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the-meta-tron · 9 months

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Crowley ISN'T Lucifer, But...

So today, Neil Gaiman basically killed The Crowley-was-Lucifer theory, which is fine. I thought the theory was fun, but to be honest, it never completely satisfied me.

The most compelling evidence (for me) regarding the theory were two things 1) we see Crowley before the fall, creating the stars and Lucifer was the Lightbringer, and 2) a lot of what Satan/Lucifer is attributed are things we see Crowley doing in the show's flashbacks.

I don't think it was wrong to recognize that the mythology of Lucifer/Satan has connections to what we see in Crowley's character. I just think it's missing some important context.

For example, Crowley is The Snake from the Garden of Eden. We know that for a fact. The Snake tempts Eve to eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and humanity falls (aka Original Sin). Satan is never mentioned in Genesis. But over time, the snake is attributed to being Satan.

That doesn't mean Crowley is Lucifer/Satan. It just means humans in the GOmens verse tend to attribute the demonic things Crowley does to Satan over time because they simplify their own history. The same can be true for enacting wrath on Job or showing Jesus all the kingdoms of the world (tempter of the Gospels). Those things happen, a demon does them, and later down the line, they are conflated as being done by Satan.

Originally, the word satan just meant "adversary" or "opposer." It was a word that described any adversary to God, sometimes even humans. Over time the concept of satan evolved to Ha-Satan, aka The Adversary, the personification of all evil whom Lucifer and The Devil are often attributed to. So there's actual real-world evidence of these translations of any adversary becoming The Adversary, and anything anyone does that opposes God's plan eventually becomes attributed to Satan over time.

And since Crowley is the one on Earth doing things for most of human history, I'm sure most of the things he does get attributed to Satan in the telephone of human mistranslations and simplifications.

Basically, Crowley is the overworked employee who does all the work, and his boss gets all the credit.

But Lucifer, the angel Satan was before he fell, was Not Crowley, and I think that's important. A lot of people were pointing out that Lucifer questioned God, and Crowley asked questions so badda-bing badda-boom Crowley=Lucifer, but I think that's ignoring or simplifying a lot about Lucifer.

Lucifer didn't just question God or rebel against God. Lucifer wanted to be Above God. (Originally, the concept of Lucifer was a king of Babylon, and the concept came strongly from Sumerian mythology, but he was eventually conflated as the Devil/Satan in theology over time). The Book of Isaiah basically describes the main motivations of Lucifer:

Isaiah 14:14: "I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High"

The Cave of Treasures was responsible for the first and most popular proto-orthodox Christian explanation for why the angels fell. Basically, the concept of fallen angels in the Bible is dubious at best. In a lot of rabbinic Jewish literature, Satan and his satans are still angels and servants of God; they just accuse humanity of wrongdoing and punish them for sins. Christianity really developed the idea that Satan was the enemy of God, and the two of them were the figureheads of Good vs. Evil. And with Satan being conflated as Lucifer and Lucifer being conflated as a fallen angel in the Book of the Watchers and that concept of fallen angels (which in the Book of Watchers notably happened after the fall of man, the angels fell because they had sex with humans) Christianity suddenly needed to explain why all these angels became fallen in the first place BEFORE the temptation of Eve, so the Fall of Man and Original Sin was retroactively preceded by the Fall of Angels, and then they had to come up with Why They Fell.

The two biggest Sins that became popular explanations for why the Angels fell were Pride and Envy. Pride, as taken from Isaiah and attributed to Lucifer The Angel instead of Lucifer The Babylonian King, where Lucifer wanted to be above God and have divinity for himself. Envy came from the Cave of Treasures, where Satan was jealous of mankind and refused to prostrate himself before Adam. Basically, God told all the Angels that Humans were going to be the next big important thing and Most Loved by God. Lucifer got jealous because He was Most Loved by God, so he decided to overthrow God out of envy, and the reason why he tortured humans is that he still is envious of them.

So I think fundamentally, if we look at these proto-orthodox explanations of The Fall, Crowley obviously isn't Lucifer. Crowley never wanted to be God. Crowley never hated or envied humanity. He protects them. He pranks them and tempts them, sure, but without malice.

He just had questions. He was Just Some Guy Angel who wanted to make the stars and didn't understand why it had to all go kablooey in six thousand years. Heaven's institution refused to give him answers (or even let him ask his questions, based on his awe at Job conversing with God), so he went and talked to the other angels who were also disgruntled with management in Heaven but for maybe more selfish reasons (Hey Look, It's Lucifer and The Guys). And because he was unsatisfied with Heaven's system, he ended up hanging out with the wrong people, getting involved in the war, and sauntering vaguely downward. And fundamentally, Heaven is going to punish anyone who challenges the status quo. It doesn't matter why or if they had good intentions.

I kind of don't want to know what angel Crowley was before he fell. Maybe he was high-ranking, and maybe he lost his memories, but ultimately the angel he was doesn't matter anymore. The trauma of the war and the fall stripped the angel Crowley used to be and transformed him into the demon we know now. The demon he is now is the only character we need to know. It is fun to theorize, and the angel he used to be might inform the demon we see now (although I think we have most of the information we need to understand that). But the war, the fall, and his time on earth, I think, inform his character far, far more.

#good omens #good omens season 2 #good omens meta #good omens theory #crowley #good omens spoilers #gos2 spoilers #crowley is lucifer #crowley is not lucifer #the job episode

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moonshinemagpie · 6 months

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btw, if you ever wanted a really quick glimpse of how the Dewey Decimal System is biased in favor of white Christian Europeans, just check out the 200s section:

