Global Nuclear War

124

Comments

  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    edited February 13
    And this is what the Daemon or Demi-Urge with no vowels in its name wants us to experience?

    @undead_rat, you're sicker in mind than I realised.

    Meanwhile, my money's on Alan. Peanuts, anyone? Sossidge-inna-Bun?
  • With onions?
  • Yes, and mustard, too, if required!
    :yum:
  • Dave WDave W Shipmate
    undead_rat wrote: »
    Dave W wrote: »
    undead_rat wrote: »
    Perhaps this passage from Zechariah could be seen as a description of such an effect:
    . . .their flesh will molder while they are still standing on their feet; their eyes will rot in their sockets; their tongues will rot in their mouths.
    Well, no. "Moldering" and "rotting" are very different from "burning".

    Boiling away and vaporization are not the same as burning.
    And those don't have anything to do with "moldering" and "rotting" either, do they?
  • undead_rat wrote: »
    We have no idea as to what we are up against.
    YHWH allowed six million of His chosen people to be murdered during WW II.
    If we think that we are any better than them, we are sadly mistaken.

    So how do the disabled, homosexuals and Romanies also killed in the concentration camps fit in? That's around 250 000 disabled men, women and children, 10 000-15 000 gay men and 220,000-500 000 Romanies, another million people in all.

    When I visited the Reichstag in 1976 they had an exhibit in the basement that put the number of non-Jews at 7 million. The forgotten 7 million.
  • mousethief wrote: »
    undead_rat wrote: »
    We have no idea as to what we are up against.
    YHWH allowed six million of His chosen people to be murdered during WW II.
    If we think that we are any better than them, we are sadly mistaken.

    So how do the disabled, homosexuals and Romanies also killed in the concentration camps fit in? That's around 250 000 disabled men, women and children, 10 000-15 000 gay men and 220,000-500 000 Romanies, another million people in all.

    When I visited the Reichstag in 1976 they had an exhibit in the basement that put the number of non-Jews at 7 million. The forgotten 7 million.

    Indeed.
    :disappointed:

  • mousethief wrote: »
    undead_rat wrote: »
    We have no idea as to what we are up against.
    YHWH allowed six million of His chosen people to be murdered during WW II.
    If we think that we are any better than them, we are sadly mistaken.

    So how do the disabled, homosexuals and Romanies also killed in the concentration camps fit in? That's around 250 000 disabled men, women and children, 10 000-15 000 gay men and 220,000-500 000 Romanies, another million people in all.

    When I visited the Reichstag in 1976 they had an exhibit in the basement that put the number of non-Jews at 7 million. The forgotten 7 million.

    That doesn't surprise me. Those figures came from various Holocaust sites when I went looking earlier, but there were also political prisoners and other undesirables in the WW2 concentration camps. I hadn't realised until recently that there were Roma in the Warsaw Ghetto - link.

    I've seen other groups targeted by the Nazis dismissed in recent Holocaust memorial days, such as reminders from Roma that they too had been rounded up and killed in hundreds of thousands being labelled as antisemitic. And that information feels more and more pushed out.

    That's not dismissing the Jewish genocide, but it's pointing out that there was a Roma genocide too and a planned euthanasia of disabled people and gay men.
  • Which are God’s people too. Labeling them as other seems the most offensive statement in that to me.
  • mousethief wrote: »
    undead_rat wrote: »
    We have no idea as to what we are up against.
    YHWH allowed six million of His chosen people to be murdered during WW II.
    If we think that we are any better than them, we are sadly mistaken.

    So how do the disabled, homosexuals and Romanies also killed in the concentration camps fit in? That's around 250 000 disabled men, women and children, 10 000-15 000 gay men and 220,000-500 000 Romanies, another million people in all.

    When I visited the Reichstag in 1976 they had an exhibit in the basement that put the number of non-Jews at 7 million. The forgotten 7 million.

    That doesn't surprise me. Those figures came from various Holocaust sites when I went looking earlier, but there were also political prisoners and other undesirables in the WW2 concentration camps. I hadn't realised until recently that there were Roma in the Warsaw Ghetto - link.

    I've seen other groups targeted by the Nazis dismissed in recent Holocaust memorial days, such as reminders from Roma that they too had been rounded up and killed in hundreds of thousands being labelled as antisemitic. And that information feels more and more pushed out.

