded my judgment.

My interpretation of Mark 3:29 is perfectly compatible with the Vulgate reading, since the word it uses in place of the KJV's "Damnation" is "delicti" which Google translate says simply means "offense" and "in danger of " actually means "guilty of".  So "is guiltily of an eternal offense" works perfectly.  I still consider Matthew closer to what Jesus actually said, but this can be a valid expression of the same idea.

Also, I was flat out wrong on Gehenna, the Vulgate never "translates" it Infernus, every single time Gehenna is in the Greek the Vulgate says Gehenna too.  Now David Bruce Gain's reconstruction has a different transliteration, but that's not a difference worth slipping hairs over.

Hades is what the Vulgate likes to "translate" infernus, but Hades doesn't appear in Mark.  Hell in the context of what Hel/Hella was in Norse mythology was originally a perfectly fine equivalent to the Hebrew Sheol and Greek Hades, it's using the same word for Hades that caused what Hell means to be confusing.  In 1 Corinthians 15:55 the Hades/Grave/Hell half of the verse is dropped entirely which mutilates the very poetic structure of the passage.  Somehow the Vulgate uses both inferni and tartarum in 2 Peter 2:4.

My belief that Infernus was fundamentally wrong was a mistaken understanding of Latin combined with my nerdy reasons for thinking it should have been Orcus.  I had it in my head that it meant fiery first and became a name for Hell when used in Bible translations.  It's the reverse however, it's literal Latin meaning is "the lower world".   The Aeneid, a Latin epic poem inspired by Homer's epics uses Infernus of Hades.

I think every place where I explicitly expressed disagreement with Gain would put me in agreement with the Vulgate.

Except for what I hypothesized about Simon the Leper, the Vulgate like Gain definitely says Leper here.  I'm also starting to doubt Hebrew Matthew will support the Jar-Maker reading given what I've seen from people talking about the known texts so far.  So it seems like the Peshita may be the one guilty of a scribal error there.

The fact that the name of Bethany probably comes from "House of the Poor" or "House of affliction" supports the idea that Lepers would be concerned.  I do believe the Bethany siblings themselves were wealthy, probably devoting much of their time to helping the poor in this area.  It's possible Simon wasn't called "The Leper" because he was a Leper but because of an association with helping and caring for them.

Maybe the meaning of the name of Simon/Simeon/Simonis is the key, which means hearing or to regard.  Maybe it meant the House of hearing the Lepers?

There is also the theory that Simon the Leper and Lazarus are the same person.  I've long been unsatisfied by the theory that the etymology of Lazarus is a form of the Hebrew Eleazer, every Hebrew name that begins with El still has the E in their NT Greek forms.  And Josephus used Lazarus in Wars 5.18.7 even though he used Eleazar often.  Well the Hebrew word Leper used in the Torah in Leviticus 13 and 14 is Tsara or Zara, the Hebrew letter Tzadi usually becomes a Zeta in Greek.  And L' is a Hebrew prefix usually interpreted to mean "to" but seems to sometimes be used as an alternate definitive article.  During Greco-Roman times if people knew the Hellenic/Latin words for this condition began with an L the L prefix here could have been wordplay.  The other Lazarus in The Bible in Luke 16 seems to be described as a Leper even though traditionally no word for Leper is used there, and since it's a parable personal names shouldn't be used there.

Another Update: Vetus Latina

I had thought that Pre-Vulgate versions existed only in fragments.  But this is an independent received tradition that existed along side the Vulgate virtually until Trent, and there is a roughly 350 dated manuscript of the Gospels.

The Etymology of the word Gospel

When people say "Gospel" means "Good News" they are mainly describing the meaning of the New Testament Greek word it is used to translate.

Euangelion, often via Latin influence transliterated as Evangelion, Evangeliun or Evangelium (and because of Engrish the name of a certain Anime named after this word is sometimes incorrectly spelled Evangerion).  Eu is a Greek Prefix that means good or positive, and angleion means a message or proclamation, being what the word "angel" comes from.

Some in The Hebrew Roots movement and Sacred Name movement have naturally developed a theory on what the Biblical Hebrew word for Euangelion should be, Besorah Strongs# 1309, itself the feminine form of Basar Strongs# 1319.  Neither word ever appears in the Pentateuch and it isn't used in any verse I feel confident in saying is referring to the New Testament Euangelion in advance, but none the less I agree that it is a reasonable plausible Hebrew equivalent.

These movements also have a thing for demonizing a lot of the key words used in mainstream English speaking Christianity.  The word Gospel has become a synonym for Good News regardless of it's original etymology and so I'm not making this post to argue there is anything evil about using that word to convey that meaning, and I will probably still continue to do so in the future.