200 Religion 201 Philosophy of Christianity 202 Miscellany of Christianity 203 Dictionaries of Christianity 204 Special topics 205 Serial publications of Christianity 206 Organizations of Christianity 207 Education, research in Christianity 208 Kinds of persons in Christianity 209 History & geography of Christianity 210 Natural theology 211 Concepts of God 212 Existence, attributes of God 213 Creation 214 Theodicy 215 Science & religion 216 Good & evil 217 Not assigned or no longer used 218 Humankind 219 Not assigned or no longer used 220 Bible 221 Old Testament 222 Historical books of Old Testament 223 Poetic books of Old Testament 224 Prophetic books of Old Testament 225 New Testament 226 Gospels & Acts 227 Epistles 228 Revelation (Apocalypse) 229 Apocrypha & pseudepigrapha 230 Christian theology 231 God 232 Jesus Christ & his family 233 Humankind 234 Salvation (Soteriology) & grace 235 Spiritual beings 236 Eschatology 237 Not assigned or no longer used 238 Creeds & catechisms 239 Apologetics & polemics 240 Christian moral & devotional theology 241 Moral theology 242 Devotional literature 243 Evangelistic writings for individuals 244 Not assigned or no longer used 245 Texts of hymns 246 Use of art in Christianity 247 Church furnishings & articles 248 Christian experience, practice, life 249 Christian observances in family life 250 Christian orders & local church 251 Preaching (Homiletics) 252 Texts of sermons 253 Pastoral office (Pastoral theology) 254 Parish government & administration 255 Religious congregations & orders 256 Not assigned or no longer used 257 Not assigned or no longer used 258 Not assigned or no longer used 259 Activities of the local church 260 Christian social theology 261 Social theology 262 Ecclesiology 263 Times, places of religious observance 264 Public worship 265 Sacraments, other rites & acts 266 Missions 267 Associations for religious work 268 Religious education 269 Spiritual renewal 270 Christian church history 271 Religious orders in church history 272 Persecutions in church history 273 Heresies in church history 274 Christian church in Europe 275 Christian church in Asia 276 Christian church in Africa 277 Christian church in North America 278 Christian church in South America 279 Christian church in other areas 280 Christian denominations & sects 281 Early church & Eastern churches 282 Roman Catholic Church 283 Anglican churches 284 Protestants of Continental origin 285 Presbyterian, Reformed, Congregational 286 Baptist, Disciples of Christ, Adventist 287 Methodist & related churches 288 Not assigned or no longer used 289 Other denominations & sects 290 Other & comparative religions 291 Comparative religion 292 Classical (Greek & Roman) religion 293 Germanic religion 294 Religions of Indic origin 295 Zoroastrianism (Mazdaism, Parseeism) 296 Judaism 297 Islam & religions originating in it 298 Not assigned or no longer used 299 Other religions

(found here)

"Christian/Christianity": 25—with many other words and phrases, like "Anglican churches," "Protestants," "Baptist," and "Old Testament," also indicating Christian topics

Judaism: 1

Islam: 1

Most other world religions, clumped together: 1

#library #booklr #dewey decimal system #books #libraries

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lepertamar · 2 months

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Since it was buried deep in a long esoteric fandom post, i kinda want to extract and expand on this comment as its own post

There is an ancient, global, historical and cultural meme that gets glossed over a lot: a ton of christian concepts of Satan, and of Hell, and satanic-ness, is based on antisemitic interpretations of jews, but also, and i mean this in the coolest possible way, as a Jew, much of it is based on Jewish imagery -- in particular, it is based on Jewish G-d.

there's the explicit, overwhelming, absolutely ubiquitous association with fire, to the point where it is the overwhelmingly major attribute of G-d, and any invocation of fire in the jewish tanakh hints at connotations of G-d. Blood dashing and blood marking, and flesh sacrifice by slaughtering and burning of offerings throughout the jewish Tanakh, especially in Exodus. The frightening imagery of fire and brimstone has entered basic western vocabulary so deeply that this imagery -- imagery that in the sources characterizes all of G-d's and the Jews' presence and religious behavior in Exodus and throughout the rest of the Tanakh -- is casually described as hellish and satanic. Volcanoes' lava fields are 'hellish', fires of natural gases producing pillars of flame and smoke are 'hellish'. rituals of fire and blood and burning and heavy costumery and ancient crumbling scrolls hidden in arks embossed and engraved with strange tongues are satanic. and the devil is given a characterization thinly echoing torah's depiction of jewish G-d: as a challenging and frightening and alluring figure who straddles fae-adjacent borders between tricksterish disruption and extreme legalism, who makes deals and bargains (covenants, even) with humans.

In christianity it's usually a distancing game -- a forcible identification of all these recognizable attributes of G-d and judaism with the non-god, christian figure of the devil; and simultaneously a forcible identification of jewish g-d with christian god (after all these attributes are stripped out), and of christian god with extremely different attributes, or at least opposition to the devil. But not always.

It's found in exactly as many words in foundational Gnostic theology that had a great amount of influence on the development of early christianity: it explicitly and actively (rather than the implicit coding above that mainstream christian imagery does) identifies Jewish G-d, as in the exact God of the Jews who is depicted in the Torah, as a false god, the archon and demiurge, who should not be, who is responsible for creating the material world as an illusory, fallen, sinful, inherently corrupted world as an intentional prison, rather than an incomplete starting point a la grapes-but-not-wine, and whom Jews evilly or deludedly follow to maintain the existence of this sinful world rather than escaping to the neoplatonic purity of true forms, where the True God, the New Testament god who includes Jesus Christ, rules instead.

It's pretty ~normal as a process goes! (it in fact totally mirrors some stuff in judaism, where we identified various things as treyf because they had connotations of a canaanite pagan thing LMAO. semiotics using ingroups and outgroups in this way is very very common, and normal! and our g-d, of course, with Its troubled, complex heart, in many ways is from folding the hearts of many different canaanite gods into one person). but in this case it's maybe unique in scope and subtlety, for contingent historical reasons: a case of the sign outstripping the signified to an incredible extent and also of trying to backdoor-in identification with the god in question (eg the designation of gnosticism as a heretical sect by christianity, because mainstream christians preferred to recontextualize/repurpose jewish g-d, rather than break from It and allow jewish g-d to be defined by/identified with jews, even if in the gnostics’ explicitly evil way).

it does also have a weird consequence more modernly, among ppl who backlash to christianity with eg [demonic imagery is cool] stuff and don't realize what it looks like to people who have a slightly larger camera aperture: just skipping over the entire existence of judaism in terms of why the hell-stuff exists or is a hell-thing in the first place (there are a few reasons, and this is the big one). like, it DOES feel bizarre when there's like, ppl trying to be edgy and subversive by embracing christian demonicness that [checks notes] is just aesthetics and attitudes that are just very traditional jewish imagery and ritual. yk it just feels a bit....'hm....do they....uh.....know...'. when the old satanists 'inverted' the jesus pentagrammaton with uh, just the sigil of baphomet, as if the hebrew lettering etc is originally christian. like….

