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The Bible but TTRPG
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The story of Elisha and the boys deserves to be "nitpicked" as well. I haven't checked for myself, but from what I understand most secular and non-secular scholars agree that the Hebrew term includes babies all the way to "boys" who are in their twenties. This makes better sense of how the term is used in other passages and of why Elisha would encounter 42 of them (which only counts those who were mauled) just hanging out in the countryside.[Here's a biblical scholar talking about it.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czxyrS2neTo) The bible specifies small boys, so definitely not in their 20s. Not that having bears eat adults for making fun of your bald head is any better.
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There is a tradition from numerous ancient and medieval sources that Solomon had command over demons because he was the wisest man who ever lived and knew their name and all the ways to control them. This developed into the idea that Solomon had such control over demons that he could force them to build a temple for God against their will, and this is how the First Temple was built. This belief was common in the middle ages but not ever officially sanctioned by the Church. For more reading- https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seal_of_Solomon https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lesser_Key_of_Solomon https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testament_of_Solomon
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How is each an every one of them a hit. Great consistency, 10/10 post
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The parts about feeding poor people are parables. Those stories are metaphors for spiritual poverty. What Jesus fed the hungry was the bread of life, ie, the Gospel. Jesus doesn't want you to actually feed people, he wants you to preach to them. Everything else is literal, especially the parts where God created the Earth in its current form in six 24-hour days and decreed there were only two immutable biological genders.
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This post did not contain any content.My favourite is the one with Moses coming down with the Big Book of Rules, direct from God. Then getting his pals to kill thousands of his followers for not following the Rules, which presumably they've never seen. Levites: But doesn't it say in the Rules... Moses: KILL THEM ALL. Exodus 32, verse 27
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Iāll point out that the āJesus and the fig treeā story is a parable. Itās made fun of a lot, but itās a vicious lesson by someone who was very theatrical in their teaching style. The fig tree is Israel, who were expected by their god to _**always**_ be in season and ready for their messiah. But when Jesus arrived, they were not in season, and so were cursed to _never_ bear fruit again. It wasnāt an agricultural misunderstanding, it was a lesson and everything that surrounds it gives it context.
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There is a convenience store I stop at which has a self help / religious book rack. On it, there is a copy of "The Action Bible", and, given it's cover, I assume this is the DMG for OPs campaign. 
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This post did not contain any content.when your players are wild but know how to make memorable stories
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Iāll point out that the āJesus and the fig treeā story is a parable. Itās made fun of a lot, but itās a vicious lesson by someone who was very theatrical in their teaching style. The fig tree is Israel, who were expected by their god to _**always**_ be in season and ready for their messiah. But when Jesus arrived, they were not in season, and so were cursed to _never_ bear fruit again. It wasnāt an agricultural misunderstanding, it was a lesson and everything that surrounds it gives it context.
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DM: Not that one, Job: I have a special d20 just for you! 
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There's also a Manga Bible, which is a pretty rad artistic interpretation as well.
I mean, I feel like making Jesus a samurai is as authentic to history as making him a blond white dude. Also, wandering the countryside, helping out the peasants and tweaking the nose of the establishment, gathering a crew of like-minded friends/followers, and culminating in an act of self-sacrifice which results in the protagonist's willing death? I can easily see how someone could imagine, "what if Jesus, but ronin?". Shit. Im gonna end up buying one or both of these at some point... -
My favourite is the one with Moses coming down with the Big Book of Rules, direct from God. Then getting his pals to kill thousands of his followers for not following the Rules, which presumably they've never seen. Levites: But doesn't it say in the Rules... Moses: KILL THEM ALL. Exodus 32, verse 27Also, at least two of the rules are basically just "my god is better than your god"
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The ending of that Daniel story is definitely something. > At the kingās command, the men who had falsely accused Daniel were brought in and thrown into the lionsā den, along with their wives and children. And before they reached the floor of the den, the lions overpowered them and crushed all their bones.Why did I hear the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme in my head after reading this lol
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The story of Elisha and the boys deserves to be "nitpicked" as well. I haven't checked for myself, but from what I understand most secular and non-secular scholars agree that the Hebrew term includes babies all the way to "boys" who are in their twenties. This makes better sense of how the term is used in other passages and of why Elisha would encounter 42 of them (which only counts those who were mauled) just hanging out in the countryside.
