The Evils of Syncretism

So Vicki's back in school and gets some news from Bruce: Janie, her jailbird friend, the one she took a shiv for, is coming to live with her and Chaya. But it isn't long before trouble strikes! Apparently Janie is still a party girl, still drinks and smokes, and gets into trouble. This is all very shocking to Vicki who had expected her to change overnight because it's not like smoking and drinking are diseases with causes that take time to fix and must be addressed before they can be. No, apparently, they're supposed to instantly straighten up and fly right in the presence of Bruce "Useless" Barnes.

But we get evidence that Vicki isn't completely pure as snow when she prays this to Zod:

"Lord, if it's okay with you, I pray that Judd and I would become more than just friends."

You just know Irene Steele would get the vapors if she heard such ungodly talk. But this is a fairly normal prayer for a teenage girl--praying that some boy would like her--so I'll let it slide.

Anyway they celebrate Thanksgiving now renamed Fall Festival Day by the eeevil NWO and discuss distributing their paper via the mail. They do this and there's a big jump to Christmas Eve. I have to say, this is somewhat shocking that they would actually fast-forward a good chunk of time given Ellanjay's fetish for making sure that you know exactly what a character is doing and when. I would applaud them for just fast-forwarding through all the phone calls and other minutia they're obsessed with but my bad writing sense is tingling, telling me something is waiting for me.

Anyway, Vicki gets a cross necklace for Christmas and Ryan is pissed when she assumes Judd gave it to her and storms off upstairs, only to catch Janie smoking something in her room. But she denies everything when the YTF question her.

Next chapter is a big jump to four months later and we get yet another ridiculous name, Judd's religion teacher, Mr. Syncrete. Now, I guess Syncrete is supposed to be a play on Syncretism which dictionary.com defines as:

the attempted reconciliation or union of different or opposing principles, practices, or parties, as in philosophy or religion.

So naturally I'm guessing this is Ellanjay's way of attacking Syncretism, though syncretism is a natural part of human nature. When two cultures meet, both sides will draw ideas from the other. No culture exists in a vaccuum; even America, is blending together of a wide variety of cultures and beliefs, yet they manage to coexist mostly because of syncretism. Though we may have pillaged and plundered Indian cultures and saw them as inferior, we also drew a lot of our native dishes and place names from them; nearly every state in the union has an Indian name.

In fact a lot of Christian practices are syncretism. The characters celebrated Christmas which is basically a pagan solstice festival dusted off and given a Christian feel (don't tell me Ellanjay really believes Jesus was born on December 25), as is Easter. I could go on and on about examples of syncretism but my main point is this: Syncretism exists as a natural flowing from the interactions of various cultures.

But naturally, Ellanjay see anything less than purity as evil (though when you think about it, purity doesn't really exist) so Mr. Syncrete is an eeevil employee of the NWO teaching system what with his insistence on tolerance for everyone even if they aren't Judeo-Christian.

For some reason though, the NWO requires religious education for graduation. Why, I don't know. You'd think the anti-Christ would oppose that sort of thing, learning about other faiths than the one he's trying to promote but maybe I should give up trying to apply logic where it doesn't belong.

So apparently Judd and Mr. Syncrete get into debates. Unfortunately, it's not much of a debate: it lasts two sentences long. You can't help but feel ripped off that Ellanjay can't even set up a decent strawman for their protagonist to knock down. Here's the stunning debate:

"You have no basis for saying that," Mr. Syncrete said once. "Give me one shred of evidence that the so-called Ressurection isn't the work of fishermen turned fiction writers."
"I'll give you the evidence," Judd said, "if you'll admit that the Ressurrection of Jesus, if it happened, changes everything your teaching."

First of all, Judd, no way a sixteen-year-old boy can do what centuries of Christian apologists couldn't: prove that Jesus rose from the dead. It's one of the things we accept on faith and many of us feel that the teachings of Christ's life are way more important than whether or not he rose from the dead. Unless you can pull out time-lapse photos taken from the tomb, you can't really prove anything. And don't point to apologetics: all that proves is that a lot of people believe something and that doesn't necessarily make it true.

