The Marching Sanders Morons

I just heard the most idiotic thing from an Occupy Wall Street proponent. He suggested that we should have two separate economies: the "easy stuff" economy and a "sports" economy.

The easy stuff economy would provide the basic necessities of life to all people for free. This includes food, shelter, clothing, and basic healthcare. You know. The "easy" stuff that we can do with little to no effort and our eyes closed.

The sports economy would be for the rich and elite to play with entertainment, gadgets, and other non-essential stuff. We can contain all the evil capitalists there so they can't take unfair advantage of the helpless masses.

This is so mind-numbingly idiotic, that I find it difficult to believe that this guy somehow manages to get dressed in the morning.

Who is going to pay for the easy stuff? Who's going to grow the food, harvest it, process it into food-like substances suitable for consumption by Wall Street Occupiers? Who's going to transport it, store it, stock it, serve it? All that stuff just happens magically? Or maybe he thinks we should raid Africa and build a new slave economy.

Who decides what is the easy stuff? What will be grown, where, and how? I'll tell you: Monsanto. The military industrial complex. The evil capitalist cabal that wants to starve all the poor people. That's who. (Sarcasm? Sort of.)

Seriously, it won't be you and me who makes these decisions, and I guarantee you, 100% absolutely, that somebody will be making them. All of this would have to be controlled by a central bureaucracy, which means rich people. Who controls the food-related bureaucracies now? Monsanto & company. Who will control the food-related bureaucracies in OWS Boy's rainbow utopia? Monsanto & company. This means there will be no food on the shelves. There will only be food-like substances, genetically modified, and heavily dosed with subtly toxic chemicals, because that's the "easy" way. At first, you'll be able to buy better food if you really want, but before long, that will become illegal. It's already largely illegal. Just try to buy raw milk from a local farmer. Those companies do not care about you. They do not care about your health, about the environment, or about social justice. They care about profit and control, and that's all they care about.

OWS Boy is typical of Bernie Sanders lemmings. They are easily manipulated pawns with the long-term, critical thinking skills of a mosquito. Promise them free rainbows and they'll gleefully castrate themselves and put bullets in the heads of anyone who uses unapproved language on Facebook.

Strength Comes Only through Struggle

Adversity made America great. The ubiquitous grinding stones of wilderness and war, sea and savage once cut a fine edge on the American people, but we have been dulled to uselessness by comfort, permissiveness, and "safe spaces". If we would make America great again, we must abandon the delusion that anyone has a right to feel safe or even to be safe. A boy becomes a man only through conflict, and only by embracing adversity and danger will we as a people become sharp and hard again.

An Abbreviated List of Biblical Sevens

I have not included every instance of a collection of seven. I lumped multiple instances of the same collection together, such as various commands concerning Unleavened Bread or Sukkot. I also ignored historical statements that didn't seem to put any special emphasis on "7", such as "in the seventh year of the reign of so-and-so." Feel free to let me know if I missed any.

• 7 daughters of Jethro
• 7 days of Creation
• 7 clean animals on Noah’s Ark
• 7 congregations of Revelation
• 7 women of Isaiah
• 7 spirits of God
• 7 lamps of the Menorah
• 7 days of Unleavened Bread
• 7 days of Sukkot
• 7 days of Miriam’s shame
• 7 days of uncleanness for women and lepers
• 7 sprinkles from the red heifer
• 7 animals offered at various times
• 7 weeks of Shavuot
• 7th month, 1st day is Yom Teruah
• 7th year release
• 7th day Sabbath
• 7 years of oppression under Midian
• 7 years of rule by Ibzan
• 7 months with the Ark in Philistia
• 7 trumpeters with the Ark
• 7-fold light of the sun (Isa 30:26)
• 7 children of one mother (Jer 15:9) 
• 7 years burning weapons (Eze 39:9)
• 7 months burying the dead (Eze 39:12)
• 7 steps and cubits of Ezekiel’s Temple
• 7 weeks of Daniel
• 7 shepherds of Micah (Mic 5:5)
• 7 eyes of God (Zec 4:10)
• 7th day sin offerings (Eze 45:20)
• 7 husbands of the Sadducean widow.

A Middle Eastern Family Desperate for Refuge?

I'm sure this image is a real dinger at preschool, but otherwise there are only two kinds of people who think it (and the hundreds like it) says anything worth repeating:

1. Liars
2. Ignoramuses

For you ignoramuses, an ignoramus is someone who lacks knowledge. About the Bible, for instance. This was forgivable before today. You think that Joseph and Mary looking for a place at the inn is somehow equivalent to a family of refugees from Syria looking for a place in some European or American country. Now you have an opportunity to learn something. If you read on, you will no longer be ignorant. If you repost another one of these moronic memes, you will have graduated to liar. Congratulations.

