Rest in Peace Dr.Sugrue. Thank you for your work. you've had a profound impact on my growth.

Dr. Sugrue is an example of the greatness of the internet

Thanks very much Dr. Sugrue. This was one of the best explanations and lectures on the Book of Job. Really appreciate all that you do.

Another treat for tonight’s nightcap. Thank you professor Sugrue and family 👏🏻 Blessings to you 😊🐶

I didn't realize until I actually read Job that all modern emo poetry was a gigantic waste of time because none of it could possibly be more melancholy than Job.

@_PanchoVilla

7 ай бұрын

Existenistalists first love

@joshscott6914

4 ай бұрын

@@_PanchoVilla And Ecclesiastes

@_PanchoVilla

4 ай бұрын

@@joshscott6914 my two favorites... How'd you know?!

@robertburke9920

25 күн бұрын

For a breakthrough understanding of the Book of Job, read the novel “Where Do We Go Now, LORD? - Burke. Advanced. Good.

Come back to this one a lot. Enjoy the conversation in the celestial mansions, professor. You live in our memory of curiosity on a rainy day in the Spring. Now, with us.

"We're lucky to be given the very small rays of understanding that we *do* actually get"

I wish Dr. Sugrue had been my philosophy teacher back in the day - he is an absolutely brilliant lecturer! Thank you for uploading

Heavens! It is nearly impossible to find the 1st ed of "Great Authors of the Western Literary Tradition" these days. I did not know Dr. Sugrue was featured in the original series. I am very thankful for this channel. Great for those repetitious days at work.

@MiaV7

3 жыл бұрын

agreed! I am looking forward to this series so much, thank you Dr Sugrue

@cliftonawesomekid

3 жыл бұрын

kzread.info/head/PLez3PPtnpncT3FVrZqrLGllGpOf4HXJFh

@cliftonawesomekid

3 жыл бұрын

Hopefully that helps

@pelodelperro

2 жыл бұрын

@@cliftonawesomekid That's really helpful!

Job is a tonic for self-pity. Wow. This is brilliant.

I wish you all the best, Dr. Sugrue.

Always enjoyed the story of Job. I appreciate this new context and insight.

Thank you, Dr. Sugrue

This is amazing. I love all of these lectures! Fascinating and expertly delivered.

thanks for the playlists, I see you compiled them on the basis of content- so much easier to listen everthing now. Very glad to see that people really care for yt audience - as we listen carefully to dr. Sugrue -guess it works both ways 👍

thanks for uploading this.

These lectures are absolutely captivating. There was this one lecture I saw a year or so ago which discusses socratic love (Love is a yearning for eternity) I believe. I really hope it will eventually get uploaded here as well.

He has that Carl Sagan voice but he’s talking about the Bible, this is almost trippy!

@ramonsanchezperez897

7 ай бұрын

I always think of the old Sagan when I listen to Sugrue. Hope Sagan is in a better place now.

Thanks a ton for your valuable information. It was great 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙂

Aha! Ive been listening to this string of lectures by Dr. Sugrue for months on spotify and this one is missing. Glad to have found it here.

Amazing lecture!!!

How good is Professor Sugrue? In this lecture, he convinces me there certainly cannot be a God and then three minutes later, I'm thoroughly convinced of God's existence. This back and forth occurs at least two or three times throughout this lecture. Dr. Sugrue is the master of objectivity, not just in this lecture but all his lectures.

@waltergross1269

5 ай бұрын

Well said...the questioning of God is how I know God exists...for me personally

Thank You!

Wonderful, Wonderful, Thank you , thanks a lot

Splendid

Wow! Thank you!

This was so good

Another absolute home run

Hi Dr Mike! You haven’t uploaded anything for some time; hope you are doing well! Love and good wishes 💛 P.S- waiting for new lectures 😊

@dr.michaelsugrue

3 жыл бұрын

More lectures will be up this week. We thank you for supporting Dr. Sugrue!

@restashoremusic

3 жыл бұрын

@@dr.michaelsugrue thank you sir

The last 8 minutes are so funny, yet profound from 40:00 onward, total praise, submission, and surrender unto The Most High

The view of God's actions given by the book of Job seems to have interesting and strong similarities to that of the stoics.

The Book of Job tells us God is superfluous to morality. Faith is not necessary for autonomous morality. Indeed, God here is not necessary for morality, but He is necessary for the existence of evil.

@haywingpong5371

2 жыл бұрын

Your idea is pretty much like saying that God is not necessary for an atheist, isn't it? But the notion of being an atheist has the most conspicuous backdrop of a deity.

I like to reinterpret the surprising end of the story not as God providing Job with a "reward" for his suffering but rather in the wake of Job's suffering, Job can still proceed with having a good life on the earth God created.

or perhaps its spontaneous self organization in terms of gifts... that is to say it is something that is not well ordered yet, but it is understood well, and left alone like the prime directive.