But anyway Judd is offended by the test he has to take for Mr. Syncrete and is even more offended when he finds out that by walking out on the essay part of the test that he has failed the class. Entitled much, Judd? You're a constant pain in the ass to the teacher, and you still expect to get an A even though you didn't do the work. The test was to show how much you've learned, Judd, not what you believe. You couldn't just bullshit your way through the class?! I am totally on Mr. Syncrete's side and not just because I like his name.

Anyway to end the chapter, Janie is busted for drugs and Bruce decides to send her back to the Detention center. Oh and even though he failed one of his classes and acted like a total turd to his teacher guess what? Judd gets to be salutatorian for his graduating class. :starts massaging temples: I wonder what pearls of wisdom we have to look forward to in the next few chapters. I might need to start drinking something stronger than water to get through this.

There is No Power in the Blood

Okay, so Judd and the other manly members of the YTF are debating what to do about uniforms whether to go along with the crowd and wear the doves or to stand out and wear red Xs. Me, I wonder why the NWO would give them a choice in this. I suppose they hope the Christians will single themselves out, but really can you count on that? I guess Ellanjay is trying to draw parallels with the Jews in Nazi Germany being forced to wear yellow stars but the thing is, they weren't given a choice. They weren't asked to wear either swastikas or stars; it was stars all the way. So add this to a long list of things Ellanjay know nothing about.

Oh and I was wrong: I thought Vicki was being sent to an Adult facility but apparently she is being sent to live with you guessed it, Bruce "Useless" Barnes. Oh and if you're wondering she and Chaya will be living together in Bruce's house and the heretic in me wants to write some femmeslash, but I'm too lazy. I'd like to remind y'all I'm still accepting fanfiction for this series. It doesn't have to be Vicki/Chaya femmeslash; frankly I want fics about Ryan's parents.

Anyway, they talk about the news how there's theft and violence everywhere which is surely a sign of the End Times. :eyeroll: Uh, tribbles I hate to break it to you but fastforward to 2011, US is involved in three military quagmires and theft and violence is pretty much all over the evening news and Jesus still hasn't come back.

But then again, this is another failure of imagination on Ellanjay's part. They occasionally mention violence but it's always in far-off places; so far the only one who has experienced real suffering as a result of the Tribulation is Vicki. (I'm not counting Ryan because he immediately forgot about his dead parents when he became a Christian. I'm not kidding; there hasn't been a single mention since his conversion.)

Judd tells his friends about the fact there's little money in his father's bank account and they decide the best thing to do is for him to go to Israel with Bruce. Yeah, I don't get it either. Anyway they get to Israel in time for Nicky Chittagong to announce the new temple. Moise and Eli are there as well, and I'm starting to wonder if they have some sort of Tourette's Syndrome only one that causes them to shout random bible verses rather than the usual swears.

In the second chapter, we finally get some mention of Ryan. At last! I was starting to wonder if he had managed to escape the books and he and Tom and Josey and Verna and Hattie were hanging out together drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes and talking about their lot in life.

Okay basically Ryan spends his time hanging out among the stacks of bibles and reflecting on how everyone ignores him. Okay, maybe he doesn't use the exact word, "ignore," but he seems aware that he's a background character and doesn't complain too much about it.

Meanwhile Vicki meets up with Chloe Steele, who's worried about her dad. Why I don't know. Since Rayford Steele is Tim LaHaye Mary Sue surrogate, he's destined to survive to the end of the series.

Anyway, she and Vicki gossip about guys. Apparently her dad's relationship with Amanda White is progressing faster than her relationship with Buck Williams. I could make a joke about this being the case with two virgins but I don't think I will. Anyway, here's what she has to say.

Chloe shook her head. "My dad says he may be married before Buck and I are."
"Your dad? Marry who?"
"Amanda White," Chloe said. "She knew my mom. It took my dad some time, but they're getting serious."

Okay that last part screws with the chronology in so many ways. Granted Ellanjay have been playing coy about just how much time has passed since God slaughtered all the children, but they make it sound like Rayford and Amanda have been dating for months, not days.