    That's not dismissing the Jewish genocide, but it's pointing out that there was a Roma genocide too and a planned euthanasia of disabled people and gay men.
    The numbers murdered in the camps, ghettos, death marches to them etc are staggering - over 6m Soviet civilians (in addition to more than a million Jews included in the 6m+ Jews murdered) and over 2m non-Jewish Polish and Serbian civilians. 3m Soviet PoWs. Roma, JWs, homosexuals, disabled ... Germans who opposed the regime, partisans and resistance fighters and their friends and families from across Europe. God alone knows the total of those murdered. That's before we think about how many combatants were killed, how many killed in bombing of cities or sinking of merchant ships.

    If that doesn't satisfy the requirements of prophecy for the end days not even a global nuclear war will.
  • Of course, the Nazis weren't the only ones going in for mass murder. Stalin, Pol Pot, and many others, have done (or are doing) the same.

    How anyone can say that all this is *God's will* is beyond my small brain to comprehend.
  • I think that "Never again!" should apply to everyone, and that sometimes that's forgotten.
  • Simon ToadSimon Toad Shipmate
    edited February 13
    Yes, but it still begs the question as to what we're supposed to do with those bits of the Bible, or, IOW, how are they relevant to us today?



    When we look at the bits of Scripture we find distasteful, difficult or against our own closely held view of right and wrong we should remember that we are human. We should remember that we have very little idea of the perspective of ancient peoples who spoke their history, very little idea of the perspective of those who put that oral history into writing, and no idea at all of the perspective of God.

    We should also pause and consider when a piece of biblical writing chimes with us in a profound way. Why is it doing that? What is it about that bit in Paul where he talks about the inevitability of sin without Christ that causes my heart to leap? What does it say about me and my experiences? Can I say anything about Paul? Can I say anything about God?

    We should especially pause when we use the Bible to prophesy or to set up standards for others, especially community standards. We do so because we want to give a sense of authority to our moral strictures, or because we accept the authority of others to lecture or teach us because their moral pronouncements are are bolstered by God.

    God is unknowable. God's plans, if they have any, are unknowable. One might be able to come to a view about the writers of a portion of Scripture and about the society in which they lived. One might be able to get a view of the lives of the ancient peoples who might have began to tell the stories that made it into the Pentateuch.

    I don't read and think about Scripture to know about God. I read it as an aide to prayer, an aide to understanding myself, and an aide to understanding people. The bits that give me pause are the bits that remind me to be cautious about drawing meaning. My favorite one of these is the story of Tamar.
  • Simon Toad wrote: »
    When we look at the bits of Scripture we find distasteful, difficult or against our own closely held view of right and wrong we should remember that we are human. We should remember that we have very little idea of the perspective of ancient peoples who spoke their history, very little idea of the perspective of those who put that oral history into writing, and no idea at all of the perspective of God.

    No idea at all? So the Scriptures are completely worthless in telling us anything at all about what God thinks?
  • Scriptures are indeed completely worthless about telling us what God thinks. How can we even conceive of how God thinks? Does the concept of thinking even apply to God? These things are unknowable.

    Do you think the Scriptures tell us things about what God thinks?
  • Simon Toad wrote: »
    Scriptures are indeed completely worthless about telling us what God thinks. How can we even conceive of how God thinks? Does the concept of thinking even apply to God? These things are unknowable.

    Do you think the Scriptures tell us things about what God thinks?

    They claim to.
  • They do, but that is a neutral point I think.

    Is *thinks* the right word for what Scripture tells us concerning God? Is communicates or "God seeks to communicate with us through Scripture" a better way to argue out the underlying point?
  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    Simon Toad wrote: »
    Scriptures are indeed completely worthless about telling us what God thinks. How can we even conceive of how God thinks? Does the concept of thinking even apply to God? These things are unknowable.
    This is what Aquinas' view of analogy is about.

    We can't say anything directly about God. However, we can say something about thinking. We can say that nothing that thinks as we understand thinking could be like God. (For example, thinking takes time and God is outside time; thinking can come up with thoughts we haven't come up with before and God has all possible thoughts already.)
    But we can say that for something to be like God God must have capacities of which thinking is a kind of imitation and for which 'thinking' is the best concept we have.
  • That strikes me as a good reason to hold lightly any conclusion we draw from Scripture about anything.
  • Simon Toad wrote: »
    They do, but that is a neutral point I think.

