Title: College QB arrested, suspended after claiming ‘cocaine’ on his car was bird poop. It was bird poop. Source:
Saturday Down South URL Source:https://www.saturdaydownsouth.com/s ... on-car-was-actually-bird-poop/ Published:Aug 3, 2019 Author:SDS Staff Post Date:2019-08-11 09:33:59 by Deckard Keywords:None Views:40260 Comments:348
Georgia Southern QB Shai Werts has been suspended following an arrest earlier in the week.
Werts was arrested following a traffic stop on Wednesday night in Saluda, South Carolina. According to reports, Werts was originally pulled over for speeding. When the officer attempted to pull him over, however, he kept going and reportedly called 911 to explain that he wasnt pulling over in a dark area. After reaching town, Werts then pulled over and was arrested for speeding.
The QB was then asked about the white powder on the hood of his car, and he claimed it was bird poop that he tried to clean off at the car wash. The officer tested the powder, and it tested positive for cocaine with two different kits and in two different places on the hood of the car.
Everything about him and inside his vehicle made him appear as a clean person but the hood of his car was out of place, the police report states.
Werts denied any knowledge of the origin of the cocaine. The officer wrote that the powder appeared to have been thrown on the vehicle and had been attempted to be washed off by the windshield wipers, and wiper fluid as there was white powder substance around the areas of the wiper fluid dispensary.
In addition to speeding, he was charged with a misdemeanor possession of cocaine.
This is all really bad news because Georgia Southern plays LSU Week 1.
Al Eargle, the Deputy Solicitor for the 11th Judicial Circuit which includes Saluda County, told Werts attorney, Townes Jones IV, that these kinds of charges would not be pressed on his watch, Jones said.
South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) tests were conducted on the substance samples collected from the hood of Werts 2016 Dodge Charger, but the results confirmed that no controlled substance was present in the samples.
I have not seen (the SLED results) yet, Eargle said on a phone call Thursday night. But I was informed that the test did come back and that there was no controlled substance found.
But Jews would argue that it was applicable to all their descendants as well. And the Jews who founded the early churches would insist that Jesus taught that it applies to them because these churches are a graft onto the vine of Judaism.
Yes, they would argue that.
But Jesus himself said that the Law CANNOT BE CHANGED. Which means YOU CANNOT ADD MO ADD MORE PEOPLE TO ITS COVERAGE. It was for the Hebrews, ADD MO ADD MORE PEOPLE TO ITS COVERAGE. It was for the Hebrews, that's all. And it promis promised a farm in Israel in this life. That's all.
Wow. I wrote a rager, and posted it. And it showed posted. And then it just dis dis disappeared. I guess God didn't agree with everything I said. So be it. I'll tak tak take that as a sign to shut up and go eat dinner.
The Ayn Rand issue is not HER. It's the whole insane idea that social welfare - - the use of tax - - the use of taxes to help the poor - is unchristian.
The tithe was mandatory in Israel, and it was for the poor. And Israel was the state.
If it was mandatory and universal, then why do they keep talking about it in the N.T.?
I'm not so sure those Israelites were such patriots when it came to paying taxes or giving alms to the poor. Alms were an established part of Jewish life, not something recently invented.
#129. To: Vicomte13, watchman, redleghunter, A K A Stone, Deckard (#126)(Edited)
The tithe was a tax on crop produce, not all money. It was specifically for feeding the poor and the Levites.
I think the Levites got fed first. I have to wonder if there was some surplus that the Levite families might have sold, black market. The priestly families were, after all, wealthy and they got that money from somewhere. Maybe there were times when the priestly families or their cronies actually dominated local food markets with these donations.