"Buck hasn't proposed?" Vicki said.
"No and I'm not going to push him. The night he left for New York he told me he wished I could come with him."
"Why didn't you?"
"That would be inappropriate," Chloe said sarcastically. "Anyway, being apart has helped me love him even more."

Oh this passage is begging for some dirty jokes specifically about Chloe dating Rosie Palm and her five sisters, but I don't think I will mention that. I'll just say that in Ellanjayland even hip college students are into Victorian-style courtship.

What are the manly men up to? Well they're busy making a website as a means of distributing the Underground. They're still printing up paper copies but now they have a website to post Bruce's ramblings on. And we get some criticism in there.

"Everybody has their own interpretation of the Bible," the message read. "Stop trying to scare people into believing what you believe."

Pretty half-hearted critique. I would have pointed out that this interpretation that Bruce clings to didn't exist before some Darby guy put it together in the 19th century and point out how it ties God's hands and denies the power of his love. But that's just me. Ellanjay have existed in an echo chamber for so long, I don't think they know what criticism sounds like.

Bruce naturally compares himself to Jesus and they watch some footage of a temple sacrifice. Because those eeevil Jews with their stubborn "La-la-la...Can't hear you" denial of Christ have decided to start sacrificing animals again, Zod has started turning the blood from the animals into water.

Bruce explains.

"The Jews who didn't believe that Jesus is Messiah have gone back to sacrificing animalsto show their devotion to God," Bruce said. "What they're doing is rejecting the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross. They're doing it their own way and that's displeasing to God.
"But why does it have to be blood?" Ryan said.
"Blood is the symbol of forgiveness," Bruce said. "In the Old Testament it says there is no forgiveness of sin without shedding of blood. That's why Jesus had to die. By turning the blood to water--something powerless--God is showing his disapproval of the sacrifices in the new temple.

Okay, there's a lot of wrong in here to unpack and I'm afraid I'm not able to do it all. I lack Fred's knowledge of theology and I lack a knowledge of Jewish law and customs. I'm just going to end this post by saying that I don't believe my God's hands are tied by blood or the lack therof.

Why the Kids books are better than the Adults.

Is Left Behind: the Kids a good series? No. There are tons of YA authors who are more in touch with youth culture and deal better with issues such as the end of the world and religion a million times better than Ellanjay. Read Katherine Paterson, read Ann M. Martin, Jerry Spinelli, anybody but Ellanjay if you want good YA fiction. If you really want post-apocalyptic YA fiction, I recommend Susan Beth Pfeffer's last survivors series. It's dark, grim, and shows how people really react when the end of days is on them.

But is Left Behind: the Kids better than the adult books? Much as it pains me to admit this, I have to say, yes. While the kids has nearly all the flaws of the adult series and is terminally boring, it lacks the creepy sexual politics and so far, things are actually happening in these books. I don't know why the kids is better than the adults, but note when I say better, I don't mean they're good books. These are still terrible, terrible books. In short, Left Behind: the kids is better than the adult books the way a kick in the gut is better than a kick in the teeth.

So apparently the temple in Israel has already been built. Got to hand it to Nicky Cherskiy: he works fast. Not to mention, he has the incredible ability to move mountains since the muslims don't object to them building on the dome of the rock because apparently he moved it.

Oh, and Bruce met up with some guy from Singapore who's giving them permission to use the stadium Dr. Ben-Judah uses, to hold meetings there. It is then they find out that Vicki has been arrested and their mole at the school, Coach Handlesmen, is in trouble. Naturally Bruce decides to go to Singapore. Why?

"Wait," Judd said. "If God wants you in Singapore, that's where you should go."
"I wouldn't want to abandon Vicki or Coach Handlesmen when they need me most," Bruce said.
"You're not abandoning them," Judd said. "They would want you to follow God's leading. I'll go back."

And naturally Bruce decides a sixteen-year-old boy is the perfect candidate for negotiating the release of a comrade from NWO (New World Order) goons. Once again, Bruce proves how useless he really is.

So Vicki is in the slammer and is visited by Chaya. She advises Chaya to get an apartment near Bruce and that's all the happens in her section. Back to the manly men.