Just consider Job's tirade, in Stephen Mitchell's translation: God damn the day I was born And the night that forced me from the womb On that day let there be darkness Let it never have been created Let it sink back into the void Let chaos overpower it Let black clouds overwhelm it Let the sun be plucked from the sky. If I ever neglected the poor, or made the innocent suffer If I ate my meals alone, and did not share with the hungry If I did not clothe the naked, or care for the ragged beggar If his body did not bless me for the warmth of my sheep's wool If I ever abused the helpless, knowing that I could not be punished Let my arm fall from my shoulder, and my elbow be ripped from its socket! If I ever trusted in silver, or pledged allegiance to gold If I laughed when my enemy fell, or rejoiced when suffering found him If I ever covered my crimes, or buried my sins in my heart Afraid of what people thought, shivering behind my doors ... If my land cries out against me, its furrows weep together May nettles grow there instead of wheat; instead of barley, stinkweed! Man who is born of woman - How few and harsh are his days ... And must You take notice of him? Must You call him to account? Since all his days are determined and the sum of his years is set Look away; leave him alone Grant him peace, for one moment.

@tonygallagher8300

Жыл бұрын

too self consc

No new lecture this week professor ? 😞🤗

37:20 note to self

modeliing each sentient species machines included, as weakly bounded curves is possible, logic space exists, based on choice domains, i believe it was 200 or so that the economics nobel was given for trimodal gaussian modeling of choice.

I'm always looking for new interesting lectures on Psychology/Philosophy, please let me know if you guys have any recommendations, would be highly appreciated

@_PanchoVilla

7 ай бұрын

Zizek: Lacan (psychology) and Hegel (philosophy) mixed into one pop cult hero.

So then, for a breakthrough understanding of the Book of Job, read the novel “Where Do We Go Now, LORD? - Burke.” Answers-Answers-Answers.

During this lecture I had to think of Albert Camus' "The Plague" : "What's true of all the evils in the world is true of the plague as well. It helps men to rise above themselves. All the same, when you see the misery it brings, you'd need to be a madman, or a coward, or stone blind, to give in tamely to the plague." "No, Father. I've a very different idea of love. And until my dying day, I shall refuse to love a scheme of things in which children are put to torture." No argument and no glorification of God can absolve him of his responsibility for his creation. Perhaps he is simply indifferent. And if so - then we need to care for each other even more lovingly.

_"In sober truth, nearly all the things which men are hanged or imprisoned for doing to one another, are Nature's every day performances. Killing, the most criminal act recognized by human nature, Nature does once to every being that lives; and in a large proportion of cases, after protracted tortures such as the greatest monsters whom we read of ever purposely inflicted on their fellow creatures…All this, Nature does with the most supercilious disregard both of mercy and of justice, emptying her shafts upon the best and noblest indifferently with the meanest and worst; upon those who are engaged in the highest and worthiest enterprises, and often as the direct consequence of the noblest acts … I will call no being good, who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow creatures; and if such a being can sentence me to hell for not so calling him, to hell I will go."_ ( *John Stuart Mill,* "Nature" in Three Essays on Religion (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus, 1998) 5. )

@StarboyXL9

2 жыл бұрын

I hope that sentiment brings him some small comfort in eternal agony.

There are no contradictions in nature, and we are a part of it.

Here's my explanation for the seeming capriciousness of God's actions, ie, bestowing good or bad upon this or that --if Free Will is true , which, in my understanding, humans have been God wants us to freely choose Him--but, Randomness, aka, "caprice" or indifference--which if I think we're honest, it should be fair to say the terrible events that happen to "good people" are for better or worse, "randomly distributed," --is required if any sort of "freely chosen" acts are to be effectively discerned. In other words, God gave us free will, but also created Randomness in distribution of events un order to produce, to but it bluntly, a basic "experiement."

The fear of the lord is the beginning of all wisdom. There is a reason why the Bible is 66 books that together form the tapestry of God's word and will.

@_PanchoVilla

7 ай бұрын

Fear of God.

1. Real failth is beyond thelogy, beyond human capatical 2. Why God create evil ? 3. Ontological is about Being Grateful ❤

38:00 for the next 90 seconds makes me cry.

A great lecture. I would just mention that, in regards to your question on Satan’s presence in God’s heavenly assembly towards the beginning of the video, this isn’t necessarily identified as the same Devil in Christianity who is known as the fallen angel Lucifer - in this context I believe he is often thought of as the direct translation of the generic Hebrew noun “satan” meaning “accuser”, which other Jewish scholars identify as the personification of yetzer hara, or the natural inclination towards evil behavior. Not necessarily the same entity as the “Satan” we’ve come to identify with the Christian Devil, which I always found lent this story another level of intricacy seeing as this is basically an angel of God who wreaks havoc on a human being with His consent. Anyway, I loved your dissection of this book and thank you for everything.