as most peopel know, the association of judaism with satanism is both extremely a longstanding Thing in antisemitism, but also smth jews are Super dystonic and jumpy to disclaim for obvious reasons.

now ofc jews's flat statement that this association is just fake is like, 'true', in that while judaism certainly developed in the past 2 millennia with an awareness of christianity and in the same world as a variety of other cultural influences, judaism is obviously not about christianity. as in, it doesn't categorize its elements and framework of the world according to christian elements and frameworks. but 'it's fake' is not like...a complete answer i guess. (like, it implies hell aesthetics were totally independent and preexisting and judaism was only associated with it post-hoc); it's also kinda, giving up ground? in the going straight to 'hdu say we're freaks! we r normal!' rather than 'is that supposed to be an insult? being a freak is cool and also your instinct to categorize us this way is telling and interesting'

this isn't unique, similar reactions happen alot where there's a marginalized culture trying to avoid violence lol, but it's sort of. lame. why not lean into this attempted dunk. the material universe as a delicious as well as incomplete and perilous mass of bursting universeness, whose materiality is what brings about both fortune and misery, brought to material existence by jewish g-d who is scary and bizarre and fiery and has a great deal of weird opinions/ideas about a bunch of detailed specifics about this-worldly life and the this-worldly material of the universe, who makes deals with the particular people who engage with them -- who is a recognizable germinating seed of the surface of christian hell and satanic aesthetics and ideas, is metal and interesting!

and it's not like. idk. a set of frames that are incompatible with christianity either, afaict some traditions lean harder than others, but i'm jewish and obviously not exactly an expert in those aspects of christianity lol.

a friend of mine regarding their conversion to judaism said:

like g-d as a... person, for lack of better terms. g-d who is a bit of an unknown quantity? sort of devilish, smirking at you when They offer a deal and you are not aware of the legalese (or maybe you are! ) and it's just like. this is how g-d is. g-d is just being g-d, g-d is this rascal who is quite particular but also endlessly enamoured with what people will do...

i didnt (& still dont!) care for satan in the christian sense because ....i don't find a god who is unchangign and eternal and sort of... impersonal.... in any way interesting. & thus an anti-god who is.... there and personal but like just to "tempt" you or w/e is also boring in comparison.

but g-d who is playful, who is tempting and trying to seduce you and be seduced, who you can bargain w and get into a contract w which might seem "unfair" in some ways (fucking halakhah right wwww) and like bullshit legalese but it's like, you are agreeing to it! you are taking that on bc you find that worthwhile. like how someone sells t heir soul to the devil, because they think it's worthwhile; but ig in this case you're not rlly getting like, "be able to play the fiddle better than any mortal" type just a... you have the option and you want to take it! that is all far more compelling to me and far more godlike. bc it transforms g-d into an active participant

#j #i wrote this uh #just before october so #i sat on it instead of posting it for several months LMAO #long post

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huntunderironskies · 3 months

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hi sorry to bother ypu again but i wanted to ask How would werewolves that still keep their old religion syncretized them together ? Especially when in regards of judaism

Okay, uh, this got really long, wow. Hopefully that makes it clear you have absolutely no reason to feel like you're bothering me because I love this stuff.

I do really hesitate to answer for Judaism because pre-Nicene Christianity and mysticism (and to a much lesser extent Sufism) are my focus areas so I am not an authority at all, but I can try. Also I've specifically taken a class on theological philosophy done by a fairly authoritative figure in free will theology so I think about the relationship between people and god/s a lot which means I can kind of give a generalist answer there. I'm primarily familiar with monotheistic faiths and those are the faiths that are going to have to do some extra theological legwork to explain everything so I'll focus on that.

This is SUPER long so I'm going to put it below a cut, I'll also talk a little about my OCs to give some ways that I've had characters hold syncretic beliefs in case that inspires some ideas.

Content...warning....???: Lots and lots of existential matters, big thinks on salvation, theology talk, etc.

First things first: I am very biased since religious mysticism is one of my academic interests but I think mysticism and in particular ecstatic mysticism would square nicely with werewolf existence. Mysticism is much more personal and visceral than more traditional faith paths and the sense of uncomplicated joy that comes with ecstatic practices would be a really welcome break from the usual werewolf things. For more tame forms of mysticism, the sense of unity and peace would be nice too but it's easier to imagine a werewolf drifting towards the more active forms.

Onto actually talking about syncreticism. This is something that Christianity and also to some extent Islam* is concerned about, but it's very easy to justify other powerful beings that aren't God if you've been faced with seemingly undeniable reality that beings more powerful than humans exist. You do have to kind of grapple a lot with the idea as humanity being God's ultimate creation but if you're a werewolf you're sort of faced with that idea already, I'll have to return to that point briefly later. The methodology given to me that metaphysicists use to justify the qualities of being truly worthy of all worship, henceforth referred to as a capital-G God for simplicity's sake, are that this hypothetical God would have maximal qualities, meaning that God would have the greatest possible power in all attributes.

You might be more familiar with the term omnibenevolence, omniscience, etc. in this case but for whatever reason maximal qualities gets used more. I would imagine because it's more directly indicative, it gets you out of the mire of having to explain that, no, omnipotence does not mean that God can create a rock that he can't lift. Trying to define maximal attributes** does get you into some weird places outside of the "rock you can't lift" trope, I know one thing we talked about in my classes was with regards to how omniscience could be defined. The ultimate conclusion was "holding all possible knowledge" but "all possible knowledge" didn't include every possible thought because it would not be reasonable for God to have the same knowledge that you or I might of "I am [name]," as that would imply that God is you or I and also everyone else who has any self-awareness. This is perfectly fine if you're a pantheist (as with the very confusing love of my life, Anne Conway, who I would conduct necromancy on just to pick her brain) but less so for most traditional monotheistic faiths.