Judd arrives back in Chicago and is shocked, shocked, to have his luggage searched by NWO goons. Judd's outrage at this seems quaint in our post-9/11 days of full-body scanners, but this was composed in 1999 aka pre-9/11, so I suppose we can give Ellanjay a pass on this.

Basically the NWO goon is searching Judd because his name came up in an investigation of Coach Handlesmen and I point to sections like these as proof that the kids books are better than the adults. Stuff is actually happening: christians are facing actual persecution and the NWO goons are actually doing something.

The NWO goons search Judd's computers but the hard drive's crashed and they can't find anything on him, so he's free. But at the end of the chapter, we finally get some mention of money woes.

It was a bank statement. His father's account which he thought would easily last the next seven years, was dangerously low. They would be lucky if the money lasted seven months.

Okay, this is bothering me. Judd is a rich kid: he lives a house that's big enough that each of the YTF can have their own room and it's in a wealthy Chicago suburb. So how is it that he managed to drain the account so fast with the YTFs' expenses. Granted that trip to Israel couldn't have been cheap, nor could the paper, but could they really have drained his father's account with living expenses alone?

Next chapter, we're back to Vicki in prison. Vicki gets shanked. Now, for some reason, we're back to Judd. Why we haven't heard from Ryan or Lionel in a while, I don't know. I imagine them hanging around off-screen at some support group for victims of Ellanjay Abuse with Hattie and Verna.

Basically the NWO has stepped up the number of guards at the school and Judd has decided to become Valedictorian, because apparently in Ellanjayland people actually listen to valedictorian speeches, so Judd sees this as his chance to evangelize.

Back to Vicki. She survived the stabbing so we can cancel that candlelight vigil we had planned but now she's being shipped from Juvie to an adult facility. Why we keep cutting back to Judd, I don't know; right now her story is more compelling, but she's a chick and Judd's a dude so therefore, his story is considered more exciting.

Anyway, Judd gets called to an assembly where it is told that there will be zero tolerance for those who evangelize and they're given new uniforms to wear. The uniforms are black with white doves on the shoulders and those who don't want to wear the dove, get uniforms with red Xs.

And that's the snark for this week. I would have done a third chapter but I think this post is long enough.

Oy Gevalt!

What have the YTF been up to? I'm sure you're all dying to know, so I'll tell you: they've been busy reading email responses to the Underground and giving out Bibles. Thrillsville.

Meanwhile, Vicki is curious to know more about the Steins' daughter, Chaya, so she starts digging around for information and it turns out, despite the Steins saying she's dead, she's actually alive. [cue dramatic prairie dog]

Well, she meets up with Chaya and they talk about her last conversation with Chaya's christian friend, Tom. And Chaya talks about how her parents would have reacted if she had told them she had become a Christian.

"Becoming a heretic. Believing lies. Turning your back on everything you've been taught. I could have robbed a bank, gotten pregnant--whatever--and it wouldn't have been as terrible as becoming a Christian. A couple of years ago a friend of the family became a Christian, and I thought my parents would sit shivah for him on the day he was baptized."

Once again, I am handicapped by the fact I am a Christian and therefore, am ignorant of much of Jewish culture, but right now I'm going, "O RLY?" at the whole they'd rather have me rob a bank than become a Christian. Because it seems like Ellanjay's perception of Jews is that of some guys with beards going "Oy Gevalt." all the time. I bet if I were to ask Ellanjay what Jews eat, they would answer, "Bagels," and they probably think that Jews spend all their time, sitting around denying that Jesus is the Messiah, when in reality, they have their own traditions and own scriptures to debate.

Now to the next chapter. It turns out Judd has decided to leave for Jewishstan, aka Israel. Great show of leadership, genius, leaving a thirteen-year-old and a twelve-year-old to look after each other. Before you ask, Bruce "Useless" Barnes is going with him.

Anyway we get the Athiest Inquisition round deux, but it turns out that Coach Handlesmen was pretending to be on their side. He was the one who returned Mark and John's bibles to them and he has taken all the blame for the YTF's paper.