@StarboyXL9

2 жыл бұрын

No it is the original Lucifer. Lucifer was exiled from Heaven but he is still allowed to request audiences with his Creator. Despite his intentions always being evil, it is in God's nature to give him the grace he doesn't deserve. Besides that, even in his fallen state Lucifer still serves God's purpose as the ultimate example of what happens when a free will being embraces purely reason and rationality. They become a monster. So in light of that God allows Lucifer his audiences, so that Lucifer can ask for permission to do the things we wants to do, because he can only inflict undue and undeserved suffering on someone with God's permission.

@BrooklynLuke

2 жыл бұрын

@@StarboyXL9 What are you basing that on? Not sure where in Job it is confirmed that it is Lucifer and not the "satanic"/angelic entity I was describing.

@StarboyXL9

2 жыл бұрын

@@BrooklynLuke It literally says it in the Bible. Lucifer is the only entity ever referred to as "Satan" because it's his title, not his name.

@dubthedirector

2 жыл бұрын

Knowledge!

@doodleprophet

Жыл бұрын

I keep coming back to this because I keep reading the exchange between God and Satan like the lesson is intended for Satan, not Job. What does Satan learn from all this?

46:07 The point of the good ending in Job, is that God *can chose* to reward you materially if it so pleases him, and you are supposed to love God autonomously regardless of the case. God's free will is greater than our free will - and He will take care of us if we trust Him. It's recapitulated in the Sermon on the Mount - where, if God takes care of every bird and every flower, then surely he will take care of you, if you believe in Him. In Job's case, the allowance of all sorts of evil things to happen to Job, is a repeat of the binding of Isaac, where the purpose was to refine Abraham's and Job's faith, in a seemingly impossible demand from God to either sacrifice his own son(which God is willing to do himself, with Christ), and seemingly impossible demand to remain faithful to God despite being sent evils for no apparent punishing reason. It's complete trust in God, even if we do not know what God's eventual aim will be with us.

@shaunkerr8721

Жыл бұрын

"God is dead. God remains dead." He's not rising in 3 days, 3 years, or 3 eons. The churches are growing emptier by the Sunday and even those whom still believe are mostly Easter/Christmas only Christians who want to hold on to tradition. Darwin was correct and in several more generations Christianity will be what Hellenic/Roman Paganism is: interesting stories ppl read about their ancestors silly superstitious beliefs. Some new religion will take its place to be sure; we are but human, but, Christianity is dead. God is dead. Christian morality is dead. I justify my existence a posteriori and define my morality based on my own desires and instincts. I recommend you do the same, if you can. If not, the herd is for you.

@krisdabrowski5420

Жыл бұрын

​@@shaunkerr8721 Christ is risen from the dead, and his Saints are walking the earth as we speak, with mountains of evidence, including extremely recent video testimony of them. Here is just one example: kzread.info/dash/bejne/jIaglbaBdLy0ZrQ.html If you are willing to live in the interpersonal reality of the triune God, instead of degenerating into solopsistic egoism, then I recommend you accept the mountains of testimony that support what I have said. However, if you want to keep joining the growing majority atheist herd that mindlessly believes in whatever desires corporations force into you, piggy-backing on twisted instincts distorted through an unnatural way of life, then there is nothing to stop you from committing to intentional self-delusion.

@shaunkerr8721

Жыл бұрын

@@krisdabrowski5420 Jesus dies 2k years ago and was not raised from the dead. He is not God and God is not real. Your testimonies = nothing. There are as many or more testimonies of Allah, what about those? If I am to accept yours on faith then I mus theirs, too, correct? Or what about miracles that happen in India from Hindi? Your religion will be thought of the way we think about Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades one day. Enjoy your delusion; I have no desire to rob you of it, but I will continue to indulge my instincts and live by my own moral code.

@_PanchoVilla

7 ай бұрын

Trust in God but don't sacrifice any kids just yet, folks.

16:45secs perhaps we are not meant to know everything because so called evil and good, invert as time passes by, of course there is the argument that is well founded, that Good is Just plain and always GOOD, but in this world there is error, so the inversion of what seems to be evil for the time, could produce fruits that are commesurate with better future outcomes.

Can the proposed ontological perspective that man is closer to the worm than to God be reconciled to the Revealed Scriptural statement that man is made in the image and likeness of God? No mention is made in Scripture that man is made in the image and likeness of a worm or vice-versa. This is not to say that we don't need to be humble or that God is not so far above us that we can challenge Him. God is always right but as David prayed it is to God's Glory that He has crowned man. (See psalm 8)

@_PanchoVilla

7 ай бұрын

I like to imagine mankind is from clay and not dirt.

Perhaps its like the four heavenly kings, one is a dictator, but it is to keep his subjects pacifistic.

The End of the story is that although "BAD" things can and will happen to you "GOOD" things can and will ALSO happen to you---the moral? Treat the "GOOD" as you would the "BAD".

