Cave art all over the world shows digits may have been ritually removed, rendering Christian gospel accounts calling for self-mutilation less exceptional

In a paper presented at a recent meeting of the European Society for Human Evolution, researchers point to 25,000-year-old paintings in France and Spain that depict silhouettes of hands. On more than 200 of these prints, the hands lack at least one digit. In some cases, only a single upper segment is missing; in others, several fingers are gone. ... Four sites in Africa, three in Australia, nine in North America, five in south Asia and one in south-east Asia contain evidence of finger amputation. “This form of self-mutilation has been practised by groups from all inhabited continents,” said Collard. “More to the point, it is still carried out today, as we can see in the behaviour of people like the Dani.”

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The Christian gospel accounts have been dismissed perennially as mere hyperbole:

And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. 

-- Matthew 5:29f.

Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.

-- Matthew 18:8f.

And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched:

Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched:

Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire:

Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

-- Mark 9:43ff.

 

This older tradition is remembered in stark contrast to the miracle working Jesus of resurrection imagination who is wont to undo some of these extreme expressions of repentance:

The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. 

-- Matthew 11:5

And great multitudes came unto him, having with them those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others, and cast them down at Jesus' feet; and he healed them:  Insomuch that the multitude wondered, when they saw the dumb to speak, the maimed to be whole, the lame to walk, and the blind to see: and they glorified the God of Israel. 

-- Matthew 15:30f. 

And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple; and he healed them. 

-- Matthew 21:14 

And in that same hour he cured many of their infirmities and plagues, and of evil spirits; and unto many that were blind he gave sight. Then Jesus answering said unto them, Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached.

-- Luke 7:21f.

Progressive Walter Brueggemann offers not one text in the Bible which offers "a counter-position" friendly to homosexuality, let alone to bestiality, incest, or transgenderism

Because there aren't any.

 

 

 

 

The reason the Bible seems to speak “in one voice” concerning matters that pertain to LGBTQ persons is that the loud voices most often cite only one set of texts, to the determined disregard of the texts that offer a counter-position. ... The Bible contains all sorts of voices that are inimical to the good news of God’s love, mercy and justice. ... And where the Bible contradicts that news, as in the texts of rigor, these texts are to be seen as “beyond the pale” of gospel attentiveness.

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For Brueggemann all the following simply have to go, along with Romans 1:23ff. itself, because they are the enemy of the easy, welcoming gospel (which would strike St. Paul as quite the odious lie), even though there isn't any evidence that early Christianity reversed its antipathy for any of these perversions.

Make no mistake. There is no reason why the prohibitions against bestiality, incest, and transgenderism should stay when those against homosexuality must go.

Brueggemann should be made to answer that: 

 

Whosoever lieth with a beast shall surely be put to death.

-- Exodus 22:19

Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination. 

-- Leviticus 18:22

And the man that lieth with his father's wife hath uncovered his father's nakedness: both of them shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

-- Leviticus 20:11

If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

-- Leviticus 20:13

And if a man lie with a beast, he shall surely be put to death: and ye shall slay the beast.

-- Leviticus 20:15

And if a woman approach unto any beast, and lie down thereto, thou shalt kill the woman, and the beast: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them. 

-- Leviticus 20:16 

The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God.

-- Deuteronomy 22:5

Cursed be he that lieth with his father's wife; because he uncovereth his father's skirt. And all the people shall say, Amen.

-- Deuteronomy 27:20

Cursed be he that lieth with any manner of beast. And all the people shall say, Amen.

-- Deuteronomy 27:21

Cursed be he that lieth with his sister, the daughter of his father, or the daughter of his mother. And all the people shall say, Amen.

-- Deuteronomy 27:22

Cursed be he that lieth with his mother in law. And all the people shall say, Amen.

-- Deuteronomy 27:23

 

Brueggemann ignores a bunch of texts himself which contradict his cherished catch-all counter-idea that "The Gospel, unlike the Bible, is unambiguous about God’s deep love for all peoples."

For Brueggemann it couldn't possibly be that Jesus was an eschatological prophet to Israel only (Matthew 10, 15), bringing good news to its lost sheep who were impoverished by the rich who have their reward (Luke 7), who preached impending divine judgment of his generation (Luke 11) and never imagined a future church but rather the imminent arrival of the Kingdom of God out of heaven wherein The Twelve would sit on twelve thrones judging the new Israel (Matthew 19, Luke 22).

There's plenty of contradictory evidence against Brueggemann's easy gospel of "welcome", he just ignores it.

Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few. 

 

-- Matthew 7:13f.

Brueggemann ignores all the evidence because he has a different agenda, about a kingdom that is "never fully here" but is only becoming.

Perhaps the most succinct example of that ignorance is summed up in his twisted claim that "The burden of discipleship to Jesus is easy". The burden of Jesus is in fact quite specifically light because the disciple has no possessions weighing him down, impeding his escape through the narrow gate, and no social obligations of work and family either, all of which were renounced because they hold one back. 