    Is *thinks* the right word for what Scripture tells us concerning God? Is communicates or "God seeks to communicate with us through Scripture" a better way to argue out the underlying point?

    If someone says "what does God think about this" they're not worrying too much about such niceties. If you want to call it "what does God seek to communicate in Scripture" then knock yourself out. It seems you're trying to grind logic in a peppermill.
  • Simon Toad wrote: »
    Scriptures are indeed completely worthless about telling us what God thinks. How can we even conceive of how God thinks?
    Well, if we believe that Jesus is God Incarnate, and if he, as recorded in the Gospels, tells us quite a bit about what he thinks, then . . . .

  • orfeoorfeo Shipmate
    undead_rat wrote: »
    The shock wave limited to the speed of sound is quite an entertaining concept as well.

    Alan, if you think that such is wrong, then you don't know your physics as well as you think that you do.

    This is the biggest mismatch in physics knowledge since a Road Runner cartoon.
  • Simon Toad wrote: »
    Scriptures are indeed completely worthless about telling us what God thinks. How can we even conceive of how God thinks? Does the concept of thinking even apply to God? These things are unknowable.

    Do you think the Scriptures tell us things about what God thinks?

    If you start labeling everything about God "unknowable," why are you even discussing the subject? You are discussing you-know-not-who by means of you-know-not-what.

    Has it occurred to you that perhaps God has actually foreseen our difficulty and taken steps to make himself known? coughcough*Scripture*cough
  • There are really two questions about this "what God thinks" thing. (1) How does God want us to behave? and (2) What goes on in that head thing that God doesn't have and how is it related to what we call thinking?

    (1) is what really matters.
    (2) is angels dancing on the head of a pin. Fun, interesting, but ultimately of no use in deciding (1).
  • Simon ToadSimon Toad Shipmate
    edited February 14
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    Simon Toad wrote: »
    Scriptures are indeed completely worthless about telling us what God thinks. How can we even conceive of how God thinks?
    Well, if we believe that Jesus is God Incarnate, and if he, as recorded in the Gospels, tells us quite a bit about what he thinks, then . . . .

    I think this is a killer point. I am much more comfortable with the NT. I know more about the society in which it was embedded and I know more about some of the individuals who wrote it. I have a fair idea of why it was written, and I have lots of contemporaneous writing to compare it with. We know heaps about it. The Gospels and Paul's letters comprise compelling testimony to the effect that God was in the world for a specific purpose. The New Testament is foundational. If I don't believe in Jesus Christ as the Word, or the Son of God, or the Messiah, or just the aspect of God shown to us, then there really is no point in trying to think about the difficult bits.

    As an aside, I can't bring a difficult bit to mind in the NT. There is Paul's statements about slavery, women and sexuality, but I don't find that difficult at all. They aren't about the nature or character of God. They are about church affairs and behavior.

    The Pentateuch, if I can break down somewhat the broad OT label, is a completely different kettle of fish, for the reasons I put above. It can't be dismissed. It is the thought world of the writers of the NT, which makes it important for me. It represented God's word to Paul and the Gospel writers. How they saw the OT is hugely important.

    Unless I am wrong in my understanding of our knowledge, we know nothing whatsoever about the people who began telling these stories as history, or even what the content of those stories might be. My recollection is that the Pentateuch achieved a stable form at some time around the exile to Babylon. We know a little bit about those people, but do we really have a grip on their motivations or culture to the same extent as we know the Graeco-Roman world?

    My point though is that in seeking to answer "How does God want us to behave", which is the right question MT, we must doubt our conclusions and hold back on our judgements of others. We must do that because it is hard to draw conclusions out of the Bible. Why should we take note of the Ten Commandments and not follow Tamar's example?

    This is the question in which my answer is set:
    Yes, but it still begs the question as to what we're supposed to do with those bits of the Bible, or, IOW, how are they relevant to us today?
  • Simon Toad wrote: »
    My point though is that in seeking to answer "How does God want us to behave", which is the right question MT, we must doubt our conclusions and hold back on our judgements of others. We must do that because it is hard to draw conclusions out of the Bible. Why should we take note of the Ten Commandments and not follow Tamar's example?