Anyway to make a long story short, at the end of the second chapter, Bruce and Judd are on their way to Israel and Vicki and Chaya are on the run from the eeevil athiests.

Now to the third chapter.

Bruce and Judd are on the plane and we finally get a brief discussion of dating, though both of them pussy-foot around the subject a little. You just know that Judd is dying to get into Vicki's pants but wants permission from the Pope of Mount Prospect, aka Bruce, and to Bruce's credit, he doesn't exactly say no but neither does he say yes. I guess part of him realizes the old scare stories they use to scare kids into not having sex aren't going to work when the world has less than seven years to live and both Bruce and Judd know it. Still rather than suggest that Judd just marry Vicki and get to shagging, Bruce tells him to work on his relationship with Zod.

Okay, so they get to Israel and meet with Token Jew's wife and kids. Naturally, they are all Christians and they decide to give Judd a tour of Israel. In the hands of a good writer, the telling of all the sacred sites they see and their reaction to it, could take up several pages, but unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your perspective, we're in the hands of Ellanjay who delegates all this to one paragraph.

Judd was amazed to think that Jesus had actually walked these same roads, carried the cross, was crucified, and rose again in this ancient land. He was awestruck at the Garden of Gethsemane. That afternoon, the Bible came alive to him.

It's times like this that I wish we were in the hands of a real hack writer like Dan Brown or anybody besides Ellanjay. Reading this passage is like watching a slide show with someone standing in front of the screen the whole time, blocking the view. At least a hack writer would let us see the sites a little.

So Judd goes to Teddy Kollek stadium where Moishe and Eli are proclaiming their message.

"You have been gathered from the twelve tribes of Israel, the chosen ones of the Almighty. And we have been given the high calling of proclaiming his name to every nation, every tribe, every tongue--"

This is supposed to be inspiring but I can't help but wonder which twelve tribes they're talking about. I also doubt that any of the Jews could say for certain which tribe they belong to, because after centuries and centuries of marriages, it would be impossible to distinguish one from another. Not to mention, the bible can't even agree on the tribes. As Fred put it, if I was a Danite, I'd be highly insulted.

They go on to recite basic scripture which anyone remotely familiar with the Bible would know, but Ellanjay realizes they don't have the talent needed to write the words of a prophet so they just quote bits of scripture and have the other characters say how inspiring they are in hopes of covering the deficit.

Anyway, the chapter ends with Vicki being arrested after breaking into Judd's house and I headdesk at her stupidity and decide to let you all discuss Ellanjay's latest failings in the comments section.

Token Jew Says, "What?!"

Well in this chapter we finally hear from Token Jew aka Tsion-Ben-Judah. Now, a few of you readers new to the Left Behind series might be a little offended that I refer to Tsion as Token Jew, but the truth is, Tsion Ben-Judah serves as Ellanjay's concession, as their way of saying, "See we don't think all Jews are wrong-headed idiots." Because that's what they do think. According to them, Jews exist to serve one purpose: to return to Israel and to convert or die in the last act of Armageddon.

It's not hard to see the anti-Semitism that colours this view. Maybe they're not saying "Hitler was right" but they are saying that their views are wrong, clung to by stubbornness and ignorance (which is a step above the disingenousness they accuse every other religion of). They basically believe that Jews are cute but wrong, needing only to hear of the almighty truth of Jesus in order to become good Christians.

To quote Gershom Gorenburg's review of the Left Behind series, for a Jewish person, reading this series is like "The experience is jarring, like meeting someone who calls you by your name, insists he knows you, remembers you from a high school you didn't attend, a job you never had. I'm reading a book set largely in the country where I live -- but not really, because the authors' Israel is a landscape of their imagination, and the characters called "Jews" might as well be named hobbits or warlocks. Israel and Jews are central to Nicolae and the other books of the hugely successful Left Behind series -- but the country belongs to the map of a Christian myth; the people speak lines from a script foreign to flesh-and-blood Jews."

That about sums it up Ellanjay's views and if we didn't have so much more wrongheadedness to go through, we could stop there, but we do so let's continue.