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Also, at least two of the rules are basically just "my god is better than your god"The first rule is "Stop worshiping fake gods, you're making the real god angry" and the second is "Stop just making up new gods from scratch. We're monotheists. Fucking act like it." The third, incidentally, is often interpreted to mean "Stop saying my name as a swear word" but is more traditionally understood to mean "Stop claiming you're me or that you're speaking in my name"... which is *fucking wild* considering everything in the books that follow. > Getting genocided and wondering who the fuck Yahweh is It's not like they didn't know who Yahweh was. They were *Jews fleeing Egypt* precisely because they held a faith that contradicted the Egyptian high priesthood. You have to go back to the context of the story and recognize Moses only goes up the mountain because he's completely losing control of the refugees he's leading. They're hungry, they're lost, they have no direction or purpose anymore, and the cohesion of the society is falling apart. So Moses goes up a hill and says "Okay, God, you got us this far. Now what?" And God sets down commandments. Then Moses returns down the hill and announces "I've got new instructions" and a bunch of the refugees say "Fuck no, we hate Yahweh now. We're going to worship this big bronze bull and steal and rape and murder one another and you can't stop us". And then there's basically a mini-civil war in the refugee camp that ends (like so many civil wars do) in a genocide of the losing side.
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The first rule is "Stop worshiping fake gods, you're making the real god angry" and the second is "Stop just making up new gods from scratch. We're monotheists. Fucking act like it." The third, incidentally, is often interpreted to mean "Stop saying my name as a swear word" but is more traditionally understood to mean "Stop claiming you're me or that you're speaking in my name"... which is *fucking wild* considering everything in the books that follow. > Getting genocided and wondering who the fuck Yahweh is It's not like they didn't know who Yahweh was. They were *Jews fleeing Egypt* precisely because they held a faith that contradicted the Egyptian high priesthood. You have to go back to the context of the story and recognize Moses only goes up the mountain because he's completely losing control of the refugees he's leading. They're hungry, they're lost, they have no direction or purpose anymore, and the cohesion of the society is falling apart. So Moses goes up a hill and says "Okay, God, you got us this far. Now what?" And God sets down commandments. Then Moses returns down the hill and announces "I've got new instructions" and a bunch of the refugees say "Fuck no, we hate Yahweh now. We're going to worship this big bronze bull and steal and rape and murder one another and you can't stop us". And then there's basically a mini-civil war in the refugee camp that ends (like so many civil wars do) in a genocide of the losing side.My friend, they weren't monotheists at that point. There were all sorts of gods and Yahweh was just one of them.
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This post did not contain any content.I always link 2 Kings 2 to [The Apocalypse Players - A Christmas Inheritance](https://www.apocalypseplayers.com/e/a-christmas-inheritance-01-a-partridge-and-a-dead-tree). If you enjoy a Call of Cthulu adventure, I highly recommend it.
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Almost everything in there is a parable. Itās a cultural thing, because stories were only worth preserving as a lesson. The concept of preserving objective reality for its own sake is a very modern and recent ideology. It would have been seen as madness by ancient peoples.It would've been madness in that region at that time. The Romans were writing entire books on natural history and that's not even getting into something like the lost works on the Etruscan civilization. Recording things in that way fell out of favor with the Jewish people at that time due to centuries of rather brutal occupation requiring a certain level of obfuscation. Though I will say that objectivism wasn't a concept at that point, the Garlic Wars is as much an account as it is propaganda by Caesar.
