Thoughts and Prayers: The Religion Thread

Jesus punked his best friend. Couldn’t throw his boy a few shekels to get his chariot out of the pawn shop.

 

From the 2006 Denver Post: For 2,000 years, Judas has been reviled for betraying Jesus. Now a newly translated ancient document seeks to tell his side of the story.

 

This CNN equal time initiative has already gone too far.

 

Equal time from before the Council of Nicaea.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...-gerson-evangelical-christian-maga-democracy/

Anxious evangelicals have taken to voting for right-wing authoritarians who promise to fight their fights — not only Donald Trump, but increasingly, his many imitators. It has been said that when you choose your community, you choose your character. Strangely, evangelicals have broadly chosen the company of Trump supporters who deny any role for character in politics and define any useful villainy as virtue. In the place of integrity, the Trump movement has elevated a warped kind of authenticity — the authenticity of unfiltered abuse, imperious ignorance, untamed egotism and reflexive bigotry.

This is inconsistent with Christianity by any orthodox measure. Yet the discontent, prejudices and delusions of religious conservatives helped swell the populist wave that lapped up on the steps of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. During that assault, Christian banners mixed with the iconography of white supremacy, in a manner that should have choked Christian participants with rage. But it didn’t.

Conservative Christians’ beliefs on the nature of politics, and the content of their cultural nightmares, are directly relevant to the future of our whole society, for a simple reason: The destinies of rural and urban America are inextricably connected. It matters greatly if evangelicals in the wide, scarlet spaces are desensitized to extremism, diminished in decency and badly distorting the meaning of Christianity itself — as I believe many are.

 

The COEXIST! caucus of sj.com will beg to differ.

 

I always thought Judas got a bad rap. Judas made Jesus. He was the Pippen to Jesus's Jordan.

 

Judas was an accountant. No wonder he was LIFO.

 

Judas Iscariot was one of the Twelve Apostles. He is notorious for betraying Jesus by disclosing Jesus' whereabouts for 30 pieces of silver. Judas brought men to arrest Jesus and identified him with a kiss. Jesus was then arrested, tried, and executed.Aug​

What did those 30 pieces of silver cost then and what would their worth be with 2,000 years of inflation?

Great little character. "Hey, yo, Jude, we know you like the silver so ... "

 

It was probably equivalent to 4 months’ wages at the time.

In Exodus 21:32, 30 pieces of silver is the price of a slave gored by a bull. Probably about $240 cash equivalent at current prices.

 

Seems like the ox gets the short shrift here. It's an ox and that's what ox did (and do).

It's like, let's blame the shark for attacking people on the shark's turf.

Exodus 21:32 (ASV) If the ox gore a man-servant or a maid-servant, there shall be given unto their master thirty shekels of silver, and the ox shall be stoned.​