Still it is an interesting observation I feel, because you see "Gospel" is a corruption of "Godspell", as in a divine spell or magical incantation.

Now people in these movements usually don't support Universal Salvation, quite the contrary the Sacred Name movement thinks Salvation is dependent on pronouncing YHWH and Y'shua correctly, and different sects of it can't agree on that pronunciation.

But in a prior post on this blog I essentially argue how it is Exclusive Salvation particularly as understood by Protestant Evangelicals that turns the Euangelion from a Positive Proclamation to a Magick spell you have to say correctly with their "Sinner's Prayer" obsession.

The Aarmaic Peshita where you expect to see Euangelion/Gospel in Mark's Gospel usually uses Sabartha/Sabarthi.  However the first verse of Mark's Gospel (it's full title basically) uses Evangeliun, a Latin form.  I have become increasingly open to the theory that Mark was originally written in Latin, and so I can't help but now see this first verse as evidence the Peshita version of Mark is a translation of a Latin version.

The Showbread and The Eucharist

So a few years ago I did a post on the Biblical Hebrew Precedent for The last Supper, and said the Bread representing the body was the one piece of the puzzle I didn't have.  Well I think I have a handle on that now.

I mentioned how Christians tend to view the beginning of the Bread and Wine theme as Genesis 14, but I had ignored the significance people like Chuck Missler saw in Genesis 40.  Where the two fellow prisoners Joseph interprets dreams for are Pharaoh's "Butler"(winebibber) and Baker.  The Baker winds up "Hung on a Tree".  So here Bread is associated with a body dying the same basic kind of death Jesus will.

But I shall go deeper then that and say the Showbread/Shewbread also prefigures the Bread of the Eucharist.  What appears in English Bibles as a single word is actually the Hebrew phrase "lechem haPānīm" which means "bread of the presence" or "bread of the faces" or "bread of The Face" or even "Face-Bread".  This Bread was not eaten while it was kept in the Holy Place, every Sabbath it was replaced with new fresh Bread and then what had just been removed could be eaten as happens in 1 Samuel 21:6.  And there were 12 Loaves of the Showbread, representing the Tribes of Israel.

This Bread was the most significant piece of Organic Matter kept in the Holy Place, it makes sense to me to speculate it was always meant to represent the physical incarnation of YHWH whether that was understood at the time or not.  Christians at some point started doing on Sunday what was originally for The Sabbath, so connecting the Showbread to the Eucharist makes a lot of sense.  In the Torah usually only the Priests could eat the recently removed Showbread (David and his men were a special case) but the New Testament has the doctrine of the Priesthood of all Believers.

Also the word translated "cakes" in Leviticus 24 can also mean "punctured" or "pierced", being a form of the word for "wounded" in Isaiah 53:5.

The Table of the Showbread had at least four kinds of vessels kept on it according to Exodus 25:29-30, 37:16 and Numbers 4:7-8.  The KJV calls them "dishes", "spoons", "bowls" and "covers".  Why four types of vessels when only one kind of food was kept on it?  "Spoons" is the most probably inaccurate translation, this Hebrew word is often used of types of Perfume jars, they probably were for containing the Frankincense Leviticus 24 says to put on the Showbread and/or Incense for the Altar of Incense.  The word for "covers" means something for pouring and "covering" or "cover withal" means pouring and in it's other uses is mostly associated with drink offerings of wine, though also sometimes of pouring Oil as well, which could also apply to the Oil for the Menorah.  The Strongs describes the word for "bowls" here as a container for carrying Blood, meaning this may refer to what The High Priest used to carry the Blood of the Sin offering into The Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur as instructed in Leviticus 16, the word is not the same as that chapter but seems like it could come from the same root as the word for the bowls used in Exodus 24:6.

The Mosaic Table and it's Vessels like the Mosaic Menorah and Altar of Incense were never in Solomon's Temple, Solomon created new versions of them according to 2 Kings 7:48 and 2 Chronicles 4:19.  Only The Ark in Solomon's Temple had also been in the Tabernacle of Moses.  The last we hear of the Tabernacle of Moses it was at Gibeon in the early chapters of 2 Chronicles which has been associated with Nob, both locations in Benjamin.  There is a theory out there that Nob is the location known in The New Testament as Bethphage which I now think is correct.

Shishak King of Mizraim never took anything in the Holy Place, Rehoboam's willing submission to him was to prevent something that bad from happening.  And everything taken out by Nebuchadnezzar was returned by Cyrus, so at first the Second Temple had (minus maybe the Ark) the same Sacred Relics as Solomon's Temple.  In the Apocrypha 1 Maccabees 1:21-24 (also II Maccabees 5 but less specifics of what was taken) we are told they were taken away by Antiochus Epiphanes to his homeland, probably referring to Antioch.  I'm suprised there isn't more speculation on what happened to these relics taken to Antioch?  Could they still be seen there during the events Acts and Galatians tell us happened at Antioch?