I keep coming back to this because I keep reading the exchange between God and Satan like the lesson is intended for Satan, not Job. What does Satan learn from all this or what does God intend to teach to Satan?

@doodleprophet

Жыл бұрын

10:30 What's the point of having an argument with God? Isn't philosophy about crafting an argument? A claim of knowledge. If God is always right, then there is no one better to address doubt and skepticism because God would reveal greater knowledge in response because God has the Perfect argument, the Perfect philosophy. In Christian tradition anyways. I would revel and celebrate the opportunity to argue with God. The purpose is to better understand God.

@doodleprophet

Жыл бұрын

16:00 So God is proven correct before the conversation with the friends and the grand finale

@doodleprophet

Жыл бұрын

17:30 So the curse God and die parts are intended as an ancient form of mercy to end Job's suffering? Is it bitterness or compassion when someone tells Job to curse God and die?

@doodleprophet

Жыл бұрын

21:00 Job is correct but also wrong if he started out in this story with a hedge of protection that God removed for Satan. Satan identifies everything as what God has given to Job.

@doodleprophet

Жыл бұрын

25:00 So Job sins when he says "I know this to be true" Is he not saying what God said at the beginning? Isn't he in agreement with God that he has been "a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil". God prefaced that with "there is none like him on the earth" If God cannot be proven wrong on this, how is Job sinning for agreeing with God?

This is flat materialist version of Job, it insists on finding fault in Job, and in elevating Elihu’s restating of points already made earlier into more than they are, solely because he speaks last. The lecture selectively excludes and replaces, it tells us about the good Professor not the text. Gustavo Gutierrez’s misguided version is more creative and richer, and still inspires the spiritually minded progressives. Give us an answer to the poet’s riddles of Leviathan and Behemoth, beyond a crocodile and hippopotamus, and it may advance our understanding of the text. And, the reason God makes Job whole in the end is that it symbolizes the resurrection, it completes the presentation of Job as an archetype of the suffering sinless Messiah to come. God bless Professor Sugrue.

Mr Bean was a pretty clever guy all along

Some good takeaways here, Michael. However, I have to disagree with you regarding your take on Elihu and God's appearance at the end of this story. Question: if Elihu "straightens Job out" as you claim, then why does God appear later and also "straighten Job out"? If Elihu did it, why does God then have to do it, too? Have you considered maybe Elihu did not "straighten Job out"? Question: you have claimed that Job spoke arrogantly and blasphemously - so how do you reconcile that claim with the fact that God says in chapter 42 that Job has spoken rightly about Him? God states this twice in chapter 42. Question: You claim Elihu has "clearly won the argument" - but how? Question: did you notice that the only person in this story that claims that Elihu is right is Elihu? Neither the 3 friends, nor Job, nor God affirm Elihu. Did you notice that? The only one who gives testimony about Elihu is Elihu. I would contend that Elihu is not simply right because he says so. Where is his testimony confirmed? Also, if the argument is that it is because Elihu says things similar to God, I would challenge you to notice the stark differences in how Elihu says them compared to how God says them. Yes, they talk about the same ideas, but in completely different ways and, I believe, for completely different reasons. Question: do you think other people, like David and the prophet Habakkuk, are also guilty of "satanic pride" when they question God in their writings? Question: do you really believe that God's attitude is how you characterize it here in your teaching? You added words to what God said, saying that God is essentially telling Job he is "prideful and arrogant". If that is the case, then why doesn't God address that with Job? I would offer to you that perhaps this moment is where Job actually finds comfort from God, which you claim at the end is essentially missing from this story. Thank you in advance for any answers you can provide. All the best. CM

@christophermonroe5505

10 ай бұрын

@@ibz1431 thank you for your response. First of all, let me insert here that I appreciate the discourse as I believe it can only help us all. So, thank you! Yes, I do understand the perspective that you present here. In fact, I have read through Elihu's speeches with that very consideration, as many other people have, too. Some consider Elihu an angel or a prophet from God, and I have even seen some consider Elihu to be a type of Jesus as well. However, in my wrestling with this mysterious character, there were a few things that jumped out at me, and seemed very strange - especially in light of considering him a good guy. Here are some of those instances: 1) in Job 33:12 Elihu states that “God is greater than man.” At this point, Job and his friends have already said as much. It seems redundant, so why would Elihu need to state it again? 2) In Job 34:4 Elihu says, “Let us choose what is right. Let us know among ourselves what is good.” (ESV) This stands out to me because it sounds like Judges 17:6 where it says that everyone did what was right in their own eyes, which is essentially the definition for wickedness. 3) In Job 34:36 Elihu says he wishes Job would be “tried unto the end”. Whoah. If Elihu is meant to help Job, I don’t hear any grace in this declaration by Elihu. 4) In Job 34:37, Elihu says that Job is adding rebellion to his sin. One could argue Job is being rebellious in a sense - but what “sin” is Job adding this rebellion to? From the beginning of this story we know that Job is not suffering because of some sin he committed. So why would Elihu say that? 5) We know that God affirms Job at the beginning of the story (chapters 1 & 2) and also at the end of the story (Job 42:6,7). Elihu does not affirm Job - not at all. Finally, look at the way in which Elihu speaks to Job compared to how God speaks to Job. Elihu is angry, harsh, fatalistic and judgmental of Job. Again, he has no grace whatsoever. None. However, look at how God speaks to Job. God asks Job questions. He is confronting Job, sure. But it’s in the form of questions. There is grace in questions. Recall the Apostle Paul being knocked off his horse and confronted by Jesus, who says, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?” That grace changed Paul’s entire life.

