Promoting

love this boy but this blog post in particular is very interesting...

Fear

i couldn't think of a good title for this post. the only thing i could think of was 'fear'.
in extremely conservative forms of religion - be it Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, Muslim - there is always, ALWAYS a division split right down the middle. that division is based on sex.
its such a rats nest trying to sort that aspect out which is why, many times, instead of actually creating reform inside those conservative movements people opt to leave and create a community of their own. this does not diffuse anything. this does not change anything. this does not create an understanding. this does not facilitate a movement of change. its plain and simple abandonment.
this abandonment creates hostility. that hostility is often expressed in cruel unkind ways such as those in this article.
that hostility comes from a sense of fear. fear that is embedded in their belief system. what does it say if all of a sudden your 'system' tells you that what the Rabbis, Popes, Imams etc. that preceded you believed was WRONG? some people might say it doesn't matter. but when your belief system is based on following the strict letter of the law and it turns out you were not doing it right and neither were they for the last umpteen Millenia it does matter...how many 'righteous souls' are lost? who is going to be responsible for that?

you may also so say that does not matter. but to these strict observers it does. this responsibility is too heavy to bear. one could say 'we'll grandfather them in', however one does not get to make that decision - only God does.*

and that's why people feel they have to leave to make change.

they fear being the pariah now even though they will be the saint later on (and i am not implying that people only do good for recognition. it is the fear - again - that the positive will not be seen in their actions and that scares them into inaction. this regularly happens although time has proven that the Pariah is rarely wrong [see: Jesus Christ]).

so shame on the Catholic church for changing the subject in the sex abuse scandal.
and shame on the Haredi men for spitting on those women.

i have many opinions about a woman's place in Judaism - most of them not at all in line with this lady Rabbi's. although i am 100% a 'blue' blooded, bleeding heart liberal i hold very conservative opinions on Judaism and women's roles.
but one thing i can agree upon is that the fear these men exhibited was not OK. it WAS NOT OK.

I'm also from the south and in the south, gentlemen don't spit.





*side note: in the case of the Catholic chruch however this is not always true

Luke and the Samaritan

this is an interesting parable to me. He uses it to make the Jewish priestly classes out to be the enemy (which they were in the story of Jesus and thus the need for a comparison of this nature) or the selfish uncaring ones because they do not want to jeopardize their status of ritual purity. my curiosity about this parable is (and Luke would be well aware of the following fact) why, when Mikvahs were/are a dime a dozen in Israel (I've seen the archaeological remains 1st hand, as well knowing what defines a Mikvah one would only need find a natural body of water to have one) would Luke make his point around this? that is, these two Jewish men would have easily been able to cure their ritual impurity so its hard to believe that they passed up this man based on that fact. I would be more comfortable with these two Jewish men being selfish and having racism towards the man in the ditch who was not Jewish(which they would have) then them being against touching a supposed dead body. how do i know he's not Jewish, cause if he was they wouldn't have ignored him - believe it or not but the Body is incredibly important in Judaism as is the mistreatment and neglect of a body and this would never have occurred if the man was a Jew.In Judaism Chevrah Kadisha is considered a BIG Mitzvah and it goes against the Jewish beliefs of Tzedakah and performing Mitzvot to say these men didn't want to care for a dead body. But it is incredibly believable to me that these men chose not to deal with a non-Jew because there was a very pervasive desire in Ancient Israel to segregate from the non-Jew. Now these 2 men would not be handling the care taking of a non-Jew's body either but that simply reinforces the argument for them avoiding the man because of his ethnicity and not because he may be dead.

Joseph as Yuya

this is incredibly interesting. the Semitic/Caucasian looking Mummy of Yuya - the Father-in-law of Amenhotep III - Grandpa to Tut-Ankh-Amun, could be the Biblical Joseph.
the famed Ramesses II (Moses's Brother) was a Pharaoh of the 19th dynasty and would have reigned at about 113 years after Joseph's life in Egypt (Joseph most likely died in his 60's).
they say Thutmose IV was a 'teenager' when he assumed the throne, Thutmose would have been the one to appoint Joseph/Yuya to his position and Yuya served in Thutmose's court. Thutmose's son Amenhotep married Yuya's daughter and made her the 'Great Royal Wife' - head queen. Amenhotep fathered Akhenaten who fathered Tut who had no children. Tut's unrelated successor was Ay who's unrelated successor was Horemhed the last king of the 18th dynasty. His unrelated successor was Ramesses I father of Seti I and his successor was his son Ramesses II Moses's Egyptian Brother. whew...that reads like the begats in the OT and the begats in the Iliad...

it isn't quite clear if Seti would have been Moses's adopted dad or if someone else was. the intermarriage and the successions of the Pharaohs are so mixed it would take a lot of work to sort out a probable Nile Princess - but she is biblically know as Thermuthis or Bithia.
Moses was most likely part of the 2nd generation of Hebrews in Egypt which places him perfectly along the timeline of Ramesses II's rule and it would make sense that the Pharaoh would have been Moses's Egyptian brother.

Ahmed Osman makes a great case for Joseph/Yuya but makes some embarrassing arguments for other biblical and Egyptian figures which makes him sound less then credible. it is very, very interesting and to me, as an archaeologist, it sounds very plausible - it would be interesting to run some DNA tests on Yuya.

you can view his fascinating argument here its absolutely worth the read.

to give Osman some credit MANY Archaeologist who came before him and who made amazing discoveries have also made nutty outlandish claims about those discoveries (just google Troy or Heinrich Schliemann) that have proven to be nothing but fantasy, inflated ego and wishful thinking...and faked evidence to boot. if these Archaeologists still have any credibility - and they still do, believe it or not - then we can at least give Osman's Joseph theory a chance and ignore his others.

as we speak theories we always thought were solid and proven about sites such as Qumran are being shown as nothing more then wishful thinking and who-ha. Archaeological theory changes all the time.

if Tut can die of Malaria and not murder as previously thought (and even believed to be proven by CAT scans...) then Yuya can be Osman's and my Biblical Joseph. I'll give him the time of day just like i would give it to Jacobovici.

Tiberius

I'm sitting in intro to NT class and we are discussing Palestine. Question, if Rabbi Bar Yochai cleansed Tiberius in 145, did he have to go to Mikvah AFTER he cleansed the city because when he entered it the city was still unclean, therefore making him ritually impure?

s.