king saul taking a shit (while david cuts off a piece of his robe)
illustrations of 1 samuel 24:3 in two different weltchronik (world chronicle) manuscripts. bavaria/austria, c. 1370-75 and c. 1400-50
sources: Munich, BSB, Cgm 5, fol. 136v // Munich, BSB, Cgm 250, fol. 133r
Epitaphios of Michael Kyprianos. Early fourteenth century. Princeton University Art Museum.
so tonight I’m at synagogue, listening to the Purim Night reading of the Book of Esther, like you do
and near the end of this chapter my brain presents me with the following:
nooooo ooooone plots like Haman calls the shots like Haman plans a genocide by casting lots like Haman
(It only works with the Hebrew pronunciation of Haman, which, like Gaston, is accented on the second syllable.)
By the time we get home my brain has added:
for there’s none so well-favored and kingly yes, we all can be certain of that he’s so rich that his pockets are jingly and he looks really sharp in a three-cornered hat
*face in hands*
Petition to sing this every year at Purim.
I shared this with my dad, and he added:
No one’s spruce as Haman, Nor abstruse as Haman; No one’s half as good tying a noose as Haman! He’ll use gallows in all of his decorating! No one else hangs as well as Haman!
niiiiice
i know several people who will definitely appreciate this.
this is beautiful
oh wait
When I was a lad I hatched four dozen plots Every morning, to raise myself high… And now that I’m grown I hatch five dozen plots So all those who oppose me shall die!
Oy, what a goy, that Haman!
*SPLUTTERS*
There’s no force like Haman! Stays the course like Haman! Or goes riding out on the King’s horse like Haman!
What other man would the King choose to honor?
Surely it must be Haman!
Oh that’s not bad – except the second-to-last line needs to rhyme. (With what, you ask? With the same line in every verse – see “as a specimen, yes, I’m intimidating” / “I’m especially good at expectorating” / “I use antlers in all of my decorating” / “And his marriage we soon will be celebrating” in the original.)
So perhaps swap that out with For who else would the King be appreciating?
Also: happy ten-year anniversary to this silly song, and so many thanks to everybody who’s suggested additions.
STOP REFORMING THE CHURCH THE BIBLE IS NOT MEANT TO BE THE ONLY AVENUE OF LEARNING GODS WILL YEARS OF BLAMING THE CHURCH FOR STAGNATION yet NO REAL CHANGE WAS MADE Had any doubts about it anyway? We had a tool for that. It was called CALLING A COUNCIL "Yes give me the bread that represents christ" "After death there is only heaven and hell, nothing in between" ^STATEMENTS UTTERED BY THE UTTERLY DERANGED LOOK at what the working class has been demanding your respect for all this time, with all the printing presses we made for them Hello I would like to both be a priest and be married THEY HAVE PLAYED US FOR ABSOLUTE FOOLS
Having a signal this strong from the inside of the tower of london in the year 1535 and using it to send me anon hate on tumblr dot website instead of preventing 9/11 is diabolical work
I've been thinking about resurrection eggs today, those plastic eggs with items related to the crucifixion they give to kids around Easter, and thinking about how disturbing the whole thing is
Like, I think the whole concept of essentially celebrating human sacrifice is disturbing enough, but imo it's even more disturbing that we're told about the crucifixion as kids, that we're told about the torture and violence in detail, that we're told his suffering is our fault because we specifically are so evil and horrible and sinful that someone had to be tortured to death to make up for it, that we're told it should have been us up there, that we deserve suffering and violence and abuse and torture simply for existing... and probably other things I'm not thinking of right now, it's all just so sickening
But to do all that while trying to wrap it in a ‧˚₊*̥∗*‧˚₊*̥ uwu cute and innocent little interactive activity for kids uwu ‧˚₊*̥∗*‧˚₊*̥ where they physically have items like a mini spear that represents the one that pierced his side, a crown of thorns to represent the one he was forced to wear, nails to represent the ones that were used to hold him on the cross, leather cords to represent the whip he was beaten with, dice to represent casting lots for his clothes, cloth to represent the linen he was wrapped in after... i don't really have proper words for how disgusting it feels to me now. It's such a "look at what you've done, look at how you did it, look at what you personally contributed to by existing being sinful" while actively trying to make it more appealing to kids in the hopes that they'll internalize it better
Idk. The whole thing is just extremely repulsive to me. It's one thing to talk about the resurrection specifically, but I don't understand how so many people believe graphic depictions of torture and violence are totally fine for kids on its own even without all the other shit that comes with it
I'm wondering if these aren't as common as I thought 😅
On Easter my church would give the kids their own egg carton and/or plastic eggs (keep in mind I went to a megachurch and they had funding/staff/volunteers for stuff like this lmao) with various items related to the crucifixion in them, the last egg being empty to represent that Jesus is no longer in the tomb and has risen. We'd go through them one by one and talk about what the item represents and what verse it's connected with. It usually goes in order of the crucifixion story and is just an interactive way to get more kids engaged.
There are pre-made kits available online but people also DIY them. And since there are only 12 slots and accessibility of items can be an issue, sometimes the items vary. I don't think we ever had a chicken in ours (representing when Peter denied Jesus), I think it was usually a feather, but sometimes they'd focus on different parts of the story and leave other things out, stuff like that.
But it's like... if you're gonna have things like a whip, or a spear, or nails, or the crown of thorns, even the cross, you have to talk about why they're there and talk about the torture that occurred. That's wild to me in and of itself even without the added "btw remember this is your fault for being so evil :)".
And I know why this is the case, but it's still kinda wild to me that the "sex is dirty, swearing is bad, media is evil, we must be pure and holy" crowd is often sooo desensitized to violence that they don't even think twice about the crucifixion or some of the other stories in the bible being told to their children.
The whole thing is wild.
Whose severed hand is that
Tolkien did Augustinian theodicy correctly. The fact that the Dark Lord is a tragical figure whose quest for power is doomed to failure because he can't possibly achieve greater virtue than the endowment allotted to him by God upon his creation and must gradually diminish himself is a good thematic addition but it doesn't feel particularly relevant and so doesn't come up when the Dark Lord is standing ten hundred bazillian feet over your head and beating the fuck out of you with his giant hammer. There's philosophizing but there's also narrative stakes.
Other Christian writers do Augustinian theodicy really, really bad. Your average devil and/or demon in most works of Christian fiction will be a comedically impotent figure who has to immediately stop all the deviling the instant someone says "Jesus" out loud, like Swiper the Fox. There's no stakes at all.
This is the plot of every other Frank Peretti novel and every third Chick tract. If you see the devil, you wag your finger at him and say "Devil, no deviling" and he goes "Aw, man" and fucks off.