All of this is to say: a werewolf who wants to hold onto monotheistic faiths can justify it easily and not have it be totally logically inconsistent. It's not that Luna, the Firstborn, or Father Wolf are false gods, nor are they Gods, they're just very powerful beings. You don't have to and in fact shouldn't worship them, they don't have the necessary qualities that are deserving of worship. You can emulate them to some degree, you can acknowledge they helped create you, that's fine. But your God is the one who has earned your worship. You don't start bowing before the first Rank 5 spirit that crosses your path, do you? Just because something is powerful doesn't mean it's worthy of your love and devotion.

And, I mean, maybe there's kind of a point in there. Any werewolf who has ever talked to a Lune can tell you that Mother Moon is kind of unstable. There's also the issue that Father Wolf is, you know, dead, no matter how badly the Pure Tribes wish that wasn't the case, so you can't do a whole lot with that.

Monotheistic pantheism or religiously focused panpsychism*** (which isn't out of the question for Christians, at least, Alfred North Whitehead and Anne Conway were panpsychists while Baruch Spinoza was a Jewish panpsychist) also provides a pretty easy out there and even kind of has some grounding since panpsychism and animism are closely related. If you're going with a Conwayist (this is a word I have just made up as one of the five people who really like Anne Conway) interpretation, you could have fully sapient Rank 6 spirits be another sort of middle-nature conduit between werewolves and God. Spirits can grant the omnipotent powers that God has, making werewolves more like-God, but they lack the omnibenevolent qualities and remain imperfect and not-like-God. Again, not things you should emulate, but part of God's perfect plan.

...actually I think I'm onto something here, I might have to double back to work on this later and make a Lodge with this as their viewpoint.

So on the upside for people who want to hold onto their original faith path, the thing about a lot of religions is when that magic is effectively real, suddenly miracles get a lot easier to explain. Prophets could be otherwise ordinary humans inspired by God but they could also be supernatural beings. Or you just start having your own miracle-workers who are supernatural beings guided by God. The Storm Lords in one game I ran were very connected to the Catholic Church and had their own secret saints they venerated, some of whom were Storm Lords, but not all. Storm Lords are very Catholic in general in my opinion. Big focus on stoically enduring suffering and trying to attain a greatness you'll never be able to really achieve. That's neither here nor there though.

Under this paradigm, Gifts are basically little miracles you can perform. Yeah, they're kind of grim sometimes, but so are the ones in saint stories. I mean, you get things like people carrying their own decapitated heads. Acts of God don't need to be tame or gentle or clean. Werewolves would absolutely be the more blunt-force instrument of divine power in this sense and it's something that a werewolf who believes this would want to embrace.

I think it also kind of helps out werewolves to know how closely connected they are to humanity and that a huge chunk of sapient supernatural beings (I would personally not say that God-Machine angels, spirits, most goetia, honestly kind-of-sort-of the True Fae, etc have both free will and sapience as a philosopher might define it but we are REALLY getting out into the weeds there) are born as humans. Some of them might still think of themselves as human, just either cursed or blessed by God, which still leaves humanity as the ultimate creation of God as suggested by the Bible. This is really more a Christian concern than anything else, though, I'm pretty sure Imago Dei is almost exclusively Christian as a theological concept.

That said there's definitely room to go the Lancea et Sanctum route and become incredibly self-loathing and see yourself as fundamentally damned or undeserving of whatever reward humans might eventually get. Living a life of extreme violence when most monotheistic faiths are generally against excessive violence would be a problem. Most faiths account for righteous wars of some kind (some Christian denominations would not, you'd really struggle as a Quaker werewolf) and the issue comes more in the form of Death Rage being indiscriminate. Directing violence at those who've earned it is fine, but you can't always do that. It's really hard to pull yourself away from the idea of being uniquely evil in that regard.

There might be a tendency to skew towards the Flesh due to that. Death Rage is fundamentally a werewolf's spirit-side coming to the front. They're not really a person anymore, they're a person-shaped conduit for death because they're in part spirits of the hunt. I think it'd be easy for a monotheistic werewolf to see their spirit-side as the "evil" half of their being and for in particular Christian werewolves...possibly also Sikh werewolves since I know that rage is one of the Five Thieves.

I did do a paper on Sikhi practice (I would have gotten to visit one of the few gurdwara in my region in-person and didn't because of the pandemic and I am still super bitter about it,) so I can touch on that a tiny bit as well. Sikhi syncreticism for werewolves would probably focus a lot on trying to control and overcome Death Rage. I cannot imagine there being a lot of Blood Talons among Sikh werewolves and the ones that are there would really, really, REALLY lean in hard on the "learning to control your Rage" aspects of being a Blood Talon.

Quick note on another consideration. For Muslim werewolves or any other Muslim supernatural being, the idea that anyone could become a prophet after Muhammad would be a huge theological no-go. Less of a big deal in the other monotheistic faiths, though. But a cornerstone of Islam is that Muhammad is the final prophet. I think your average Muslim Cahalith could and would make a case they have supernatural insight, but it's not necessarily God telling them how to guide humanity. I know that by Sufi folklore a few wali were supposed to have incredible awareness of events going on around them (the story I'm thinking of is an anecdote of a wali whose name escapes me who saw a bird suddenly fall to the ground dead and knew this was a sign that a sultan had died) but these miracles were not supposed to make them speak for God. Point is, I cannot imagine a Muslim Cahalith ever thinking of themself as being part of a prophet class from my admittedly still limited understanding of Islam.

Oh, Muslim werewolves would also have a leg up in the sense that it's acknowledged in the Qu'ran that anyone can become a Muslim, even jinn...or werewolves, and they'll still attain salvation so long as they follow God faithfully. I think you would see more self-loathing amongst Christian werewolves than Muslim or Jewish or Sikh werewolves, in short.

Also, not an expert on Zoroastrianism other than having a vague awareness of its influence on the other monotheistic religions and knowing the fun factoid that sometimes Zoroastrians were counted among the People of the Book early on in Islam's history, but I think that Zoroastrian werewolves would have a unique niche here in being able to justify their beliefs. From my limited understanding you could potentially qualify the Firstborn as being ahura while a lot of nastier spirits and ESPECIALLY Wound-related phenomena as being Aka Manah. It feels like a huge missed opportunity that there wasn't a Zoroastrian Lodge or that the Lodge of the Savior didn't have at least some Zoroastrian presence at some point or another. In its defense, the concept of the Maeljin being corrupted versions of werewolf Renown didn't exist until 2e (and to be perfectly clear, is a fantastic idea that makes the Maeljin and Bale Hounds more focused around werewolf concerns.)

