Elliot

I think the number of Americans aware of that is probably about the same size as the number who could find Iran on a map.

I think a very large number of americans imagine the rest of the world as being either Neuschwannstein, Tokyo, or some biome-appropriate version of a Maasai village. Iran, being middle-eastern, is presumably a collection of Maasai villages full of dusty bedouin jihadis with bad teeth and AK-47s.

they have a museum. in waco, tx.

I think Ryan was my favorite of her protagonists. Very relatable.

You look great

This guy is a psychopath.
He just wants to kill people. And he's so gleeful about it.

yes haha

i can kiss it for you.

god i wish i hadn’t worded this so awkwardly. oh well. moses didn’t do so great when he wrote the pentateuch, so at least im in good company.

congrats on becoming more powerful

i also appreciate that they killed the cast off in the movie

this is amazing

what did he see?

but also it’s weird because even under the hospitality norms reading of the story, the story is extremely fucked up and morally disturbing. why would you want to recover the meaning of this text to support your moral viewpoint? it involves god committing genocide and a guy committing incest.

and i think this is dishonest because (a) there is no such thing and (b) it neglects how deeply the homophobic hermeneutics around this story are baked into christianity as a tradition.

and what I see, what i’m reacting to here, is a lot of progressive christians playing this foolish game of hermeneutical “correctness” where they try to escape the homophobia of their own religious tradition by appealing to the putative “real meaning” of the story.

jews have different read on it (though not universally), and that’s valid, and it’s nice that the common jewish interpretation isn’t homophobic. but that alternative tradition of interpretation doesn’t determine the “real meaning” of the story. there is no such thing.

the story is a myth, created by people. it had no intrinsic meaning. its meaning is determined by its use and interpretation in the communities that tell the story. the dominant function for the history of this story is related to sexual norms.

this goes back to the second temple period and dominates the christian reading of the text. so while there is certainly a viable alternative reading among jews that has historical merit and is attested biblically in ezekiel and so on, my point is pretty simple:

fwiw (not much) i corrected “told” to “invented” in a post immediately under the original.

and yes, i stand by what i said. since the invention of the story most of the use it has seen has been related to sexual deviancy and not hospitality norms.

we celebrate the win!

so you’re very familiar with one community of interpretation. great! that doesn’t entitle you to claim historical knowledge you evidently lack.

also you don’t even understand the original post. i’m not saying the author of the story was trying to be homophobic, in saying that the dominant function of the story through the history of its use has been homophobic. my point is that the original meaning doesn’t actually matter.

and you say this stuff based on what? gut feelings and knowledge of hebrew pronunciation?

Another entry! How wonderful.

actually the homosexuality angle existed before Jesus and is present in Philo Judaeus, the book of Jubilees and other texts from the second temple period. So you don’t know what you’re talking about.

And we’re writing in english, so idk how the pronunciation of Sodom is relevant.

it’s fascinating to me that you have a karl barth avatar. what’s the story there?

yes obviously

This joke took work, but it paid off.