You really think tax compliance was that high in ancient Jewish kingdoms, under Jewish kings or the various empires that conquered and ruled them over the centuries? I don't. And I don't believe you could expect so high a subsidy for the poor to be offered by Jews outside Israel. During most of the era, a large majority of Jews lived outside Israel in the Diaspora. Very significant numbers lived in Greece and old Greek empire trade centers. The Jewish population of the Roman empire at the time of Nero was estimated at being 10% of the empire's populace. However, Jews in the Diaspora did tend to congregate together so they could build some crappy little dirt-floored synagogue. How much money did they collect to support the Levites and the poor in Israel? After all, they could be listening to some lawyer who was telling them that all those laws obligating them to support the Levites and the poor only applied inside the historic land of Israel and only to Jews who were otherwise in good religious standing according to Judaism. We don't have to look far to find examples of Jesuitical arguments to justify how rich people weren't ever rich at all because they themselves had direct need of that wealth to sustain their businesses and households, to provide employment, to increase trade for the benefit of the town and the nation, etc. I always thought the Jesuits were very good at this argument. They sound a bit like libertarian economists.
I think the ancient Jews did their best to hide their produce from government or smuggle it out before Jewish tax collectors or Greek tax collectors or Roman tax collectors could tax it and haul it off.
Let's look at ancient Jewish food charity from another angle.
41And He sat down opposite the treasury, and began observing how the people were putting money into the treasury; and many rich people were putting in large sums. 42A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which amount to a cent. 43Calling His disciples to Him, He said to them, Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the contributors to the treasury; 44for they all put in out of their surplus, but she, out of her poverty, put in all she owned, all she had to live on.
It's a great fundraising verse for any religion. Give all you own to us and God (or some government) will take care of you forever and you go to heaven. It works better for some churches than others. If you have a pope with the apostolic power of binding and loosing, he can just write you a guarantee of salvation if you give everything to him to God. And if the pope guarantees it, then God must honor the pope's promises. This is why the pope is God's boss and can make God do anything the pope wants. The pope can loose and bind God to back up papal promises. Very handy for fundraising when you want to hire some gay homo artists like Michelangelo to paint some fancy murals at the Vatican and elsewhere. After all, how else can you buy your relatives out of Purgatory and game the system so your kids can buy you out of Purgatory when the time comes? Not everyone was rich enough to endow a monastery with the funds needed to support a group of monks who prayed daily for decades or centuries for the souls of the dead, begging every saint in the Catholic pantheon for intervention to get them into heaven. A great many monasteries and monastic orders would not exist but for this practice.
Luther objected to a saying attributed to Johann Tetzel that "As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory (also attested as 'into heaven') springs."[35] He insisted that, since forgiveness was God's alone to grant, those who claimed that indulgences absolved buyers from all punishments and granted them salvation were in error. Christians, he said, must not slacken in following Christ on account of such false assurances.
...
Archbishop Albrecht of Mainz and Magdeburg did not reply to Luther's letter containing the Ninety-five Theses. He had the theses checked for heresy and in December 1517 forwarded them to Rome.[50] He needed the revenue from the indulgences to pay off a papal dispensation for his tenure of more than one bishopric. As Luther later noted, "the pope had a finger in the pie as well, because one half was to go to the building of St Peter's Church in Rome".[51]
Of course, a duty to give alms to the poor (in unspecified amounts) cannot be compared directly to people buying their relatives out of Purgatory with a single coin in the monk Tetzel's plate. Tetzel was, at least, selling a defined papal service at a defined price. There is the power of papal binding and loosing in action.
Returning to Jewish food charity, if it worked so great as a welfare program, then why would there be any concern for the widow giving her last coins as long as she got fed forever for less than a penny? If she had a few gallons of lamp oil and a few other sundries hidden away, as long as she got fed, she would have all she needed to live, wouldn't she? So giving her last 2 coins, literally her last red cent, to comply with a law that guarantees her to be fed something was a smart investment for a poor person. Infinitely more so since it was observed and praised by the Savior of all mankind. So she had that going for her. And how much food was a penny going to buy anyway? Prices are vastly inflated in the modern era but surely a penny (a mite) would only buy a few days' food anyway. If she was going to starve next week due to lack of money, she might as well go out looking like a winner, a kind person of generous heart. You have to admire how this parable manages to try to make the rich feel obliged to contribute vastly more to the program but it also reminds the poor of their obligation to help the even-more-poor. And if you don't, you're all goin' to hell (or Hades). This is pure fundraising gold!