Bloodless hunts would be super appealing to monotheistic werewolves as well. Claiming territory from wicked people, tracking down lost knowledge, that kind of thing. You'd also have to work a lot harder to make sure you're killing someone who deserves it. If they're sapient. Which, again, things like Shards and spirits arguably aren't. You can logic yourself into the position that the reason that murder is bad is because it's inflicting pain on someone pretty easily, you don't have to take a commandment at purely face value. If you explore why God has forbidden something, that gives you a lot more loopholes to work with. Ideally you want to be consistent with your logic, but not everyone is. The one issue is the Hunt has to be proactive by definition, while the most cut and dry examples of justifiable violence in these traditions comes from self-defense.

To get into how I've had my characters deal with theological issues...my only two still-Christian werewolves are Philippe (pictured in my avatar) and Levi (I've posted art of him a few times.) I'll talk mostly about Levi since his personal theology is the most complex and gives an idea of how weird theology can become if you're a werewolf.

Levi is a member of the Lodge of the Savior and is actively convinced that the material world is Hell while the Shadow is just another circle or facet of that. A lot of this is because the Flesh seems to have a direct link to whatever is inside Wounds, and it's way, way too easy to rip open a hole there. He can also see the God-Machine (long story) which really isn't helping.

Like most Thebans he's committed himself to hunting Malejin, killing Bale Hounds, and closing Wounds. He doesn't think salvation is beyond reach, but the way he's reasoned the world being as bad as it is is because in his personal theology, well, God can't help you if you're in Hell.

Most of this is heavily influenced by a regional cult called the Church of the Night Angel, which he is technically a member of. They believe that all sapient monsters are gifted their miraculous powers by a servant of God they call the Night Angel (who gets syncretized with a lot of minor deities and also is sometimes, albeit rarely, identified as Vahishtael,) but those gifts have been corrupted by a being known as the First Lie, the Spire, the Adversary, and about a dozen other epithets into what they are now (translator's note: the First Lie is the God-Machine.) The God-Machine, being jealous of God's wonderful creations, stole humanity from Him and trapped them in Hell.

They still have the chance to choose good, it's just harder than it should be. As such the highest duty they have is to fight the servants of the First Lie. These are defined as demons (beings without free will created by the First Lie to serve It,) the Pretenders (natives of the material world who try to deceive others into following them over God or His servant who has come to free everyone from Hell, the Night Angel, but ultimately serve a greater purpose in the world) and the Fallen-of-Purpose. The Fallen-of-Purpose are the worst of all these. The Pretenders and demons can't help what they are, but the Fallen-of-Purpose are monsters who make the active choice to do what the First Lie wants them to do by submitting to the evil parts of their nature.

Oh, to be clear as an aside, when I say material world I mean everything in the Fallen World. This includes places like the Hedge, Shadow, and so on. Those are just a different kind of Hell.

Note that as a supernatural taxonomy, this is a really bad one due to how loosely defined the categories are especially when you get really trigger-happy around things that aren't "of the Night Angel" and the Angelaltrists tend to speak very authoritatively about other monsters in extremely simplistic ways. Their attempts to fight the God-Machine also end up with a lot of splash damage and they kill both capital-D Demons and Angels without discrimination (and yes, under their taxonomy, Angels are demons. Don't think too hard about it.) You would be very hard-pressed to find an Angelaltrist who would take a Demon at their word that they've broken free of the God-Machine because all of them consider anything of the God-Machine to be ontologically evil by the transitive property. Things that are of the God-Machine are not of God and not of the Night Angel. QED.

Malejin are pretty definitively demons under this theory, and I'd almost say Levi is more an Angelaltrist than a Hound of God even if he kind of takes aspects of both. As a Storm Lord he primarily focuses his efforts on people who are being Ridden by Wound-corrupted spirits and people Claimed by the Wounded spirits, and of course to close Wounds as a preventative measure. He doesn't have to deal with any real regret for killing Claimed either. The person is long dead and the spirit killed them. You're just destroying a shell.

It's a matter of figuring out if the spirit should be eliminated for good from there. If it's a Wounded spirit, you're just conducting an act of euthanasia. It's destroying a rabid animal, nothing more or less. Better it die fast than letting it live through the pain of falling to the Maeljin.

He sees Mother Moon as being just one aspect of the Night Angel and a representation of her fiercer aspects, while Winter Wolf is an early creation of the Night Angel who is especially powerful and has attained something close to living sainthood. That's why he hasn't died yet (read: why his Avatars are still wandering about.) He's strong enough he's chosen to continue living and fighting, rather than taking the offer of eternal repose in the Night Angel's paradise that all good monsters are offered. This just makes Winter Wolf even more of an ideal to live up to.

Philippe is still trying to deal with the whole monster thing. After a very delayed rite of passage (which involved switching Tribes from the Storm Lords to the Hunters in Darkness) he's sort of settled comfortably-ish into his new life with some trepidation. He largely sees the Firstborn as being more or less real, but not possessing maximal qualities worthy of worship. Black Wolf is the kind, gentle mother you can always talk to but she's not God-- she kind of takes the place of Mother Mary here, or just a really, REALLY powerful patron saint. And when I've written them, I've had the Hunters in Darkness be pretty guilty of putting Black Wolf above Mother Moon and Father Wolf, sometimes to the point of thinking she's now surpassed Father Wolf as a hunter even when he was at the height of his strength. So he doesn't really dwell on them very much. Father Wolf is dead and Black Wolf is alive. Mother Moon doesn't really call that often.

He definitely sees himself as not necessarily of humanity but not undeserving of salvation because the idea of not being able to be saved doesn't square with an omnibenevolent God. Was the blood sacrifice of Jesus meant for him too? Well, probably. He can make the active choice to follow Jesus. He's making every effort to do good in the world. If you're looking at this from a process theology standpoint, the Bible was written from the perspective of humans, so of course they're only thinking from a human perspective and not including beings of free will that aren't human. That doesn't mean that God can't love someone who isn't human and that God won't save someone who's made the free choice to follow Him.