Ducks 41:38

So God tanked Job's life to win a bet?

I knew a guy who cursed God and died, about 30 years later.

@_PanchoVilla

7 ай бұрын

I know a guy who cursed God and lives, about 30 years later.

Humans are curious by nature, so to me it seems like some bull shit to have God require complete submission and no questions be asked. "Shut and take what I send your way but don't you dare talk ill of me." Seems like a petty god. I'm reminded of what Marcus said: “Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.” The Hebrew/Christian god is not just.

@dr.michaelsugrue

Жыл бұрын

You are an "A" student, I like the way you think. I believe you are mistaken in an admirably thoughtful way. Would you prefer an infinite God that asked your all too finite permission to control the universe? Have you ever considered why Omniscience doesn't have a suggestion box? When we inform God that He is "unjust" or "petty" for not soliciting our slander, I am struck by His disinterest in hiring you as a management consultant for the universe. Unjust compared to what? It it your belief that God could be improved, and that He would be more magnanimous and less petty if He would just do as you bid Him?

@jasonavant7470

Жыл бұрын

@@dr.michaelsugrue I wouldn't ask God for any sort of control of the Universe as I'm a mere mortal. However, I would ask why did he endow us with a mind that can think and reason which ultimately leads to curiosity, only to be told that He doesn't have to explain himself to us in any sort of capacity? It almost seems cruel that he made us this way! It's like having an itch you can never scratch. He didn't give us supernatural strength or claws or large teeth or the ability to run fast or fly as the other creatures he created. He gave us a mind to think with. Does God want mindless beings to just worship him and obey him? I don't believe so. If we as humans refuse to use the one gift we have, our mind, then what's the point of anything? The idea that God doesn't have to explain himself and that he works in mysterious ways just seems like a cop-out for when someone asks, "Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?". Unjust compared to what, you ask. Doesn't true justice command that we abstain from our selfish pursuit of pleasure so that we may do right by our fellow man? This is basically the Golden Rule that Jesus gave us. It seems that God, Jesus' father, sees us as his playthings. Like he's a grumpy old man and Jesus says to him, "Father you need to relax". To which God replies, "You see how they are, you go and deal with them." To which Jesus replies with, "OK I will!" If a third of the angels sided against him and they knew His power and the glory of Heaven, what chance do we have as mere mortals at salvation if we're all considered sinners? I appreciate your reply and I love your lectures and insight. You have opened my eyes. I listen daily and it sustains me in the way scripture sustains others.

@dr.michaelsugrue

Жыл бұрын

@@jasonavant7470 My friend, it is a mistake to assume that you are entitled to an answer. God owes us nothing.

@_PanchoVilla

7 ай бұрын

"I am not rebelling against my God; I simply don't accept His world. -Ayosha in The Brothers Karazmov; Dostoevsky

The Book of Job? A couple of two-bit thugs agreeing in a dirty backstreet deal to demean and torture a just man. It comes to little more. And THAT'S how evil plays out. The rest is silence.

@_PanchoVilla

7 ай бұрын

Job is a victim of a tragedy

Why are you imposing the Christian view of God to the Hebrew Bible. Job did judged god, Jonah disagreed with God, Abraham and Moses argued with god. If god isn't beneficial, why cooperate with him? The many authors of the Hebrew library didn't all have the same view of god. Why couldn't an evel being create man because he needed slaves. Wouldn't you agree, or kowtou, to Stalin too. How do you know god is moral? The god of Genesis 3 is the bad and angry guy in the the story. The Serpent is totally true and benificent.