Maybe we should look more at food insecurity and ancient Jewish charity, keeping in mind that the vast majority of the ancient world periodically suffered severe food insecurity as a result of failed crops and famine, disruptions caused by some crappy empire conquering adjacent nations, uprisings that caused problems with food supply, etc.
We could look to a parable for more:
I like this one, one of the better photos we have from the New Testament. Being a parable, it is of course one of the #FakeNews stories of the Bible. Parables in the Bible never happened. They are just fiction and were always known to be fiction. IOW, it did not happen nor does the Bible tell us of specific instances of similar occurrences involving the rich and the poor and their temporal and eternal fates.
If tax collection for the poor was so universal in Israel, then why was the rich man paying to live in luxury while Lazarus starved at his gate with dogs licking his sores? Or did the Rich Man (later assigned the fictional name of Dives, a contemporary term for a rich man) give alms at the temple, perhaps even large sums but he just didn't want to have a filthy diseased-appearing, sore-covered beggar sitting next to his dining table while he ate, with the beggar scavenging the floor under the table for any crumbs that were dropped. Who wouldn't want a diseased beggar crawling on the floor scavenging crumbs when they dine with their family or throw a party for their friends? And the rich man might have been very generous in giving alms to the poor at the Temple but just didn't think he had a duty to let that sore-covered beggar at his gate eat crumbs off his floor and should instead go receive charity bread and eat fish harvest leftovers like the other poor who were food-insecure for various reasons. Maybe Lazarus would just prefer to eat the scraps off the floor of fine grapes and olives and the best meat than to go eat the charity handouts at the soup kitchen. Or maybe Lazarus was clever, knowing that if his begging and sore-covered body embarrassed the Rich Man, he might get some nice leftovers handed out the back door. Perhaps the Rich Man had made the mistake of doing that previously and had been targeted as an easy mark for begging. I'll point out that hobos even in modern America have a secret sign language unknown to the general public which contains provisions for finding local kind doctors or pushover housewives who will give out food or medicine along with a specific notation of what their nearby address is and which can be read even by illiterate hobos. These signs are found in places where hobos hang out. And perhaps Lazarus was being crafty, trying to set up Dives for a fall because if Lazarus died at Dives' gate then he gets the bosom of Abraham and that rich guy who wouldn't give him handouts got eternity in hell. Maybe Lazarus was already so sick that he was just playing the system for his own eternal benefit and decided to lay at the Rich Man's door to embarrass him and trick him into ending up in hell.
Except it's all just a fairy tale really. It is labeled a parable after all.
Let's consider how you might be able to apply the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man in your own life. Let's say you are at home one day, cooking a quick salmon filet and boiling some spinach and collard greens and suddenly a homeless wino shows up at your door or lays down out on your sidewalk and your wife informs you of this. When you go out to ask what he wants, he says he wants to eat the salmon crumbs off your plates or lick the bowls of your collard greens or spinach after you and your family have eaten your meal of highly nutritious and tasty food. You respond that there is a soup kitchen down the road and he replies that he'd rather eat your crumbs (and hope for actual leftovers or that one of your kids was a fussy eater). Or you throw a BBQ for the folks at the local Roman franchise you attend and a homeless meth addict shows up at your back gate, just begging to eat the fat cut off the steaks you just served to a party of 35 guests and to lick their plates. Certainly, the table scraps of 35 guests at a sumptious food event would easily feed at least one wino and his crackhead friend standing there outside your gate. And the meth head even has body sores which is typical for his type of drug use. And when you respond to the wino or the meth head that there's a church soup kitchen down on the next block (of which you are the founder and one of the main donors), then he replies that he's been banned from there unfairly or he's afraid of the other bums who have fought with him before or that their food is inedible or that he just prefers to eat the food you would otherwise throw away or wash off your dishes and down the sewer pipes.