    That's what the Church is supposed to be for.
  • Simon Toad--

    Good thing I read your Tamar link before actually posting what I just wrote. I assumed you referred to David's daughter Tamar and what was done to her, and condemned her.

    I've occasionally heard of this other Tamar you mentioned. She was treated badly, but got some revenge.

  • Simon ToadSimon Toad Shipmate
    edited February 14
    mousethief wrote: »
    Simon Toad wrote: »
    My point though is that in seeking to answer "How does God want us to behave", which is the right question MT, we must doubt our conclusions and hold back on our judgements of others. We must do that because it is hard to draw conclusions out of the Bible. Why should we take note of the Ten Commandments and not follow Tamar's example?

    That's what the Church is supposed to be for.

    what, like Mike Pence's church, or Spong's church, or the Mormons?

    How about my Church, who have spent the last 50 years or so covering up child abuse by clergy? Why should anyone listen to what those bastards have to say?

    GK, I love the Tamar story. There is so much in it. Who knew that at one stage Temple Prostitutes were a thing!
  • Yikes. You can't find difficult bits in the New Testament? Well, there's Paul's not clearly spelling out that slavery.is.wrong, which trips up some people. There are of course the bits about women. There is Jesus' weird refusal to do something, anything, that would give skeptics solid(er) ground to stand on--for example, to write a book himself, or even to have the autograph manuscripts of the Gospels survive to the present day. (And why four, and why are three of them so oddly related?) To appear, post-death-and-resurrection, to a number of famous people (Caiaphas, Herod, Pilate, Tiberius...). To set up his church in a sensible way rather than grabbing a ragtag bunch of fishermen etc. and setting them loose after 3 years of haphazard-looking training. Then there are the miracles--why spread them around so lavishly, and then refuse to do any when they might really make a difference in how his ministry/person is received? For example, at the trial before Herod, when specifically requested. Why not rescue his own cousin John the Baptist, who was in prison specifically for doing God's work, and who was expecting it? Why for that matter allow a dozen or more infants to perish in Bethlehem and its neighborhood while the Son of God escapes to Egypt--only to die even more miserably 30 years later? Is it favoritism, and if so, in which direction? And why heal that one guy at the pool of Bethesda, and then sneak away, when he could have emptied the whole place which was full of severely ill people? Why pick Judas--was it because he knew he would betray him, or because he didn't know, and in any case, was that fair to Judas or not? Why pick Paul to be the first and seminal theologian of the church--as C. S. Lewis puts it, “I cannot be the only reader who has wondered why God, having given him [St. Paul] so many gifts, withheld from him (what would seem so necessary for the first Christian theologian) that of lucidity and orderly exposition.”

    I'll shut up now.
  • They're not difficult at all! Fun to think about, but not difficult in the "God is a total bastard" way of the Pentateuch. There's no fair dinkum smiting, no collective punishment, no genocide.

    There are puzzles in the NT, but they are not "geez, I'm really not sure about this bloke" problems.
  • You sure? There's Ananias and Sapphira, for starters. One big lie, and it's bye bye. There's the one demon-possessed slave girl Paul doesn't heal until she annoys him one too many times--and then there's the throwdown with her owners over it. 2000 pigs, all dead in a minute, because Jesus takes pity on demons, of all creatures... And what about their owners' loss of property?

    As for collective punishment, what else is the destruction of Jerusalem from a theological perspective? See Jesus' predictions. And he even makes note of the plight of women and children! Not that they get out of it. The cross in itself is a major moral quandary for some, who can't figure out why God didn't just shrug and say, "Eh, it's all good, whatever." The fact that one disciple (James) gets arrested and killed, while another the same week or so (Peter) gets arrested and freed by an angel with a series of attendant miracles... still so sure about that bloke?

    Not that I'm trying to put you off him. But he isn't different just because the picture's in close-up.
  • All of that. Plus one minor incident that still bothers me: Jesus zapped and cursed a poor fig tree, killing it. In the story, he's doing it to make a point. (Or having a petty tantrum, depending on how you read it.)

    I think it was a bad thing to do, and it doesn't fit with the rest of his portrayal.
  • Golden Key wrote: »
    All of that. Plus one minor incident that still bothers me: Jesus zapped and cursed a poor fig tree, killing it. In the story, he's doing it to make a point. (Or having a petty tantrum, depending on how you read it.)

