Today’s Bible Lesson!
The words right from the mouth of Jesus Christ, to the best of the recollection of his disciple John, as recounted in the New Testament book he named after himself, simply “John.” Now you gotta realize he did this a couple millennia before his name by itself became a euphemism, so he was writing in a sincere frame of mind, not trying to publish a lot of crap.
Now Luke, he wrote that book “Acts of The Apostles,” which is usually shortened simply to “Acts,” kinda like the way Springsteen fans call one of his hits “Born” or Trekkies just say “Kirk” instead of “Captain Kirk.” Familiarity breeds brevity, which some of you may recall is the soul of wit.
Paul did not have a book named after him. Too bad, it would have been my favorite book! But he wrote Romans, perhaps the first documented attempt to spread the Gospel. It was not, as some believe, an attempt to write a screenplay for a gladiator movie.
After that, he got carried away. It wasn’t as though they had FedEx or anything, but he got into the habit of writing letters to distant heathen. Nobody really knows who actually delivered them. Maybe it was more like a blog, where he just scribbled down using, I dunno, maybe the jawbone of an ass, whatever crossed his mind and decreed that it was directed at say, The Corinthians in Greece (before they discovered retsina). He wrote them a couple of letters.
Then he wrote to “The Galatians,” who lived in what we now call Turkey, before they became Islamic and controlled the Ottoman Empire.
I had an Ottoman once. It was in front of my sofa. I could put books (or letters) on it to read, or just prop my feet on it to watch TV. It wasn’t firm enough to balance a beer mug and was an unsuitable for anything but the positions in the appendix of the Kama Sutra, which always seemed, to me at least, too much like the one page partially-verbal instructions on how to assemble my veneered wood grain home entertainment center.
No, you back there in the third row, there is no "Fellatians." John did not write that book, whereever you found it. Books such as these are called "apocryphal."
Now, getting back to our Bible lesson, take my word for it - Paul wrote a whole shitload of letters, even though it is not clear whether anybody ever responded. I’m sure they did. Even those 419 “Nigerian Princes” get a few responses to their Spam or they would quit bothering.
Our friend John wasn’t all that interested in exporting Christianity. There’s not a lot to say about him because he didn’t scribble down that much. But quoting Jesus Christ, whom good Christians should never confuse with “Jesus H. Christ,” a false god created by Philly shortstop Larry Bowa after the third base ump blew a call on an obvious tag, in extra innings - No, we’re talking real 100% pure Jesus here - and here, according to John, is something he said:
John 18:33 Then Pilate entered into the judgment hall again, and called Jesus, and said unto him, Art thou the King of the Jews?
34 Jesus answered him, Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me?
35 Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me: what hast thou done?
36 Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.
That shit confuses me. Not just the archaic “sayest” or “thine,” I’m talking about the philosophical construction of “36.” The “my kingdom is not of this world” bit is easy, that’s just a bowdlerized Cheneyesque recommendation for the hottest clubs in town for Pilate. The confusing part is the syllogism “If A then B, from which logically follows C, but I state ‘not A’.”
A but not A.
Why did he state a contradiction in the form of Russell’s Paradox, which informs us that the very grounds of rational thought are suspect? It really sucks because it means we really have to think it all through to sort things out.
Effort, not blind faith.
I hate it when that happens. It’s so much easier when spammers spell it out: what we need to do to get illegal drugs, enlarge our erectile organs, or get cheap mortgages. Still, I kinda wish John would been the Spammer Disciple.
9:21:52 AM 
|
|