The Nativity

Joseph and Mary were faithful Jews traveling from one part of a Jewish country to another part of the same Jewish country. They weren't leaving their homeland for foreign parts. They were actually returning to their ancestral homeland for a high holiday called Sukkot, which means "tents" or "temporary dwellings". (The Romans were smart people. They recognized that the best time to make all the people travel somewhere was when they were all going to be traveling somewhere anyway.)

When Joseph and Mary arrived at Bethlehem, their destination, they didn't demand special treatment. They didn't demand that the locals cater to their religious and cultural preferences. Actually, the people who lived around Bethlehem had the same preferences as Joseph and Mary, so no demands were necessary.

When Yeshua (aka Jesus) was born, Luke says that they laid him in a manger (probably a feeding trough) because there was no room at the inn (Greek kataluma, which is also translated "guestroom"). If this actually means that the local inn was booked up and the young couple had to find a place in the barn, it shouldn't be much of a surprise. Very likely every inn in the country was full because potentially hundreds of thousands of people were on the move. That's similar in a way to the current crisis, except that the mood would have been festive instead of threatening and fearful.

On the other hand, I'm not so sure that there was such a thing as an inn, at least not like what we think of. It's much more likely that they were at the home of a relative who was entertaining whole branches of the extended family, including great grandpa Shimon and great grandma Esther, and they were all vying for the only guestroom. I think this is kind of cool, actually. One of the rules of Sukkot is that you are to "dwell" in a temporary shelter (called a sukkah) for 7 days. Rabbinic tradition says it's sufficient to eat your meals in the shelter, but maybe this was God's way of setting Joseph and Mary straight. He arranged that the young Yeshua would keep the command perfectly, even when it was completely out of His control, by forcing his parents into what was probably a hastily constructed shack. (Probably not a stable like you see on postcards and certainly not a cave.) They laid him in a manger instead of in a bed because all of the beds were already filled far beyond capacity. They made do with whatever was close at hand and would keep the newborn off of the ground.

They weren't desperate, they weren't running, and they weren't foreigners. They were Jews visiting Jewish relatives in a Jewish land.

Does this mean that we shouldn't help desperate foreigners running from trouble? Of course not. It just means that the meme is based on a false premise.

The Refugees

I'm certain that many of the "Syrian refugees" are actually Syrian refugees. I'd want to get out of Dodgistan if I lived there too. Unfortunately, many of them are not Syrian and many of them are not refugees. They are Iraqis, Somalis, and a mix of other Middle Eastern peoples.

Of those who are actually coming from Syria and Iraq, many are military aged men. Those are not refugees. They are cowards who have fled the field of battle and possibly abandoned their families or they are infiltrators planning to wreak havoc behind enemy lines. We saw a very clear example of this in Paris recently.

Such terrorists--aka invaders--are probably a small minority within the mass of the refugees, but how much feces is acceptable in your ice cream? Maybe you prefer your vanilla with a little predigested Middle Eastern spice. Who am I to judge?

Even so, a few hundred or a few thousand terrorists really aren't the biggest problem because the real enemy isn't ISIS. The real enemy is Islam. All of it.

If you aren't a complete, blithering idiot, you have probably noticed that the West maintains a very high standard of living compared to other regions of the world, and that has absolutely nothing to do with the residual effects of western colonial imperialism or any other self-loathing nonsense your sociology professor might have fed you. It has everything to do with historic Western culture and Judeo-Christian religion.

Democracy (for what it's worth), emancipation of slaves, individual liberty, constitutional government, electronics, the Internet, automobiles, the printing press... these are all the fruits of Western Civilization. I don't care that some other civilization might have invented them given enough time. The fact is that they didn't. We did, and I like all of these things.

Islam, on the other hand, produces nothing but misery and death. Every Muslim country is a violent, squalid hell compared to the poorest Christian country in Europe. I would choose to live in Moldova or Romania 1000 times over Saudi Arabia or Iran. (Isn't it interesting that all of the very poorest countries in Europe have had significant Muslim influence? The further you get from Islam, the better things get.) Every tree can be known by its fruit, and Islam is among the most poisonous in the world. Everywhere Islam goes, Syria and ISIS follows by one name or another.

Allah hates all mankind and Islam is the proof.

We don't object to opening our countries to "Syrian refugees" because we're stingy or xenophobic. (We in the West are among the most generous and accepting people in the world.) No, we object to mass Muslim immigration because we're sane, because we don't want Syria in our own backyards. We don't want our economies wrecked, our industries crippled, our wives and daughters raped, and our children enslaved, and far too often, that's what comes with Islam.

