Translation is not a science, but an art

This selected piece, which you translate,

Foretells your studies may communicate,

From darker dialect of a strange land,

Wisdom that here th' unlearn'd shall understand.

-- William D’Avenant (1606-1668)

According to Luke's Jesus, the abundant life does not consist in the abundance of possessions

The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly [περισσὸν].

-- John 10:10

And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance [περισσεύειν] of the things which he possesseth.

-- Luke 12:15

Everyone has their hand out, everyone wants a bailout, everyone wants a piece of the action, including the nation's clergy

America as I've always known it is dead. Well and truly dead.

Relief Funds Should Benefit Clergy, Too:

Clergy can, and must, receive CARES Act funds.

Fie, foh and fumme, we mark the birth of an Englishman

Childe Rowland to the darke Tower came, His word was still, fie, foh, and fumme, I smell the blood of a Brittish man.

-- Edgar in William Shakespeare's King Lear, Act III, Scene IV

Libertarianism is incapable of even responding to a pandemic

Because libertarianism cares nothing for the πᾶν, only for the deme of one, the self.

For this reason it appears to others that libertarians even want the ill among the πᾶν to die, who would have died anyway, they say. Who wouldn't have died anyway, of course, but for the pandemic.

The libertarians are the most loathsome members of our society, as were the dog philosophers of old.

A coronavirus victim's prayer

If, while this wearied flesh draws fleeting breath,

Not satisfy'd with life, afraid of death,

It hap'ly be thy will, that I should know

Glimpse of delight, or pause from anxious woe;

From now, from instant now, great Sire, dispel

The clouds that press my soul.

-- Matthew Prior, "poet by accident" (1664-1721)

Palm Sunday in Mark ended as an anticlimactic reconnoitering event without a Temple cleansing until the morrow

And Jesus entered into Jerusalem, and into the temple: and when he had looked round about upon all things, and now the eventide was come, he went out unto Bethany with the twelve. 

-- Mark 11:11

On the incoherence of Matthew's Gospel on forgiveness by the Son of Man

The triple tradition contains the healing of the paralytic at Capernaum at Matthew 9:1ff. (Mark 2:1ff., Luke 5:17ff.).

And at Matthew 9:6 we have 

But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power ["authority"] on earth to forgive sins, (then saith he to the sick of the palsy,) Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house.

Jesus performs the healing, it is said, to demonstrate his authority to forgive sins in answer to the charge of blasphemy, since only God can forgive sins it is believed. But this explanation of blasphemy is unstated in Matthew, unlike Mark 2:7 and Luke 5:21.

Matthew, or his editor, has trimmed the content just this little bit, doubtlessly because he feels the difficulty involved because of what he has Jesus say on the subject just previously in the Sermon on the Mount. This "solution" is clumsy and incomplete, and still hands us here a Jesus with authority to forgive sins, as if forgiveness were only God's prerogative.

But Matthew's Jesus doesn't really believe that. He believes it is every man's prerogative, nay, obligation. Matthew's Jesus believes forgiveness is the sine qua non of discipleship. And if the obligation, then it must be effectual.

After this manner therefore pray ye ... forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. ...
For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:

But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

-- Matthew 6:9ff.  

One need hardly mention here how this is consistent with the keys of the kingdom duties of the "church" in Matthew 16 and 18 in binding and loosing sins and trespasses, on which see on those passages.

Clearly the triple tradition introduces a foreign conception at this point in Matthew. It is concerned with the Christ of faith, not with the Jesus of history, with the divine Jesus who was a sacrifice for sins, not with the eschatological prophet of repentance. Hence the introduction of miracles to validate the new narrative.

As such the triple tradition's understanding of Son of Man is also suspect, suffering as it is from reinterpretation in conformity with the post-resurrection rationalization of Jesus' death. The title has already lost touch with what its owner meant by it and is starting to signify something else. The Son of Man in Jesus' mind is a military figure who is suddenly coming with the divine armies of God for judgment, at which time it will be too late for forgiveness. Hence the urgency of forgiveness now. One cannot wait for someone else to win it and bestow it. The disciple must bestow it himself, or be lost with the many following the broad path to destruction.

Coronavirus catastrophe exposes fraudulent Christianity at the heart of Trumpism: Love of money is the root of all libertarianism, more important than life itself

Texas lt. gov.: Grandparents 'don't want the whole country to be sacrificed' amid coronavirus closures:

“You’re basically saying that this disease could take your life but that’s not the scariest thing to you. There’s something that would be worse than dying,” Carlson said. “If I get sick, I’ll go and try to get better, but if I don’t, I don’t, and I’m not trying to think of any kind of morbid way, Tucker, I’m just saying that we’ve got a choice here and we’re going to be in a total collapse, recession, depression, collapse in our society if this goes on another several months, there won’t be any jobs to come back to for many people,” he said. ... “But the point is, our biggest gift we give to our country and our children and our grandchildren is the legacy of our country." 

And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. 

-- I Timothy 6:8ff.

A word to the wise, if there are any left: The spring breakers in Florida are calling the coronavirus the "boomer remover"

Same as it ever was, I reckon, but still.  So be on your guard out there.

This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;

-- II Timothy 3:1ff.

"Clerics in Iran hung a Quran high on power lines so that it could block and prevent Coronavirus from entering the area"

Seen here.

Very superstitious, wash your face and hands,

Rid me of the problem, do all that you can,

Keep me in a daydream, keep me goin' strong,

You don't wanna save me, sad is my song.

-- Stevie Wonder, Superstition, 1972

M.C. Legaspi for FIRST THINGS totally misses Jesus' conception of prayer as secret communion with God as Father

But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. 

