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InfestedKerrigan

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There’s also the odd fact that the “Massacre of Innocents” is recorded only in the Gospel of Matthew. No other historical records of it exist, it’s not even mentioned in the other Gospels or referenced in any of the Pauline epistles... You don’t have to have any expertise in history to realize that the King of Judea ordering the massacre of every newborn child in his kingdom would have been mentioned by someone.  

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18 hours ago, Ish said:

You don’t have to have any expertise in history to realize that the King of Judea ordering the massacre of every newborn child in his kingdom would have been mentioned by someone.  

The parallels to the Pharoah ordering male Hebrew babies be killed in Exodus cannot be missed. More specifically, the sensationalized version of the event that modern Moses stories are based on, not what the bible actually says about it. In Exodus, it never actually mentions any babies being killed, but that the Pharoah was disappointed in the midwives for not killing the male babies as ordered. The story we're more familiar with (that the scribes warned the Pharaoh that an Isrealite child would threaten his reign, and the Moses was only saved because his parents had a premonition and hid him) are not in the bible. Whether or not male babies were killed is unclear, but the fact that Moses was hidden in a basket and stashed on a riverbank lends credence to the idea that there was some cause for concern. 

Within the greater context of the Book of Matthew, the reason why he'd use the expanded Pharoah story as the basis for his Massacre of the Innocents is pretty clear. Matthew's angle on Jesus's life and role within theology was an emphasis that his divinity was the fulfillment of OT prophecies and the realization of Jewish Law. Matthew was likely the 2nd Gospel written and at that time Christians were a sect within the Jewish community (by the time the Book of John was written, the tone changes and begins to focus on the growing divide between Christian and Jewish theology). Focusing on the common ground between Jewish beliefs and Christian beliefs makes framing Jesus's origin story as a re-imagining of Moses' origin story a pretty obvious narrative device.

As for the historical consequences of distorting Herod's actions, there would've been no love lost between Jews and Herod's legacy at the time of the writing.

1) Herod had executed 3 of his sons and one wife, so he did have blood on his hands. What's a little exaggeration gonna hurt?

2) The local Jews had always chafed under Herod. He, like many rulers over the years, officially adopted Judaism but giving up a lavish lifestyle wasn't really in the King's nature. He didn't get them, and they didn't get him.

3) And finally, the Book of Matthew was likely written within about a decade or 2 of the sacking of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in the First Jewish-Roman war. Considering that Herod became a governor due to his father's relationship with Julius Caesar, and later named king by the Roman Senate, it's not hard to imagine the Jewish author of the book being willing (if not eager) to tarnish Herod's legacy a bit.

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In high school at my first job, a customer said "has anyone ever told you you look like Danzig?" I stared at him, all 6 ft of my being insulted at being compared to the tiny meathead lead singer of one of my favorite bands.  The customer hesitated, "do you know who Danzig is?" Yes, I reply, unbuttoning my uniform revealing a die die my darling shirt. Just shocked at that comparison, sorry, you guys want free stuff? And "hook" them up.  To this day, everytime I hear Glenn's voice, I think of that moment with the customer and remind myself that they clearly never saw him drop cold after starting problems with another band.

 

edit: for those not in the know.  

 

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14 minutes ago, InfestedKerrigan said:


@Romans832, King Richard the Lionheart was a piece of crap King. 

Did someone mention something vaguely related to Twelfth Century England! Quickly, Robin, to the Rant-Mobile! 
 

 

Only domestically... and only because he was hardly ever there. He delegated almost all domestic governance to his chancellor, William de Longchamp, who served as a de facto regent.

Then John Lackland forced de Longchamp out, took over, and promptly lost the Duchy of Normandy and most of his other French lands to King Philip II of France, resulting in the totall collapse of the Plantagenet empire and boosting the power of their generations long rivals in the Capetian dynasty, who would come to dominate the next century. Cap it all off with the baronial revolt at the end of John's reign, which forced him to consent to Magna Carta and effectively end the kingship as it had been known since Cerdic of Wessex.

 

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6 minutes ago, Ish said:

Did someone mention something vaguely related to Twelfth Century England! Quickly, Robin, to the Rant-Mobile! 
 

 

Only domestically... and only because he was hardly ever there. He delegated almost all domestic governance to his chancellor, William de Longchamp, who served as a de facto regent.

Then John Lackland forced de Longchamp out, took over, and promptly lost the Duchy of Normandy and most of his other French lands to King Philip II of France, resulting in the totall collapse of the Plantagenet empire and boosting the power of their generations long rivals in the Capetian dynasty, who would come to dominate the next century. Cap it all off with the baronial revolt at the end of John's reign, which forced him to consent to Magna Carta and effectively end the kingship as it had been known since Cerdic of Wessex.

 

I'd count absenteeism to such an extent that it allowed someone else to take the throne as grounds for being a crap King.

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  • 2 weeks later...

The trick to enjoying Enterprise is to watch the pilot episode (“Broken Bow, Pt. I” and “Broken Bow, Pt. II”) and then skip immediately to the third episode of Season 4 (“Home”) and watch the remainder of the series... You don’t miss out on all that much good stuff, but you skip a lot of bad stuff.

Or just save a lot of time and hassle and just watch Deep Space 9 on a continuous loop.

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