@dr.michaelsugrue

6 ай бұрын

An eminent theologian, Schliermacher, once wrote, “God is Man’s Idea of himself”. This is a powerful truth: at the very minimum, the religion of a people is, the collective self-understanding of that people coded into stories. All polytheism, like all politics, is local. In every human society, nature cults were constituted featuring spooks and spirits and polytheistic pantheons, unique to their localities and to the peoples that created them. These religions were also the locus of art and knowledge. They were the cult in culture. Other peoples, in other places were understood to have their own gods. Simultaneously, these peoples were constituting the collective self-conception of their local band or tribe or nation in creating their particular religious myths. Religion articulates the social self, a collective identity in distinction to all other tribes and their deities. Indeed, the persistence of these gods is a metonym for the persistence of these peoples. The emergence of monotheism changed everything because a single universal God signals the birth of a single, unified humanity. No longer local but universal, no longer one among many, no longer anthropomorphic and fallible, capricious and flawed, the one God is a covert constitution of the unity of the human race, beyond the accidents of time and space. The ancient split between the civilized and barbarous, the high and the low, would be healed. The Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten’s stroke of genius in creating the first monotheism lies in the implicit acknowledgement of one human species which was beholden to Ra, the unique, benevolent, indispensable Sun. Omnipotent and omniscient, Akhenaten’s Sun disk was represented in contemporary stone inscriptions as the unique source of light, from which many rays extended, each one ending in a little hand. The Egyptian priests destroyed Akhenaten’s contribution to world history, but the monotheistic insight was taken up and elaborated by renegade Egyptian slaves, the Hebrews, whose leader Moses was probably himself Egyptian. In welding themselves, individually and collectively to YHWH, the Hebrews contributed a permanent legacy to the cultural patrimony of the world. One God means one human species with a shared destiny, a shared providence, bound together by one set of universal moral rules. There are now no “Others”. These universal moral rules are understood to be accessible to all, on account of reason, independent of revelation. In Genesis, Cain is presumed guilty of murder when he killed his brother Abel, despite the fact that God does not reveal the Fifth Commandment until Exodus, the next book. When the prophet Nathan indicts King David with the accusation, “You are the man,” the universality of YHWH’s moral law in insisted upon equally both for alien Hittite mercenaries and for Israelite kings. By the time of the Babylonian Captivity and the subsequent rebuilding of the temple, despite the fact that they are chosen men within a chosen people, the prophets begin to sound uncompromisingly Kantian in their universalism. The influence of Persian Zoroastrianism is everywhere in exilic and postexilic Judaism, despite the prophets’ best efforts to avoid syncretism they are at the same time intellectually indebted to the Persians. For people who are totally untouched by any trace of syncretism, the major prophets constantly insist that their revelations are entirely untainted by any anxiety about being freed by a conqueror who himself is a monotheist but not a member of the chosen people. The early condemnation of the Canaanites and Philistines in the book of Joshua morphs into a blessing upon all nations, as YHWH reveals Himself in time. “Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance.” (Isaiah 2:4,19:25). Now all people are God’s people and all are chosen to receive divine favor. This attractively coherent Zoroastrian/Jewish hybrid was advocated by the Pharisees, while the Sadducees held fast to the preexilic contingency and anthropomorphism of a local divinity that has emotions and never rectifies the unjust world He created. This train of thought will eventually mutate into Gnosticism, which existed prior to and independently of Christianity. YHWH without justice being realized in an afterlife is as imperfect as his creation. This is the origin of the Gnostic Demiurge. The intrinsic imperfection of the creator, the world and human life morphs into a parasitic mystery cult, Gnosticism is the lamprey of religions. One can see in these stances religious controversies that emerge centuries later. The hidden universalist syncretism in the thought of the Pharisees eventuates Jewish Kantianism and it is easy to see how Kant’s incisive account of universal moral law would appeal to the great rabbis trying to formulate a practical moral theory within the hard limits of divine commandments and the necessities that emerge from the flux of circumstance. The crypto syncretism of the Pharisees informed the postexilic creation of a written canonical text of the Bible under Ezra and Nehemiah. The Hebrew biblical canon remained “open” for an extended period, all the way to Daniel and beyond to the Macabees. Daniel can be dated to the early second century BC because of references to Persian rulers. This means that their contemporaries the Essenes, who connected the Zoroastrian insight of the Pharisees’ afterlife where justice prevails to the conscientious insistence on the strict observance of divinely ordained rituals championed by the Sadducees were a sect of ascetic Jews in the desert who treated as scripture scrolls that never made it into the biblical canon, without any suggestion of apocryphal or heretical status. The bathing and ritual purity of the Essenes may well be indicative of influences from India spliced in as well. The Persian inflected moral universalism of Second Temple Judaism that was advocated by the Pharisees was the first fully thought out, logically and mythically coherent monotheism, which is also deeply colored by Hellenistic rationalism, if not by Greek humanism. Akhenaten, Zoroaster, Hebrew prophets, Plato, were all contributors to the integration and summation of all of the world’s ghosts and spooks and spirits and things that go bump in the night, incorporeal jinn, Athenian gods unknown, and the rest of their mythic peers into an infinite, unsayable, omnipotent, omniscient, providential, God, the sum of all perfections. This idea was the greatest contribution made by the Jewish people to the world, regardless of the other signal achievements they have made. “God” had a very long gestation period and when finally released by Trajan from the last connection to any specific location or to any particular people in 70AD. For roughly thirty years before and after the destruction of the Second Temple a heretical Jewish sect spun itself off from any traditional localism and repudiated all ethnic/political social/financial distinctions. Universal moral rules are the precondition for the words that the gospel attributed to the angels at the Nativity of Jesus, “Glory to God in the highest and peace to men of good will”. The universal peace heralded by Isaiah when he anticipates that swords shall be beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks is a signal contribution to the moral vision of the world, unthinkable in the Greco-Roman tradition. One universal God means one universal humanity means one universal moral law means one universal providence. The Old Testament is in fact an epic poem with a collective subject: the Chosen People. The book of Job gestures at, and the endurance, over millennia, of enormous pains and hardships leads to a new understanding, a homecoming (Jerusalem and the Second Temple) and the triumph of the sacred. Second Temple Judaism under Ezra and Nehemiah had only been preserved to restart by a religious revival in Babylon under prophets who wrote against syncretism before, during and after the Babylonian Captivity. The return to Jerusalem resulted in the transformation of the Hebrew alphabet from its archaic to its modern form. Various texts and oral traditions were knit together into one canonical text after the Second Temple was rebuilt and the influence of Zoroastrianism in Second Temple Judaism was widespread. In captivity, the Jews prayed to YHWH for deliverance. When the Persian emperor Cyrus defeated the Babylonian Empire the enslaved Jews interpreted this as Providential, like Exodus. The fact that Cyrus and the Persians were monotheistic yet embraced a Manichean dualism in which a god of light overcomes an adversary, the god of darkness must have made an impression on the newly freed inhabitants of the Second Jerusalem. The Zoroastrians believed in an afterlife of rewards and punishments, and universalist ethics.