I want to help the people who are suffering in Syria and Iraq--we all do--but importing them en masse into our own countries is suicide! That doesn't help anyone. It just turns our own lands into the same hell that they're trying to get away from. I admire your urge to ease the suffering of people you don't know. That is truly a godly attitude. But we must find a way to help that won't destroy the very thing that makes us able to help. Because, in the long run, the only thing that will significantly ease suffering in Muslim countries, is for Muslims to stop being Muslims.

Miraculous Healing in the Gospels

A list of Gospel passages dealing with sickness and healing...

•    Matthew 4:23-24
•    Matthew 8:2-4
•    Matthew 8:5-13
•    Matthew 8:14-15
•    Matthew 8:16-17
•    Matthew 8:28-32
•    Matthew 9:1-8
•    Matthew 9:18-25
•    Matthew 9:27-31
•    Matthew 9:32-33
•    Matthew 9:35
•    Matthew 10:8
•    Matthew 11:4-6
•    Matthew 11:28-30
•    Matthew 12:9-13
•    Matthew 12:15
•    Matthew 12:22
•    Matthew 12:43-45
•    Matthew 13:57-58
•    Matthew 14:14
•    Matthew 14:34-36
•    Matthew 15:22-28
•    Matthew 15:29-31
•    Matthew 17:14-21
•    Matthew 18:18-20
•    Matthew 19:1-2
•    Matthew 20:30-34
•    Matthew 21:12-14
•    Matthew 21:19-22

•    Mark 1:23-27
•    Mark 1:29-31
•    Mark 1:32
•    Mark 1:33-34
•    Mark 1:39
•    Mark 1:40-42
•    Mark 2:1-12
•    Mark 3:1-5
•    Mark 3:7-10
•    Mark 3:11-12
•    Mark 3:14-15
•    Mark 5:1-13
•    Mark 5:22-42
•    Mark 6:2-5
•    Mark 6:7-13
•    Mark 6:54-56
•    Mark 7:25-30
•    Mark 7:32-37
•    Mark 8:22-26
•    Mark 9:14-29
•    Mark 9:37-41
•    Mark 10:46-52
•    Mark 11:19-26
•    Mark 16:17-18
•    Mark 16:20

•    Luke 1:5-25, 36-37
•    Luke 1:57-66
•    Luke 4:24-28
•    Luke 4:33-36
•    Luke 4:38-39
•    Luke 4:40-41
•    Luke 5:12-14
•    Luke 5:17-25
•    Luke 6:6-10
•    Luke 6:17-19
•    Luke 6:27-38
•    Luke 7:2-10
•    Luke 7:11-16
•    Luke 7:20-23
•    Luke 8:2-3
•    Luke 8:27-33
•    Luke 8:41-56
•    Luke 9:11
•    Luke 9:38-42
•    Luke 9:49-50
•    Luke 10:9
•    Luke 10:17-24
•    Luke 11:5-13
•    Luke 11:14
•    Luke 11:15-23
•    Luke 11:24-26
•    Luke 13:10-13
•    Luke 13:14-16
•    Luke 14:1-6
•    Luke 14:11-14
•    Luke 17:11-19
•    Luke 18:1-8
•    Luke 18:9-14
•    Luke 18:27
•    Luke 18:35-43
•    Luke 22:50-51

•    John 4:46-54
•    John 5:2-14
•    John 6:2
•    John 9:1-41
•    John 10:41
•    John 11:1-45
•    John 12:10-11
•    John 12:24-26

•    Acts 3:1-16, 4:7-21
•    Acts 5:1-11
•    Acts 5:14-16
•    Acts 9:1-18
•    Acts 9:32-35
•    Acts 9:36-42
•    Acts 12:21-23
•    Acts 13:6-12
•    Acts 14:8-11
•    Acts 16:16-18
•    Acts 19:11-12
•    Acts 19:13-17
•    Acts 20:8-12
•    Acts 23:2-3
•    Acts 28:3-6
•    Acts 28:8-10

The Sacred Name

Image used by permission of Yeshua.org.

When Paul wrote to his non-Jewish followers across the Roman Empire, he didn't call himself "Shaul." He called himself Paul. He didn't call the Messiah "Yeshua haMashiach." He called him "Iesous Christos."

It's ok to use transliterations, abbreviations, and even translations to refer to Yeshua/Jesus, especially when trying to communicate with non-Hebrew speakers. It's ok to use Hebrew names too. Just make sure you are using them in such a way as to teach the truth, not as stumbling blocks that drive people further from the truth.