No man can be my disciple who does not say goodbye to everything that is his.

-- Luke 14:33

No one knows this Jesus anymore, not Paul himself, not today's church, and especially not Walter Brueggemann. 

That Jesus conceived of the coming eschatological kingdom as a Jewish kingdom of the twelve tribes of Israel is the simplest explanation of the evidence

There are but two survivals of the explicitly Jewish conception of the coming kingdom in the Gospels, without any thought of inclusion of Gentiles, in Matthew 19 and Luke 22.

But the choice of twelve disciples by Jesus as a function of this explicitly Jewish conception of the imminently coming kingdom as a kingdom of the twelve tribes of Israel is also evidence. If the former nearly was expunged from the record, the tradition of the twelve survived because they did.

Those elements, the future Jewish kingdom and its twelve Jewish judges, are consistent with other surviving evidence of Jesus' original Jewish Gospel, for example with the charge in Matthew 10 and 15 not to go into the way of the Gentiles but to go only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, as well as with the scattered derogatory references to Gentiles, for example as dogs.  

Needless to say, a future Gentile kingdom would have required more judges than the twelve, and a Gospel to the Gentiles worked out to go with it. The latter was the innovation of Paul, not coincidentally a missionary Pharisee. The former never existed but for him.

And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life. 

-- Matthew 19:28f.

Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations. And I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me; That ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. 

-- Luke 22:28ff.

That this conception of a future Jewish kingdom was there from the beginning explains the many instances of the disciples' fascination with who would be greatest in that kingdom which survive.

Those discourses need not be historical in all their particulars. The failure of the Jewish kingdom to appear necessitated rationalization of the conception involved under and for the new circumstances. Hence the emphasis upon selfless servanthood in the light of the reinterpretation of Jesus' death as a sacrifice for the sins of the whole world.

At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? 

-- Matthew 18:1

But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant.

-- Matthew 23:11

And he came to Capernaum: and being in the house he asked them, What was it that ye disputed among yourselves by the way? But they held their peace: for by the way they had disputed among themselves, who should be the greatest.

-- Mark 9:33f. 

Then there arose a reasoning among them, which of them should be greatest.

-- Luke 9:46

Luke says the dispute among the twelve persisted even to the Last Supper, which is remarkably self-absorbed of them given the supposed gravity of the moment. It also suggests the lectures by Jesus all along didn't do them much good. It's almost as if the fact of the incipient nativism were a pretext for Luke's narrative invention. And then there's the irony that even in correcting the disciples' preoccupation with themselves, Luke still makes Jesus contrast the proper behavior with the improper behavior in terms of Jew vs. Gentile. 

And there was also a strife among them, which of them should be accounted the greatest. And he said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors. But ye shall not be so: but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve. For whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth? is not he that sitteth at meat? but I am among you as he that serveth.  

-- Luke 22:24ff.

But ye shall not be so.

It is easier to explain the more inclusive conception of the kingdom of God with Gentiles as a development from this original narrower one without Gentiles than the other way around. 

The narrower conception died hard, especially for example in the person of Peter, whom Paul accused of lingering hypocrisy about it in Galatians 2.

Luke, on the other hand, paints Peter in a more sympathetic light, in Acts 10, 11, and 15, showing how God himself miraculously intervened to change Peter's opinion about Gentiles.

But that Peter persisted in the nativism so long is the point. He didn't invent it. He got it from someone and stuck with it the whole time almost up until the moment he disappears from Luke's narrative never to be heard from again.

John's pre-crucifixion Jesus leaves an opening for Gentile Christian self-identity, Matthew's denies the possibility of it

These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

-- Matthew 10:5f.

But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

-- Matthew 15:24

And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.

-- John 10:16

Jesus believed only a few in Israel would be saved, Paul believed all Israel would be, along with many Gentiles

For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins. ... For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.

-- Romans 11:25ff., 32

Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you. ... Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:  Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. 

-- Matthew 7:6, 13f.

These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. ... And ye shall be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles. ... But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another: for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come.

-- Matthew 10:5f., 18, 23

But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. ... But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs.

-- Matthew 15:24, 26

So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.

-- Matthew 20:16

For many are called, but few are chosen.

-- Matthew 22:14

Both things cannot be true.

Scott Redd simply assumes that Jesus loved the immigrant, refusing to mine the uncomfortable evidence to the contrary

Immigration and the Kingdom of God:

 

[W]e do best when we remember how Jesus loved the poor, the needy, the immigrant, while never forgetting that His work always pointed us further to another goal: a world without borders, where every tear is wiped away (Revelation 21:5). That’s where we are going too, but we are not there yet.

Matthew 2:6 knows no such world without borders, only a Christ who shall rule over Israel:

And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel. 