First of all, there is no reason for the Israel government to appoint Tsion Ben-Judah to do his study in the first place for the same reason you don't see the US appointing a minister to find out when the second coming of Christ will be: a truly secular government has more important things to devote time and money then to finding out the answers to questions like how many angels could dance on the end of a pen.

Anyway, back to the story. Right now, Vicki has been released from the Detention center and sent to live with a Jewish couple. Which makes sense: most social workers would frown on a fourteen-year-old girl living with only a sixteen-year-old boy and Bruce "Useless" Barnes as guardians. Why they haven't put the rest of the YTF in foster homes, I don't know.

So she's watching the news and Tsion Ben-Judah comes on.

"I promise not to bore you with statistics, but we believe that there are at least 109 separate and distinct prophecies Messiah must fulfill. They require a man so unusual and a life so unique as to eliminate all pretenders."

And right now I'm playing the Wikipedian Protester. I looked up the specific 109 number and I only found a bunch of Christian websites, and even they couldn't agree on the specific number of prophecies that point towards the messiah. I did look up Jewish Messianism on Wikipedia to find out what they say about the Messiah and here's a list of what they consider Messianic prophecies:

Isaiah 1:26: "And I will restore your judges as at first and your counsellors as in the beginning; afterwards you shall be called City of Righteousness, Faithful City." Some Jews interpret this to mean that the Sanhedrin will be re-established. (Isaiah 1:26)

Once he is King, leaders of other nations will look to him for guidance. (Isaiah 2:4)

The whole world will worship the One God of Israel (Isaiah 2:11-17)

He will be descended from King David (Isaiah 11:1) via Solomon (1 Chronicles 22:8-10, 2 Chronicles 7:18)

The "spirit of the Lord" will be upon him, and he will have a "fear of God" (Isaiah 11:2)

Evil and tyranny will not be able to stand before his leadership (Isaiah 11:4)

Knowledge of God will fill the world (Isaiah 11:9)

He will include and attract people from all cultures and nations (Isaiah 11:10)

All Israelites will be returned to their homeland (Isaiah 11:12)

Death will be swallowed up forever (Isaiah 25:8)

There will be no more hunger or illness, and death will cease (Isaiah 25:8)

All of the dead will rise again (Isaiah 26:19)

The Jewish people will experience eternal joy and gladness (Isaiah 51:11)

He will be a messenger of peace (Isaiah 52:7)

Nations will recognize the wrongs they did to Israel (Isaiah 52:13-53:5)

The peoples of the world will turn to the Jews for spiritual guidance (Zechariah 8:23)

The ruined cities of Israel will be restored (Ezekiel 16:55)

Weapons of war will be destroyed (Ezekiel 39:9)

The people of Israel will have direct access to the Torah through their minds and Torah study will become the study of the wisdom of the heart (Jeremiah 31:33)

He will give you all the worthy desires of your heart (Psalms 37:4)

He will take the barren land and make it abundant and fruitful (Isaiah 51:3, Amos 9:13-15, Ezekiel 36:29-30, Isaiah 11:6-9)

Sorry for the bigass quote but things needed to be said. And before anybody objects I am aware Wikipedia is not the bestest most accurate source in the world, but I consider it a hell of a lot more accurate than Ellanjay.

Meanwhile, back to the list...Ask yourselves, how many of those prophecies did Jesus fulfill? Little to none. The Messiah is supposed to be a figure who brings peace to the Jewish people yet ever since the time of Jesus, they've faced continual threats of extinction.

Besides, not even the Jews and the Christians can agree on what constitutes a messianic prophecy. I've seen websites pull from Psalms as examples of prophecy which is completely not the intent of the book of Psalms. Psalms is a collection of hymns and prayers, not prophecies.

Okay, deep breath, back to the story.

Ol' Tsion recites the usual story about how the Messiah is born of a virgin than proceeds to say this headslapper.

"Let me close by saying that the three years I have invested in searching the sacred writings of Moses and the prophets have been the most rewarding of my life. I expanded my study to books of history and other sacred writings, including the New Testament of the Gentiles, combing every record I could find to see if anyone has ever lived up to the messianic qualifications..."