He's very focused on killing Hosts, unsurprisingly. It's pretty easy to justify killing them, they set themselves up as false gods, aren't really whole beings anymore, and like, when you get down to it, you're only committing one-one-millionth of a murder so that's like, a venial sin at worst. But do you feel bad for every blade of grass you step on? Do you feel bad for taking an antibiotic to kill a disease? It is technically killing something. But you can't keep living if you don't walk, and there's more blades of grass out there than you can count. You'll die if you let an infection spread and then you'll take other people with you because you were too soft. God understands that.

Also it's Wilmington, so he's in a target-rich environment. The Uglathu are a huge problem there and the whole region has been in an ecological death spiral for decades in part because of them. Otherwise he'd have to worry about diversifying into things that are harder to justify more often. He does avoid hunting humans and werewolves, all that said, and thinks it's generally the wrong thing to do except in the most extreme cases like Bale Hounds or Slashers. Especially for human criminals, that gets more into the area of things that only God can judge for. It's not a werewolf's place to intervene.

Well. Maybe you can gently nudge the human authorities in the right direction. But even that makes him feel a little guilty. It doesn't feel natural.

Sorry if this doesn't get into legalistic concerns much at all, I'm more focused on the metaphysical aspects of religion so I can't speak a whole lot to that. Werewolves being able to eat spirits would probably cause a lot of concern over what spirits are halal or kosher and what methods of killing them would be acceptable, but I have no clue how to answer that. I like thinking about how it is possible for something to become infinitely more full of light but not jurisprudence.

*post-script here to say that I had one of my professors, who is an expert in pre-Nicene Christianity and someone I admire a lot, say that generally speaking it was Christian theologians who really kicked off obsessing over what the qualities of God might be in the sense of "when we say God's hand is in something, are we giving human attributes to God and therefore suggesting God is like humans and not divine?!" type stuff. Rabbis tended to be more chill. I'll admit I've kind of taken what he says at face value since he's read a lot more material from that time period than me and also Saint Augustine had a huge impact on theology and he's the most neurotic man who ever lived so I would believe it. Him and his pears.

** another post-script to say that under this paradigm the God-Machine doesn't qualify as a God, we see plenty of proof the God-Machine is arbitrary and eminently fallible. While Its knowledge is obviously very far-reaching, and It's clearly acting with goal-focused behavior, you would have an incredibly hard time arguing Its actions are anything approaching benevolent and most free will theologians would take the fact It uses beings without free will as Its primary servants as hard proof It cannot be good

***yet another post-script to say that panpsychism is herein defined as all things possessing some level of mind, and that material differentiation are either inconsequential or purely illusion, if memory serves Conway was more in the first realm while Spinoza was in the second-- this will seem familiar if you've got any level of familiarity with Buddhism and after asking a few experts there's some consensus that Spinoza at least had some awareness with Buddhist philosophy and was influenced by it. It's less clear with Conway because we know way less about her life, sadly, and that's why I'm learning necromancy.

#werewolf the forsaken #chronicles of darkness #oh god long post warning #sorry you have activated my special interest trap card #oc tag #levi #philippe #ALSO REALLY SORRY TO ATARAXICPHILOCALIST I AM STILL WORKING ON YOUR ASK #I'LL TRY TO HAVE IT DONE TONIGHT

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tamamita · 1 year

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What is Arianism?

A Christian belief asserting that God had created The Son in time instead of having existed with Him from the very beginning. The Father preceeded the son as opposed to both of them being coeternal, therefore making him subordinate to the Father. Arius, who is attributed to this belief, argued that neither of them shared the same substance.

The Trinitarian belief asserts, as Athanasius said, that God existed as three distinct persons, who were all coeternal, cosubstantial, and coequal in glory. None of them were dissimilar in substance, and all of them shared the essence of God.

The Nicene Creed ultimately went with the Trinitarian doctrine, while Arianism was declared a heresy. Arius was sentenced to exile, but was exonerated after some controversies with Athanasius until the Council of Constantinople, where Arianism was once again declared heresy. The Trinity was left uncontested and remained the mainstream belief of Christian theology for the time to come.

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monsterblogging · 1 month

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So like, the kaiju cultists of Pacific Rim interest me quite a lot, because religions and cults and all that are things that interest me. I need you to understand this first and foremost.

Because.

*deep breath*

*sobs*

The kaiju prayer in the novelization is. Um.

Well...

It's complete and utter nonsense. Total garble. Completely incoherent.

What do I mean? Well...

So, here's the kaiju prayer written by Alex Irvine for the Pacific Rim novelization:

We are the sisters of the kaiju.

We open our arms to receive the angels of the ocean.

Majestic creatures from beyond our horizons, deliver us from suffering and strike the evil from our hearts.

You are mercenaries on a mission of mercy, come to free humanity from a poisoned home. With almighty powers, you stir our oceans and steal our skies.

O kaiju kings, lead us down into your paradise below the seas and vanquish all who oppose your supreme reign.

Look how you crucify our false prophets, man-made tyrants who fear what they do not understand. You are not the scourge. You are the salvation.

We fall to our knees in your infinite shadow and raise our hands in awe and admiration.

Let the blue blood of the archangels wash away our iniquity that we may start life anew in the world before…

On a broad level, this aligns with Travis Beacham's statement about BuenaKai following an apocalyptic theology and believing the kaiju are here to wash our sins away.

But when you look closer, you can see that the kaiju are referred to as angels, archangels, kings, and mercenaries. Angels/archangels, mercenaries, and kings are very different things, and only one of these actually makes sense.

It should be pretty damned obvious to anyone ever that whatever the kaiju are, they are not kings. Kings wouldn't be out here attacking cities and getting nuked or beaten to death by Jaegers.

Mercenaries is also a strange word to throw into this whole mess, because a mercenary is a soldier for hire. It's both incompatible with king and angel/archangel.

Angel/archangel is the only one that makes any kind of sense. This one actually does align with information in the film, where Hannibal Chau says that the cultists believe the kaiju are "sent by the gods." (And given that Chau sells kaiju bits across the street from a kaiju church, it's reasonable to think he's probably not too off in this description.)

Something that's kinda weird is the "majestic creatures from beyond our horizons" bit. Literally everybody knows they come from the bottom of the sea, and this knowledge is definitely attributed to the BuenaKai cultists in this prayer.