^{Matthew 10:5ff. has Jesus explicitly telling his disciples not to evangelize the Gentiles but to go only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel:}

^{These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. ... But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another: for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come.}

^{Matthew 15:24ff. tells us Jesus called the Gentiles dogs, to whom he was not sent and who should not be preferred over the children of Israel:}

^{But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Then came she [a woman of Canaan] and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs.}

 

^{Matthew 19:28 conceives of the kingdom to come as the kingdom of the twelve tribes of Israel, not as some new, all-inclusive redefined Israel with the Gentiles grafted in:}

^{And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.}

And now a word from a lying Jesuit dog, who obviously isn't one of Jesus' little lambs

"Don't waste what is holy on people who are dogs. Don't throw your pearls to pigs! They will trample the pearls, then turn and attack you." -- Matthew 7:6

Then Jesus said to the [Canaanite] woman, "I was sent only to help God's lost sheep—the people of Israel." But she came and worshiped him, pleading again, "Lord, help me!" Jesus responded, "It isn't right to take food from the children and throw it to the dogs." -- Matthew 15:24ff.

Jesus told her, "First I should feed the children—my own family, the Jews. It isn't right to take food from the children and throw it to the dogs." -- Mark 7:27

Watch out for those dogs, those people who do evil, those mutilators who say you must be circumcised to be saved. -- Philippians 3:2

It would be better if they had never known the way to righteousness than to know it and then reject the command they were given to live a holy life. They prove the truth of this proverb: "A dog returns to its vomit." And another says, "A washed pig returns to the mud." -- 2 Peter 2:21f.

The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" -- John 1:29

But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: -- John 10:26f.

Outside the city are the dogs—the sorcerers, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idol worshipers, and all who love to live a lie. -- Revelation 22:15

An alt-right Jesus, but for Jews only: The rest of us are dogs, whites included

Contra Connor Grubaugh, assistant editor of First Things, here:

Christianity in its original and most animating form is fundamentally incompatible with the Faustian ethic and race-based mythos of the alt-right, just as it is incompatible with the equivocations of liberalism. Orthodoxy is its own mythos—a true one.

These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

-- Matthew 10:5f.

I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. ... It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs.

-- Matthew 15:24, 26

The vignette in Acts 10 and 11 proves that the earliest church had assumed on the basis of this original message of Jesus that repentance unto life had not been granted "also to the Gentiles" (Acts 11:18).

Moreover Jesus himself had criticized the missionary zeal of the Pharisees in the outside world:

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.

-- Matthew 23:15

Rather than speak of the impossibility of "alt-right Christianity", it seems more like an absolute necessity, however much that makes the faith an anachronism which has precious little to say to our time. The original message of Jesus is thoroughly "race-based", for Jews only.

Or is all this "scripture" to be relegated to the junk heap of history as nothing more than the evil work of Paul's opponents, the Circumcision, tampering with the Word of God?

Racism angers Jesus Racist, Ethnic Nationalist God-King of the Jews?

Ideologue Russell Moore thinks so, puttin' on his blinders, in WaPo predictably:

"[T]he picture we get of Jesus in the Gospels is how relatively calm he is. ... Jesus spoke gently with those on the outside of the people of God. ... The religious leaders and those keeping the worship of God from the nations had something in common: Both were seeking to keep people away from the kingdom of God, people they didn’t feel were worthy of it. ... [E]thnic nationalism is not just a deviant social movement. It is the same old idolatry of the flesh, the human being seeking to deify his own flesh and blood as God." 

If only it were that simple.

These twelve Jesus sent out, instructing them, Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And proclaim as you go, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand.

-- Matthew 10:5ff.

But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

-- Matthew 15:24

Don't give what is sacred to dogs. Don't throw your pearls to pigs! They will trample the pearls, then turn and attack you.

-- Matthew 7:6

But he answered and said [to the woman of Canaan], It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs.

-- Matthew 15:26

And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them . . ..

-- Matthew 6:7f.

The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.

-- John 10:33

The tradition of the apostles supplanted the tradition of the elders and was both oral and written

On the other hand, our old ways were once new, weren't they?

Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread.

-- Matthew 15:2

Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle.

-- 2 Thessalonians 2:15

The partiality of Jesus: Good news for the lost sheep of the house of Israel

"For a certain woman, whose young daughter had an unclean spirit, heard of him, and came and fell at his feet: The woman was a Greek, a Syrophenician by nation; and she besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter. But Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it unto the dogs."  -- Mark 7:25ff.

"And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us. But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs." -- Matthew 15:22ff.

"These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." -- Matthew 10:5f.

"Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you." -- Matthew 7:6

"Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie." -- Revelation 22:14f.

Oral cardiac defilement syndrome

 

But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: These are the things which defile a man: but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man.

-- Matthew 15:18ff.