If you didn't find at least one reason to headdesk in that last paragraph, your IQ is below sea level. Why would Jews consult outside works to explain a Jewish prophecy. Wouldn't it make more sense for them to dig into their own works, studying their history and authorship?

Again, the paragraph doesn't mention if Token Jew sullied himself by reading the Koran, or Buddhist Suttras, or the Upanishads, but if he or Ellanjay had even bothered to take a glimpse at another culture's religion, they would discover that the virgin birth is a fairly common motif, claimed of many figures such as Mohammad and Buddha.

He goes on to point out usual prophecies that aren't on wikipedia's list and then says on that I've tried to verify but when I googled it, only Christian websites would come up, not Jewish.

"According to one of the greatest of all Hebrew prophets, Daniel, there would be exactly 483 years between the decree to rebuld the wall and the city of Jersualem would be 'in troublesome times' before the Messiah would be cut off for the sins of the people."
Ben-Judah looked directly into the camera. "Exactly 483 years after the rebuilding of Jerusalem and its walls, Jesus Christ of Nazerath offered himself to the nation of Israel."

:headdesks again: Again, I remind you I cannot verify this 483 years bit, but I can point out one thing: the world and Israel is still in troublesome times even after Jesus's life and that's probably what we should focus on, not on this whether or not it counts as exactly 483 years or not. Poverty and war are still rampant even though according to Messianic prophecy they were supposed to be ended.

Also, this reading of the prophets, as only picking and nitpicking out verses that could conceivably relate to a Messiah, ignores the real purpose of the prophets. The prophets weren't just a bunch of clairvoyants; they were passionate, wild-eyed people who loved social justice and still have much they could say for us today. But as said before, Social Justice equals commie-talk among RTCs.

Vicki's family turns off the TV then and Vicki goes into her room and reads the journal of their disappeared daughter, Chaya. Chaya had apparently started to wonder if Jesus was the messiah.

Meanwhile, back to Bruce "Useless" Barnes and the rest of YTF. Apparently a militia movement has started to stockpile guns, which, given what Bruce knows about the next seven years, stocking up guns and food and water should be a reasonable thing to do. But Bruce isn't thrilled about the idea of them joining the militia.

"There may be a place for military strength," Bruce said. "But I would hate to see you get involved with them."
"But why? If somebody doesn't stand up to Carpathia we'll all be serving the devil! I don't see why you're against this."

Neither do I. As I recall, don't the TF end up forming a militia? But I have a feeling, Bruce is more objecting to them serving under someone besides him than really the idea of a militia itself. Bruce then cites Ephesians 6, but still Mark isn't convinced.

"Why can't I be a Christian and fight with weapons?" Mark said. "The Bible is full of examples."

That is true and Bruce could say that he could fight against Carpathia by helping to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and visit those in prison. That is what Christ would do and doing what He would do, would be opposing the anti-Christ, but luckily Bruce is a manly man and doesn't go for that wussy touchy-feely stuff.

"Just be sure that you're doing this God's way. Zechariah 4:6 says, 'Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord of hosts.'"

And with that, I'll leave you all to discuss. Please, if any of you are scholars of Judaism, fill in the gaps of my lack of knowledge. I have done my best with Google and Wikipedia but I realize neither is what you could call a reliable source. Again, I am handicapped by the fact I don't have a degree in Theology like Fred and can't give the best information on the scriptures, their meaning, and the history behind them.

Sorry to do only one chapter this week, but I think I've made a good, substantial post, nonetheless. :grins:

Thrill as Our Heroes Bravely Watch Television!

You'll be pleased to know I'm back to just covering two chapters.

This chapter begins with Moishe and Eli receiting verses from the Bible because even Jenkins is smart enough to realize he can't possibly create prose worthy of prophets. I'm just disappointed that he didn't replicate Stephen's sermon to the Sanhedrin though that Stephen did have a tendency to go on about social justice, stuff that RTCs just can't get behind.

Anyway, we do get this wonderful quote from Bruce which makes you want to slam your head repeatedly against your desk.

For those of you wondering, this is referring to a Muslim graveyard on the site.