Our Messiah's name isn't a collection of letters or sounds. Those things are just convenient labels. His name is the whole picture of who He is: Redeemer, Savior, Wonderful, Counselor, Anointed, Son of the Living God, the Word of God, the Law Giver, our Passover Lamb, our Atonement, High Priest, the Rock that Saves.



Some believe that the introduction of the letter J represents some kind of corruption or conspiracy to keep people from pronouncing the name of Yeshua. The letter is only 400 to 600 years old, and Hebrew has no J at all, so how can "Jesus" possibly be the Messiah's name?

There are two objections raised here.

The Letter J Is Only 400 Years Old!

The letter J wasn't invented to keep people from pronouncing the name correctly. The reality is exactly the opposite. J was created to show when the letter I was being used as a consonant, such as in the words "job" and "majesty". Before the letter J was invented, both of those words were spelled with I instead of J.

Every language that adopted the letter J into its alphabet pronounces it differently. Germans pronounce it like an English Y. Spanish speakers pronounce J like H, Y, or Kh, depending on regional dialect.

Have you ever heard someone from Mexico pronounce the English word "yes" as if it began with a J, like "Jyes"? Evidently, English speakers used to pronounce a consonant I with a J or Zh sound, exactly as many (not all!) Spanish speakers pronounce Y today.

English already had the letter Y, so why didn't they use that for consonant I? Two reasons:

• The letter Y was already doing double duty as a Th sound, as in "ye olde shop", which would have been pronounced as "THE old shop", not "YEE old shop". 
• Some consonantal Is that were pronounced like Y, evidently did get the Y letter at some point. I don't know if that was before or after the shift to J or if there was a rule about whether the letter was at the beginning or end of a syllable, followed by one or another vowel, etc.

Sometime in the mid to late Middle Ages, Latin speakers began to pronounce consonantal I (especially initial consonantal I) with a J sound. This pronunciation was picked up by French and other speakers long before King James commissioned his Bible. I'm not sure if Medieval Latin adopted this pronunciation from English speakers or not, but I suspect that English adopted it from Celtic languages and not from Latin. 

At some point, Latin scribes began adding a tail to the letter I when it was pronounced like J, and this new letter was also adopted by other European languages, even when those languages didn't have the J sound. When Iesus became Jesus, the pronunciation didn't change. Spanish speakers continued to pronounce it as Hay-soos, Germans continued to pronounce it as Yezus, and English speakers continued to pronounce it as Gee-suhs, just as they had when it was still spelled with an I.

The change to J didn't change how anything was pronounced. It reflected a pre-existing reality of regional accents. The English took the J sound from the Celts and the J letter from European scholars of Latin.

Note (2025/04/04): Rob, of the RobWords YouTube channel, says that the earliest occurrence of the letter J appears to have been in 1524 and describes the sound shift in English much as I do but ascribes it to French influence. See here: A guide to our alphabet.

There Is No J in Hebrew

If you didn't already pick this up from my discussion of the invention of J, let me spell it out for you: All letters were invented at some point and no Latin letters exist in Hebrew. There is no Y, I, E, S, U, W, or A in Hebrew. Those are letters from the Latin alphabet and Hebrew uses the Hebrew alphabet.

What people should actually be saying is that there is no J sound in Hebrew, but even that depends on how you pronounce the letter J. If you speak Spanish or German, then there is definitely a J sound in Hebrew.

In fact, the Latin letter J is a descendant of the Hebrew letter yod, or I should say they are both descendants of a common ancestor. The paleo-Semitic/Hebrew yod became the Greek and Latin I and the (slightly more modern) Hebrew yod י. Then the Latin I became the I, J, and Y.

Saying that Hebrew has no J is like saying that English has no י. Of course, it doesn't, because English and Hebrew use completely different alphabets.

Philologically speaking, though, J = I = י. So, in a way, Hebrew does have a J. It's just shaped differently.

If you don't like the way Jesus is pronounced by English speakers, then pronounce it the way a German would, which is probably much closer to the Greek form used throughout the Septuagint Greek translation of the Old Testament and the Apostolic writings of the New Testament: Ἰησοῦς.

If you feel that the Apostles were wrong to write his name using Greek characters and grammar, then spell and pronounce it in the Hebrew manner. I prefer to use the form Yeshua, myself, but I'm not about to use the Hebrew characters in my English articles because I'm trying to communicate with people. Your priorities might be different, and that's certainly your business.

(Updated November 19, 2019.)

(Updated September 9, 2020.)

39 Messianic Blogs

I made a list of 39 Messianic blogs, podcasts, & video blogs over at American Torah. If I missed your favorites, let me know so I can add them.