1 Maccabees 4:47-49 tells us Judas Maccabeus had a new Altar and Menorah and Table of Showbread made.  These were probably still the ones in the Holy Place when Pompey entered it and all through the New Testament's history, and were then taken away by Titus after he captured Jerusalem and destroyed The Temple in 70 AD to be carried in his Triumph in Rome in 71 AD after which they were placed in the Temple of Peace (Pax in Latin).  The Arch of Titus erected by Domitian to commemorate Titus's deification in 81 AD depicts the Menorah and the Table of Showbread and some fire-pans and the Silver Trumpets, but the Altar of Incense appears to be missing, maybe there just wasn't enough space.  What fascinates me is when you look close at the depiction on the Arch, specifically at the Table, it has a Bowl of some kind on it, could that be the Bowl that carried the Blood of the Sin Offering? or the Showbread itself?

They remained in the Temple of Peace until 455 AD when the Vandals "sacked" Rome under Gaiseric who then carried them back to North Africa.  Decades later when Balisarius conquered the Vandal Kingdom for Justinian he takes these relics from a ship attempting to carry them off.  They were paraded in Belisarius's Triumph in Constantinople in 534 AD.  Meanwhile in 531 Justinian had began some major construction projects in Jerusalem following the end of the Bar Sabar revolt, the most significant of which was the Nea Ekklesia of the Theotokos which Porcopius clearly described as being meant to echo Solomon's Temple.  So Justinian had these relics of the Second Temple returned to Jerusalem where I suspect they eventually wound up in the Nea which was completed in 543 AD.

What's interesting here is that the early 530s AD is contemporary with the traditional time-frame of King Arthur.  The Annals Cambraie placed Badon in 516 and Camlan in 537, but later Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Brute Tyslo would date Arthur's demise to 542.  In Chretien de Troyes Percival the first appearance of the Grail in literature, it is not yet specifically the Cup, it is thematically associated with the Eucharist but with the Communion Wafer rather then the Wine, and there is no claim it was actually used at the original Last Supper.  And I've theorized before that this part of Percival is modeled after David during the reign of Saul with the Fisher King as Ahimelech and the Communion Wafer in mind here the Showbread, a Candelabra was also in the procession which could have been inspired by the Menorah.  That would also make the Grail Sword the Sword of Goliath, and the Grail Spear perhaps the Spear of Goliath.  However in the Sixth Century there was also a claimed Spear of Longinus in Jerusalem.

What happened to these Second Temple relics following all the events of the Seventh Century is uncertain.

Update 4/4/2020: Since I first wrote this I've done some more research on the Showbread issue, and it's Table.

What's really interesting is how I decided to watch some YouTube videos on how to make homemade flatbread.  I was suprised how simple it was, I watched a few different recipes.  And what I noticed is how it starts with flower which has a consistency kind of like dirt, and then becomes dough which is a lot like clay.  So it's a good symbolic representation of how God made Adam's flesh in Genesis 2, which I view as also echoed in how Jesus heals the blind man in John 9, essentially creating new eyes from clay.  So the logic of Bread representing the Body now makes perfect sense.

[Note: after trying it myself it's not as easy as they made it look.]

The common statement I repeated above and in the past that in Chretien the Grail is the plate with the Communion Wafer is a mistake, the Grail and the plate are separate objects borne by separate Maidens.  All we know about the Grail in Chertien is that it's called the Grail, or Graal originally.  It's not even called Holy.  [Update 2022: Another correction, Chertien does call the Grail "A Holy Thing" I was simply looking for the exact two word phrasing of "Holy Grail".]

Graal is a French word believed to come from Grazel which comes from Gresal.  It's believed to originate from the Medieval Latin Gradalis or Gradale which comes from the Ancient Latin Crater or Cratus which in turn comes from the Greek Krater.

In the Greek New Testament Crater is not used of the Cup of the Last Supper, instead it's Porterion which is also used of the Cub referenced in Genesis 40:11 in the Septuagint.  In the Latin Vulgate this Cup is a Chalice.  However the Vulgate does use Crater of one of the vessels on the Table of Showbread in Numbers 4:7.  It is also used of the bowls containing the Oxen blood in Exodus 24:6.  And it's the word for "Goblet" used in Song of Songs 7:2.

It's also maybe interesting that in Numbers 4:7-8 the Table itself is instructed to be covered with a Blue cloth but the vessels on it to be covered with a Scarlet cloth.