And then there's this line:

Look how you crucify our false prophets, man-made tyrants who fear what they do not understand.

Dear god there's a lot to unpack here.

Like. "False prophet" is probably the the most inept insult Irvine could've come up with, and betrays a severe lack of knowledge in how any Christian or Christian-adjacent spiritual worldview actually works. Like for all of the ridiculous demonization religious extremists get up to, they don't just call anything and everything they don't like a "false prophet." This only happens in hack writing where the writer only knows a few basic Christian cliches.

Same goes for "crucify." The kaiju are not doing any crucifying. The word is only here because it's a Christian cliche. You could have just said "slay," Alex. It's also in the Bible.

"Man-made tyrants who fear what they do not understand" is also bizarre. Wouldn't the "tyrants who fear what they do not understand" be the people who built the Jaegers, not the Jaegers themselves?

Again, I have researched some of the most unhinged spiritual movements on the goddamn planet (Love Has Won, anyone?), and none of them are this incoherent.

So I've decided to rewrite this prayer into something coherent, that also reflects the existence of BuenaKai monks:

We are the brothers and sisters of the kaiju.

We open our arms to receive the angels of the ocean.

Majestic creatures from the world below, deliver us from suffering and strike the evil from our hearts.

You are warriors of mercy, sent to free us from our poisoned home. Your almighty strength stirs our oceans. Your sacred majesty occludes our skies.

O mighty archangels, show us the righteous way that shall lead us to life everlasting in the world to come. Vanquish all who oppose your holy wrath.

Look how you strike down our proud works, look how you have slain the Jaegers and crushed the Wall. You are scourge to the tyrant and salvation to the faithful.

We fall to our knees and raise our hands to thank the Holy Ones who have sent you.

In your death even is victory; your sacred blood cleanses the world of man's sin, to prepare the world for life anew.

#pacific rim #pacific rim 2013 #buenakai #kaiju cultists

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lightthewaybackhome · 3 months

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What's your favourite thing about Reformed theology and why?

Asking as someone who doesn't like Reformed theology much who wants to know what its followers like about it.

Thank you for this question. I'm going to do my best to answer it while saying up front that I'm not discussing doctrine. I'm not a good debater. I'm taking your kind question as a subjective question, not one that wishes a doctrinal answer or a compare and contrast with other denominations answer.

For me personally, two things that I love about Reformed theology are this:

A High View of God. Reformed Baptists hold and teach a high view of God, His goodness, transcendence, simplicity, and attributes. The higher my view of God, the greater and more wonderful my salvation is. I also deeply appreciate the focus being on God and not on me and my feelings. This equips me to view myself correctly and not be overwhelmed by my feelings which are many and a bit all over the place.

I love the truth of Christian liberty expounded in our Confession: (I also love our confessionalism because it provides clarity and safety.) The liberty which Christ has purchased for believers under the gospel, consists in their freedom from the guilt of sin, the condemning wrath of God, the severity and curse of the law, and in their being delivered from this present evil world, bondage to Satan, and dominion of sin, from the evil of afflictions, the fear and sting of death, the victory of the grave, and everlasting damnation: as also in their free access to God, and their yielding obedience unto Him, not out of slavish fear, but a child-like love and willing mind. All which were common also to believers under the law for the substance of them; but under the New Testament the liberty of Christians is further enlarged, in their freedom from the yoke of a ceremonial law, to which the Jewish church was subjected, and in greater boldness of access to the throne of grace, and in fuller communications of the free Spirit of God, than believers under the law did ordinarily partake of. (2LBCF 21.1)

I think that might be one of the most beautiful lists ever penned by man.

I'm going to tag @walkingthroughthisworld who can check me if I put anything wrong or unclearly.

These are two of my favorite things about Reformed Theology. I love its boldness and clarity, but mostly I love its high view of the Lord and I love the liberty in Christ that it brings.

#ask #ask answered #theology #reformed baptist #reformed theology #thoughts of a layperson #personal #2lbcf

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hollers-and-holmes · 1 year

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Just wanted to say that you are on a ROLL with these unpopular opinions! I’ve never seen this much well-articulated, orthodox theology on my dash at the same time before!

So on that note:

🔥 on homosexuality?

😂 I’ve been waiting for this one to pop up. Thank you for the encouraging word and for promptly slapping me with a difficult topic! 🤣

🫙 First, to the text!

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened….they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.”

‭‭Romans‬ ‭1:18-21, 23, 26-28‬ ‭ESV‬‬ (emphasis added)

God makes it inescapably clear that homosexuality is sinful. Not only is it sinful, but its widespread accepted practice is a symptom of a culture that has collectively rebelled against God’s good authority and seeks to throw off His rule.

🫙 God is also inescapably clear that it is possible to be delivered from this, and that becoming a Christian means you no longer practice it.

“Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”

‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭6:9-11‬ ‭ESV‬‬ (emphasis added)

🫙 Much of the current discourse around homosexuality has to do with matters of identity. What Paul is saying here is that if the Lord Jesus claims you, you have a new identity and it’s no longer that of homosexual. You are in Christ. You are a new creation.

🫙 This does not necessarily mean immediate deliverance from the temptation of the former lusts. Sanctification is a process.

🫙 It does mean your opinion of those lusts has now changed. Becoming a Christian means you now love what God’s loves and hate what He hates.

🫙 Believing what He has said regarding sin of any sort—that it is what broke the world to a smoking ruin, that it desires to have you like a ravening wolf, that its wages is death and that for some of us that meant the unimaginably torturous murder of the innocent Lord of Glory in our place—is the first step to gaining victory over it. Our view of sin should not be softer than God’s.

🫙 If anyone happens to read this who does battle in this area, dear one, listen to me. Why do you spend your money on that which will not satisfy you? These cisterns are broken and they can hold no water. There is not life for you here. There is not healing for your ruptured heart. The sweetness of it is a poison sweetness and it will someday crumble to ash in your mouth. It will fester your wounds instead of repair them.

But the Lord Jesus is King of the winecup and of the feasting table. Come and drink. Taste and see that He is good. That His ways lead to life, to sweet green meadows, to the sun warm on your face, to the perfect law of liberty. To salve and binding that will soothe and someday close your wounds forever. To a family of people who get it.