-- Matthew 6:6

"This too shall pass" has its own Anglo-Saxon history, independent of the "Persian"

Come what come may,

Time and the hour run through the roughest day.

-- William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 3

Many of us have heard that the Geat's love for Maethild passed all bounds, that his love robbed him of his sleep.

That went away, this also may.

-- The Lament of Deor, late 10th century Exeter Book

Liberal Phil Jenkins reviews Tom Holland's DOMINION in Christianity Today, spending zero time on its central thesis about the poor, talking instead about what he wants to talk about, which is classic Phil Jenkins

Oh look! A deer!

Tom Holland's DOMINION: HOW THE CHRISTIAN REVOLUTION REMADE THE WORLD is reviewed here by Phil Jenkins:

In Holland’s view, the teachings of Jesus constituted an ethical revolution that would gradually transform human consciousness, to the extent that we today find it hard to imagine credible alternative systems. ... Christianity mattered because it taught respect (or even veneration) for the poor and the oppressed. That implied the historically unprecedented exaltation of humility, forgiveness, and love.

A proper examination of the thesis would discuss the extent to which the antecedents of Jesus' teaching in Judaism as well as Jesus' personal historical circumstances do or do not explain it, but you won't get that from Phil Jenkins.

The ethical revolution of the good news preached to the poor (Matthew 11:5, Luke 4:18, Luke 7:22) is itself part of a long backstory which gradually transformed Judaism as its society degenerated and came to manipulate and oppress its own people. The rise of the prophets as social critics cannot be understood apart from Israel's mistreatment of the poor. Jesus comes on the scene as a prophet himself at the end of this long period of cultural degeneration, the poor bastard child of parents who could not afford the required lamb offering for him (Leviticus 12:1ff.).

[T]hey brought him to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord; (As it is written in the law of the Lord, Every male that openeth the womb shall be called holy to the Lord;) And to offer a sacrifice according to that which is said in the law of the Lord, A pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.

-- Luke 2:22ff.

The cleansing of the Temple's "thieves" (Matthew 21, Mark 11, Luke 19), the warnings against wealth (Matthew 19, Mark 10, Luke 18), the favoritism for the have-nots (Matthew 5, Luke 6, Luke 14, Luke 16), the transvaluation of poverty as a good in the call to discipleship (Luke 14:33), and the woes pronounced against the haves (Luke 1, Luke 6, Luke 12, Matthew 23) cannot be understood apart from his personal experience, let alone from the cultural history.

The basis of culture is in the cult, and Jesus attacked it. Jesus is a revolutionary in that he found in the Temple cult the central means by which the poor were oppressed, but he was a religious, not a political, revolutionary, and specifically an eschatological revolutionary. That he expected apocalyptic judgment on this system by the Son of Man and his armies and its replacement with a heavenly Temple, a Jerusalem descending from above, shows this.

It is also what repulses interpreters, who would rather talk about, and make it about, anything else.   

The form of religion vs. the power of it

The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD, but the prayer of the upright is his delight.

-- Proverbs 15:8

The line separating good and evil vs. Donald Trump, Richard Spencer and libertarianism

Reality or ideology, which will you choose?

Clueless Democrat Iowa Caucus voter wants her card voting for BootyJudge back after finding out he's gay and married to another man

Watch: Iowa Voter Freaks Out on Buttigieg Precinct Capt. After Finding Out Mayor Pete is Gay

Pentecostal Christian recognizes her own inner utopian Bolshevik in Bernie Sanders' Democratic Socialism

Why These Young American Christians Embraced Socialism :

“This feels a lot like church,” I thought. ... It was my first time experiencing collective singing outside of church, and it felt familiar, from the loudly exuberant singers to the masses of people awkwardly fumbling with a new tune. At the end, discussion groups were announced: DSA wanted people to gather in apartments to read foundational texts and histories of people around the world whom we were supposed to feel connected to as one global proletariat.

I’ve been in church all my life, growing up in a conservative Pentecostal church network in Malaysia, hopping around Thai immigrant churches in California, and now working at a multi-racial, progressive church in Brooklyn. I’ve spent countless hours studying the Bible—our foundational text—with others in people’s apartments, and learning historical stories of saints with whom we felt connected to as the collective body of Christ. Church made me feel connected to something much larger and older than myself. For the first time in that DSA meeting, I saw that what church did for me, radical politics might do for others.

American Christianity has often had a decidedly capitalist bent, but there is a long history between Christianity and socialist movements. Over the past three years, some American Christians have rediscovered this tradition and found themselves gravitating to socialism—in all its varieties, from democratic socialism to full-fledged communism. ... 

A FEW MONTHS AGO, I WAS in Queens with 26,000 other people to hear Senator Bernie Sanders speak at a rally. ... It felt, to my Pentecostal-raised ears, like an altar call, the kind in which the pastor gets on stage and rallies the crowd to give up their lives up to God and for something greater than themselves. During the altar calls of my youth, the band would play while people raised their hands, crying and surrendering themselves as if in a blissful trance, sometimes holding each other while intimately praying together. Sanders’ rally brought me back to what those moments in church felt like: As if I was letting go and losing myself in a larger sea of being.

You may not eat the life with the flesh, as they literally do in China, and in Catholic Mass everywhere

But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.

-- Genesis 9:4

For it is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life thereof: therefore I said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh: for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof: whosoever eateth it shall be cut off.

-- Leviticus 17:14

 

Only be sure that thou eat not the blood: for the blood is the life; and thou mayest not eat the life with the flesh.

-- Deuteronomy 12:23

This Johannine idea is therefore utterly inimical to the spirit of the Old Testament food law:

Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.

-- John 6:53

Damned into the world, not born

Where a child finds his own parents his perverters, he cannot be so properly born, as damned into the world.

-- Robert South (1634-1716)