@goofyahhh254

2 ай бұрын

Thanks for this extra content/insight Dr...I'm going to read it now. ​@dr.michaelsugrue Continue your discussions in the heavens

@ElonMuskrat-my8jy

Ай бұрын

Shalom, rabbi. The Old Testament is a Christian text. Job and the rest of the Scriptures have prophecies of the Incarnation of Christ and the general resurrection of the dead. Christ is the fulfullment of the Law and the Prophets. Judaism is insufficient to interpret it.

Im quite unimpressed by the comparison of Promethus to Satan. I mean, come on! Satan curses his victims whereas Promethus grants nothing but blessings to mankind. The two couldn't be further apart unless you conflate the demon Zeus with God almighty.

@_PanchoVilla

7 ай бұрын

Prometheus rebelled against the gods like Lucifer did with God. Both symbolize divine knowledge.

Your Christianity is showing through. Many scholars I've read will tell you there is no devil in the Hebrew Bible. There is no afterlife either. Look up the etymology of the Hebrew word Saton. The serpent in Genesis is not Lucifer either. If you read the story closely, the Serpent is Eve's friend and tells her the truth. If you don't believe me, re-read Genesis 3:22-23.

@dr.michaelsugrue

6 ай бұрын

The reemergence of monotheism among the Hebrews after the false start in Egypt of Akhenaten rendered omnipotence predictable by means of a covenant: mutual promises between YHWH and His chosen people which were completely reliable because YHWH was completely trustworthy. The Old Testament simultaneously contains both prophetic warnings about the dangers of syncretism and a considerable amount of direct borrowing from the archaic traditions of the river valley civilizations of the Nile and the Tigris-Euphrates. The story of Noah and the Flood in Genesis may well have been adapted from the Gilgamesh tradition or a common predecessor. Sargon of Akkad was only the first of many rulers prior to Moses that did the legendary “baby in the basket retrieved from the river and raised in the royal household” trick. The anomalous Nephilim, described in Genesis 6:1-4 as “Sons of God” and “heroes of old, men of renown” who had sex with human women, may well be undigested remnants from an earlier polytheistic tradition. This would seem to confirm that there were polytheistic antecedents for Hebrew as well as for Egyptian monotheism. The emergence of monotheism was a process, not an event, and this process apparently took centuries to achieve completion. Since one assumes that the Hebrews existed prior to their first encounter with YHWH, if they did not have a religion, they would have been the only such people on the planet. They would have been more than anomalous, they would also be the most improbable thing on the planet, a second millennium BC collection of marginal nomadic pastoralists ahistorically composed of religious skeptics. If, on the other hand prior to beginning their contract with YHWH the Hebrews had been anything other than polytheistic, like every other people on the planet, that would be an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence. Finding atavistic polytheistic holdovers in ancient Israel is no more surprising than finding analogous pre-Christian holdovers in the medieval Europe, like the archaic nature magic of witchcraft. The book of Proverbs, traditionally attributed to King Solomon, was largely derived from sources that predated the historical existence of the Hebrews. The Bible states (1 Kings 4:29-34) that Solomon’s surpassing wisdom was greater than that of the wise men in Mesopotamia and Egypt, so obviously these archaic traditions were known to them. Modern archaeological finds now indicate that large chunks of the Old Testament Book of Proverbs is lifted from, among other sources, the Egyptian, “Teachings of Ptah-Hotep” and “Instruction of Amen-em-Ope” as well as the Sumerian “Instructions of Shuruppak” and the Akkadian “Counsel of Wisdom”. It is possible that further sources will be found in the future, but the lifting, not of phrases but at least in some cases, of large multi-chapter chunks, combined with at least four different sources drawn from both river valley civilizations that we have already, would prove plagiarism beyond any reasonable doubt if we were investigating an undergraduate exam. Proverbs is a quiltwork of ancient borrowings, but regardless it is still one of the best books of the Bible; good instruction for children and good reminders for adults. Mysteriously, Proverbs 8:22-30, features a “Lady Wisdom” who is described as the first thing God created, the Genesis