He is not offering you the shackles of a pleasureless life. He is offering to kick down the door of your cell.

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asinusrufus · 7 months

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"(...) There is no doubt whatever that Typhon-Set was commonly identified with the sun in the Graeco-Roman period, and not infrequently with Abraxas. Similarly, there are many occasions when Jewish god-names occur in invocations of Typhon-Set. Identification of both Typhon and Dionysus with the Jewish god is also a common theme in late antiquity. Despite assertions by respected reference works, I am not inclined to epitomise every instance of this as anti-Semitism, even though such traits certainly existed. Set had a newly acquired demiurgic and solar-pantheistic status that was evidently sincere, this was neither necessarily or still less inevitably connected to ethnic politics. Similarly, Dionysus was a hugely popular god; identification of him with Eastern deities is perfectly in character, even if controversial due to the status of one in particular (...) Similarly, magical use of Jewish god-names occasionally incurs accusations of cultural appropriation. Again, the fact is that these names have become traditional; it is however extremely significant that late pagan use of them predates similar Christian usage. While apparently counter-intuitive to modern sensibilities, for an ancient pagan it was perfectly feasible to accommodate figures from henotheist or monotheist cultures. In some cases, particularly in Asia Minor, such accommodation reflected a deep respect for and involvement with Jewish culture, which however stopped short of conversion. On the other hand, there is no necessity to retain wholesale usage of these names; the conceptions of deity involved are not the sole province of any particular theology, and slavish reliance on past forms is no indication of magical competence. Having disposed of this issue in short order, the more immediately reIevant fact here is that Typhon-Set bore the status mentioned. In doing so, he demonstrates the mutability of views of the gods from one epoch to the next, it is a simple fact that perceptions of the nature and attributes of any ancient deity was subject to change. Consequently, the favouritism of one modern pagan grouping or individual for one or other past expression does not render those of another wrong per se. That Typhon-Set preceded Jehovah as premier deity of ceremonial magicians, often invoked under exactly the same names, is both historically true and potentially significant to various modern practitioners, and that is what matters here."

Jake Stratton-Kent, Geosophia or The Argo of Magic, vol. II

#sēt #set #sutekh #sēt-typhon #iaô #syncretism #ceremonial magic #jake stratton-kent #polytheism #greek magical papyri #pgm

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officialyourdailyinspiration · 4 months

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The Books of the Bible: Old Testament (1 of 2) The Books of the Bible in order with introductions and summaries for the Old Testament.

The Five Books of the Law: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy

Genesis The Book of Genesis is the first book of the Christian Old Testament. Genesis speaks of beginnings and is foundational to the understanding of the rest of the Bible. It is supremely a book that speaks about relationships, highlighting those between God and his creation, between God and humankind, and between human beings.

Exodus The Book of Exodus is the second book of the Christian Old Testament. Exodus describes the history of the Israelites leaving Egypt after slavery. The book lays a foundational theology in which God reveals his name, his attributes, his redemption, his law and how he is to be worshiped.

Leviticus The Book of Leviticus is the third book of the Christian Old Testament. Leviticus receives its name from the Septuagint (the pre-Christian Greek translation of the Old Testament) and means "concerning the Levites" (the priests of Israel). It serves as a manual of regulations enabling the holy King to set up his earthly throne among the people of his kingdom. It explains how they are to be his holy people and to worship him in a holy manner.

Numbers The Book of Numbers is the fourth book of the Christian Old Testament. Numbers relates the story of Israel's journey from Mount Sinai to the plains of Moab on the border of Canaan. The book tells of the murmuring and rebellion of God's people and of their subsequent judgment.

Deuteronomy The Book of Deuteronomy is the fifth book of the Christian Old Testament. Deuteronomy ("repetition of the Law") serves as a reminder to God's people about His covenant. The book is a "pause" before Joshua's conquest begins and a reminder of what God required.

Historical Books: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and 1 and 2 Chronicles

Joshua Joshua is a story of conquest and fulfillment for the people of God. After many years of slavery in Egypt and 40 years in the desert, the Israelites were finally allowed to enter the land promised to their fathers.

Judges The book of Judges depicts the life of Israel in the Promised Land—from the death of Joshua to the rise of the monarchy. It tells of urgent appeals to God in times of crisis and apostasy, moving the Lord to raise up leaders (judges) through whom He throws off foreign oppressors and restores the land to peace.

Ruth The book of Ruth has been called one of the best examples of short narrative ever written. It presents an account of the remnant of true faith and piety in the period of the judges through the fall and restoration of Naomi and her daughter-in-law Ruth (an ancestor of King David and Jesus).

1 Samuel Samuel relates God's establishment of a political system in Israel headed by a human king. Through Samuel's life, we see the rise of the monarchy and the tragedy of its first king, Saul.

2 Samuel After the failure of King Saul, 2 Samuel depicts David as a true (though imperfect) representative of the ideal theocratic king. Under David's rule the Lord caused the nation to prosper, to defeat its enemies, and to realize the fulfillment of His promises.

1 Kings 1 Kings continues the account of the monarchy in Israel and God's involvement through the prophets. After David, his son Solomon ascends the throne of a united kingdom, but this unity only lasts during his reign. The book explores how each subsequent king in Israel and Judah answers God's call—or, as often happens, fails to listen.

2 Kings 2 Kings carries the historical account of Judah and Israel forward. The kings of each nation are judged in light of their obedience to the covenant with God. Ultimately, the people of both nations are exiled for disobedience.

1 Chronicles Just as the author of Kings had organized and interpreted Israel's history to address the needs of the exiled community, so the writer of 1 Chronicles wrote for the restored community another history.

2 Chronicles 2 Chronicles continues the account of Israel's history with an eye for restoration of those who had returned from exile.

Books of Poetry and Songs: Esther, Ezra, and Nehemiah

Ezra The book of Ezra relates how God's covenant people were restored from Babylonian exile to the covenant land as a theocratic (kingdom of God) community even while continuing under foreign rule.

Nehemiah Closely related to the book of Ezra, Nehemiah chronicles the return of this "cupbearer to the king" and the challenges he and the other Israelites face in their restored homeland.

Esther Esther records the institution of the annual festival of Purim through the historical account of Esther, a Jewish girl who becomes queen of Persia and saves her people from destruction.

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