    I think it was a bad thing to do, and it doesn't fit with the rest of his portrayal.

    That one's hard to square, unless it's meant to show that even Jesus could get crabby and pissy once in a while.
  • Penny SPenny S Shipmate
    edited February 14
    Going back a bit, I was a bit unhappy about a tweet retweeted by my once friend on the subject of the Holocaust, maintaining that there was no equivalent to it, and, in context, appeared not to extend it to include all the rest of the victims who were not Jewish. And certainly did not think that there was any reason to consider the victims of Stalin, Pol Pot, whoever set up Ruanda or the Armenians as victims of something that was for each of them a personal Holocaust. (I'm not denying that what happened to Europe's Jews was abominable.)
    And to link to the bloke in the OT, I have had arguments with non-Jews about what was done to the Amalekites. Apparently, that was OK, because the bloke ordered it.
  • Re Amalekites, etc.:

    I don't think God ordered the Jewish people to invade, kill people, and take land. Not any God I want to have anything to do with. I think it's possible they may have truly believed God wanted them to do that. Or maybe that's just the spin they put on what they did.

    I feel that way because Creator God is supposed to love everyone. But the whole "invade, kill, take" directive might be acceptable from a tribal God. And much of the OT/Hebrew scriptures seem *very* tribal.

  • undead_rat wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »

    Wow! You are a Palmist?!

    Only about once a week now (in my old age . .. )

    Just noticed this serendipitous misquote, as if I wrote which I did not. So you do readings?
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    edited February 14
    undead_rat wrote: »
    My very limited intellect...

    One effect of a nuclear burst is that... the shock wave is limited to the speed of sound.

    Which is of course correct, coming down, as a differentiating limit. Most intellectual. You shouldn't be so self deprecating.
  • Penny SPenny S Shipmate
    GK, I agree with you about the Amalekites. But I have still come across those who a) think it happened as written; b) think it was on god's instructions; and c) think that makes it right. They weren't Jewish. I haven't spoken with anyone Jewish on the subject. And I'm keeping my head down at the moment. I would like not to have to say to someone - you aren't my friend any more.
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    edited February 14
    Martin54 wrote: »
    undead_rat wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »

    Wow! You are a Palmist?!

    Only about once a week now (in my old age . .. )

    Just noticed this serendipitous misquote, as if I wrote which I did not. So you do readings?

    I took the misquote, and undead_rat's attempt at a facetious reply to your supposed question, to indicate that he was using his palm on an occasional basis for *ahem* purposes of self-gratification...but it is perfectly possible that I was mistaken.

    References by other Shipmates to undead_rat's wet dreams about GNW may be a clue, however.
  • undead_rat wrote: »
    The shock wave limited to the speed of sound is quite an entertaining concept as well.

    Alan, if you think that such is wrong, then you don't know your physics as well as you think that you do.
    OK, then here's the condensed version of the physics of a nuclear explosion.

    The initial detonation releases vast quantities of energy in the form of radiation, fission fragments, hot gases etc. These vapourise components of the bomb and any surrounding material generating an intensely hot fireball. This expands at supersonic speeds from the point of detonation. The radiation released travels faster than the shock front, gamma and x-rays at the speed of light, and indeed the IR from the fireball, other particles slower than this. These all interact with air and ground materials in a relatively short distance, heating the materials they interact with (and, thus contributing to the energy in the expanding fireball). The IR that you claim travels significant distances ahead of the shockwave at the speed of light travels a short distance before being absorbed, the heated materials then re-irradiate IR in all directions. The radiated heat thus travels in a series of short steps as a "random walk" with short pauses between absorption and re-irradiation. The net speed of IR is thus significantly slower than light speed, and initially doesn't outpace the supersonic shock wave (as that loses energy it slows, and that then allows radiated heat to progress ahead of the blast wave - but by that point that heat wouldn't be sufficient to vapourise anything, and the shock wave would be significantly less destructive when it arrives a few seconds later).

    The visible light emitted, would of course travel largely unimpeded from the detonation. A few miles from a big blast you would see a flash then get ripped apart by the shockwave. If you somehow survived to experience things you would hear the shockwave after it passed and then be incinerated by the heat.

    Now, do you want to dual qualifications as to who understands the physics best?