stories notwithstanding. In the archaic sources of the Old Testament, she may well have been the consort of the creator God, a wisdom goddess like the Egyptian goddess Ma’at or the Mesopotamian goddess Asheroth. These myths were later fused together and moved from being outside the unique creator God, which was intrinsically awkward in any monotheism, to inside, within God’s Mind, where they depersonalized and became Abstract Reason, the impersonal YHWH of Plato’s Form of the Good. This conjecture about ancestry of the Logos is reinforced by the recent finding of two potsherds at Kuntillet Ajrud in the Sinai desert that date from the 9th century BC. They both show a male figure with a female figure identified by the inscriptions below them (in an archaic Hebrew script) as “YHWH and his Asheroth”. If Lady Wisdom were borrowed from some earlier polytheistic tradition, as so much of the Book of Proverbs demonstrably was, She would have been a very anomalous object of reverence in Israel as the consort of YHWH, the Queen of Heaven. Clever Mrs. YHWH would have been a kind of Semitic Penelope or Athena. It is she that may have been the object of Jeremiah’s angry condemnation in 44:15-25. Other fragments of various mythic traditions can also be found in the patchwork of Genesis. The two creation stories at the beginning are difficult to reconcile and probably represent two distinct northern and southern sources. Tubal Cain is nominated as the father of metallurgy as he is described as the source of brass and iron in Genesis 4:22, yet the sources of the Genesis narratives antedate the beginning of the Iron Age by many centuries. The conflict between Cain and Abel, a story of a farmer killing his brother, a herdsman after finding out that YHWH shows partiality toward pastoralists, may be a distorted retelling of the story of an ancient conflict between the pastoral Hebrews and sedentary farmers. The protracted conflict between sedentary agriculturalists and pastoral nomads was an ongoing struggle in the river valley civilizations. The Cain and Abel story is now a symbolic representation of the persistence of murder within the human family, everywhere and everywhen.

Blind obedience is for 🤡’s

@mega4171

11 ай бұрын

@@ibz1431 voluntary blind obedience is a sign of ignorance and fear

@mega4171

11 ай бұрын

@@ibz1431 it’s funny to see how retarded you theists can be. How could you know that something was “whole perfection” if you’re using “blind” obedience to get there 😂😂😂 I hope you never lose your faith. Retards like you are best served with myths

@mega4171

11 ай бұрын

@@ibz1431 yea no one’s arguing for fear and blind obedience of man. Clearly you have some things you need to work out with your therapist though 😂 I’m sorry that your parents were immoral and indoctrinated you into these lies. And I get it, science isn’t for stupid people. Religion is for stupid people :)

@DaArcaneNinja

11 ай бұрын

​@@mega4171 if you're trying to "debate" then you already lost when you're resorting to name calling when you've been repeating yourself. If you take a step back and look objectively, when you surrender yourself to "God" you release the burden of having to strive for perfection, and just BE the perfection that God sees you as, like being zen in Buddhism. The obedience is for yourself as discipline of sorts. You can discuss the possible interpretations, but you sound no different than pushy christians except you're proselytizing atheism

@mega4171

11 ай бұрын

@@ibz1431 yea god and Satan were having a bet with each other over torturing job 😂 that doesn’t sound like a very all loving god to me. You worship a myth because you’re a coward and you fear a hell that doesn’t exist. Again, you really need to see a therapist

Is it me or does the book of Job, make God look like a pimp?

@dr.michaelsugrue

10 ай бұрын

you

what was the point of putting Job in the bible? how you read any of it, and then tell someone that God is omniscient, omnipresent, omnibenevolent.... that was the story I'd leave out if I was recruiting... certainly the most damaging in the bible. He's got to prove a point to Satan? come on.... where's the bouncer? the whole story is a train wreck.... My head hurst every time I hear references to the bible as infallible or even as metaphor.... oh, wipe out his whole family on a bet you knew you'd win? where's Lot's daughters when you need them?

@StarboyXL9

2 жыл бұрын

Anyone who told you that God is omnibenevolent was lying to you. If God was omnibenevolent He wouldn't be a good God, He would be a poor judge and a moral coward.