"Jewish tradition says that in the end times, Messiah and Elijah will lead the Jews to the temple in triumph through the gate from the east. But Elijah is a priest and walking through a graveyard would defile him, so they put a cemetery there to make the triumphal entry impossible."

Ah, those evil Muslims, always acting so evil and muslim. You got to wonder that if the Muslims didn't believe in the messiah, why would they bother with such calculating evil?

Sorry for the poor quality of the snark but I tried to find out more information on the Muslim graveyard but all that came up were websites of dubious quality making similar claims as Ellanjay.

Vicki, meanwhile is in solitary and tries to witness to the girl who got her locked up to no avail.

But it turns out, the eeevil they were trying to use a message from Vicki as a trap, but the YTF figure it out in time, and return home only to see a police car in the driveway. It turns out someone tried to break in and Ryan called Tom Fogarty. Pity, I was rather hoping that he had somehow escaped the book. Anyway, that's the end of that chapter.

Ugh, all they do is hand out their stupid paper and watch TV at school. Does Ellanjay really believe this is how you hook in those young'uns, with lots of tv-watching action?

Basically, for those curious, it's a repeat of what happened in the adult books, with the treaty, the gift of air force one, and everyone being surprisingingly willing to destroy their weapons like characters in a bad Superman movie.

That's it for this week. Next week, we finally hear from the incredibly wrong-headed prophet, Tsion ben Judah.

Vicki's Got Stripes

So Vicki is let go but she soon discovers she's being followed. She even resorts to hiding in a dumpster to escape from them, but is soon found. Luckily Judd rescues her and it's off to another Trib Force meeting. What are our brave heroes doing? Listening to the radio and here's what it has to say.

"Not a day has passed without some major development with new UN Secretary-General Nicholae Carpathia," the reporter said. "And today was no exception. Cincinnatti Archbishop Peter Cardinal Matthews, who some see as a successor to the vanished pope, announced a new cooperative religion that will incorporate the tenets of all major religions. He calls it the Global Community Faith."

Fred has already gone into great detail about why this is impossible so I won't talk much on the subject except to further state that it is. Sure I mean people will agree on a few basic tenets such as "murder is wrong" but Christians have killed other Christians over issues such as infant baptism, let alone factoring other faiths such as Islam, or Buddhism, or Animism, and on and on.

But the eevil stooges of the Public School system pick up Vicki and haul her away to a social worker and it is decided that Vicki will be placed in a detention center.

I had considered only doing two chapters but so little has happened, I think I'll throw in a third, just to keep my dear readers happy.

Basically in the next chapter, the boys are working on the next edition of the Underground, throwing in some information on the temple as given to them by Buck from Rabbi Marc Feinberg. I've decided not to quote the passage in full because it's the basic information any of us knows about the history of the temple. It's like Buck basically copied from the Encyclopedia Britannica. I will point out one detail: it says the Dome of the Rock is on Mount Moriah. Emphasis mine. That means it's on a mountain that you can't just pick up and move. Too bad Ellanjay copied the information without it ever sinking in.

But meanwhile at the Detention Center, Vicki is getting aquainted with her new life. In addition to having her stuff compensated, the eevil athiest detention center aslo has a chaplain. Most of the kids nod off during the chaplain's sermon, but Vicki is disgusted.

"God is love and love comes from God. He is in each of you and if you want his lght, you must embrace him. I encourage you to search for God in your own way. Become yourself as much as you can, and you will grow ever closer to the divine."

Naturally Vicki is appalled though I don't see really why. The first sentence of the sermon is a basic tenet of most peoples' faith. The rest is a bunch of new-agey crap that wouldn't work in this new world. In a world where all the children have been snatched, they would be demanding answers, not wanting to hold hands and sing kumbayah.

But someone plants joints in Vicki's bible so she's busted and has to spend five days in solitary.

At the end of this chapter, we get the first appearance of Chloe Steele who is worried about her dad taking the job with Carpathia. Apparently he told Carpathia, he was a Christian which is exactly the thing you say to the anti-Christ. And the YTF and TF's collective response is "I hope that doesn't get him in trouble," and the sound you hear is me banging my head against my desk repeatedly.