    Reminds me of the Old Ship where we had handles to our names. Yours, Alan, as I remember was 'Ship's Nuclear Scientist'? Possibly because at the time you were some kind of a nuclear scientist?
  • My title was "Mad Scientist", my avatar (created by babybear) accompanied that.

    My doctorate was in nuclear physics, since then I've moved around through a variety of environmental applications of nuclear techniques.
  • Ooooh I am waiting to see how this unfolds

    Just settling comfortably
  • Hmm. The Popcorn, and the Sossidge-inna-Bun, have gone cold, waiting for the zombie rodent to turn up.

    I reckon he's too scared, in case Alan brings along that little bomb he's carrying under his arm, in his avatar...
  • Do you not have one of those Brazier Type Things?

    (Oh
    and I Do like plenty of onions)
  • Yes, but I've run out of charcoal. Delivery has been delayed by extra paperwork at the border...

    (Oops - wrong thread)
    :wink:
  • Have you managed to get any bratwurst?
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    edited February 14
    Good heavens, no! None of that Horrid Foreign Sossidge Not Like Ours!

    Pure Sovrin English Offal Only...
    :innocent:

    (I was going to offer Rat-onna-Stick, but I thought a Certain Person would be offended).
  • Lincolnshire, perchance?
  • If you're referring to the Sossidges, I'll have to ask the boss (Mr Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler).

    I suspect they actually come from Ankh-Lesspork...
    :wink:
  • My title was "Mad Scientist", my avatar (created by babybear) accompanied that.

    My doctorate was in nuclear physics, since then I've moved around through a variety of environmental applications of nuclear techniques.

    I have been stubbornly anti-nuclear power since Chernobyl, and my opinions were reinforced by Fukushima. Its an issue in Australia that comes up seasonally, as an alternative to coal power. I have always thought that we should rely on renewables to replace coal. We have no nuclear power plants, just a research reactor in Sydney.

    Given your commitment to peace and the environment (stronger than mine in both cases I think), you might be a good person for me to talk to about whether my stubborn opposition is the right response. If you feel like shooting an article suitable for non-scientists across on the topic, I'd be grateful.
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    edited February 14
    Golden Key wrote: »
    All of that. Plus one minor incident that still bothers me: Jesus zapped and cursed a poor fig tree, killing it. In the story, he's doing it to make a point. (Or having a petty tantrum, depending on how you read it.)

    I think it was a bad thing to do, and it doesn't fit with the rest of his portrayal.
    I am grateful to @orfeo for introducing me to the Bible Project podcast. In their excellent series on “The Tree of Life”—the general theme of the series being that from Genesis to Revelation, trees in gardens or on high places represent a choice for humanity to live by their own wisdom or by God’s wisdom—they discuss this incident. The gist, as I recall it, was that this incident, which occurs right after the entry into Jerusalem, was directly related to Israel’s failure to be faithful. They linked it to two passages from the OT. One was Jeremiah 8:12–13:
    “At the time of their punishment they shall be brought down,” says the Lord. “I will surely snatch them away,” declares the Lord; “There will be no grapes on the vine And no figs on the fig tree, And the leaf will wither; And what I have given them will pass away.”
    The other was Micah 7:1–4:
    Woe is me! “For I have become like one who, after the summer fruit has been gathered, after the vintage has been gleaned, finds no cluster to eat; there is no first-ripe fig for which I hunger.
    The faithful have disappeared from the land, and there is no one left who is upright; they all lie in wait for blood, and they hunt each other with nets.
    Their hands are skilled to do evil; the official and the judge ask for a bribe, and the powerful dictate what they desire; thus they pervert justice.
    The best of them is like a brier, the most upright of them a thorn hedge.
    The day of their sentinels, of their punishment, has come;
    now their confusion is at hand.
    The incident with the fig tree, they say, is drawing on these two prophets. Jesus looks for the early fruit and doesn’t find it (perhaps because it’s much too early?). They pointed out that in almost everything Jesus does in public as he moves toward Calvary, he is saying to Israel/the religious establishment “The kingdom is here. Now. This is the time to make your choice, because it’s all coming to a head.” Israel is at a crisis moment, and the time decide is immediate. With the fig tree, they said, Jesus is essentially declaring Israel’s faithlessness, and judgment on Jerusalem.

    At least, that’s assuming I’m remembering it all correctly.

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