I'd say you'd better be careful when crafty beggars show up at your door. They might end up in the bosom of Abraham while you're in hell for not giving in to his manipulative demands for access to your home and your table scraps. And we both know that if you feed that beggar even once, he'll be back. And over time, it is almost certain he'll bring a friend or two or ten along to beg along with him. Of course, wealthy communities are pretty good at keeping out the bums with their vagrancy laws in tony neighborhoods in wealthy east coast liberal enclaves. What a pity that the Rich Man didn't get the local pols to issue an vagrancy ordinance to remove these persons who would otherwise hang around their gates. After all, the Bible doesn't forbid zoning ordinances and vagrancy laws. Just make it against the law for homeless bums to set foot anywhere in the city (or state). If that doesn't work, pass a law forbidding anyone from giving charity to bums and issue a few tickets or even jail sentences for someone who refuses to stop feeding them, just like we do in forbidding people from feeding wild animals in national parks.
If only the Rich Man had had the foresight to get a few vagrancy laws passed, he could have avoided Hell.
But then, it's all just a story, a parable, the Bible's #FakeNews, isn't it? And yet, people recite it, century after century and draw moral lessons from it to justify their own conduct or condemn others for being uncharitable and too mean-spirited to ever go to heaven. You have yourself cast a few aspersions on those who will not agree to the huge desired increase in social welfare that you advocate for on a steady basis.
Focusing on such parables, we should look beyond the mere narrative and how these kinds of stories form a substantial portion of the moral views and legal thinking of many societies in various eras. It's not all virtuous beggars and callous idle rich people, no matter how convenient that is to justify our own public policy positions and private conduct, often hypocritically.
There is a certain childlike quality to these stories, making them like a Grimms fairy tale. They include a few details to make them sound more authentic (dogs licking body sores). They exclude specifics and many facts pertinent to understanding the entire situation. It is, in fact, the duality of many of these stories and the necessity of a reader's mind to supply more details in personal terms that gives them their power.
The tithe was a tax on crop produce, not all money. It was specifically for feeding the poor and the Levites.
After wandering far afield, we should return to the point you pursued. However, modern scholars are still arguing over matters like what the population of Israel was during the Roman era, how many Jews lived in various Roman cities, the extent of taxation compliance, whether there are any records at all to support the idea that ancient Jews actually did support the poor, no information on how much was given to the priests and whether any was left over to help the poor, etc. The truth is that we simply don't know and can barely make an educated guess with any evidence or records being quite incomplete. We do not know, for instance, the geographical distribution and size of ancient Jewish communities with any certainty, certainly not comparable with the birth/baptistry records or census records of the Middle Ages for which we have original documents or known copies of them and can find other evidence to measure their consistency and accuracy (like gravestones). There had to be a lot of people who simply did not comply with censuses or who dodged taxes in big and small ways. It was just as true then as now. Probably it was more true then than it is now.
I know, I know, next thing I'll be doing is raising questions about whether George Washington actually did chop down a cherry tree on his father's land but then did not lie about it when questioned, perhaps I might even suggest it is a modern morality tale on the virtues of confessing your misdeeds to authority figures that was useful to governments, parents, churches and other authority figures of the era.
...a diseased beggar crawling on the floor scavenging crumbs when they dine with their family or throw a party for their friends
For ye have the poor always with you; but me ye have not always.
The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.
People dealt with the poor, elderly, and sick back in the day pretty much how we deal with those issues today...maybe with a few variations on some themes.
There's nothing new under the sun, TC!
Now I'm late for milking.
PS,I could use a little of that subsidy you mentioned. Do you think they'd send me a check or something...
I don't know. I have a homeless man living in my house right now, in the spare bedroom. If he really wanted to eat out of the garbage, I wouldn't stop him, but he doesn't need to, thanks to food stamps, and the fact that I'm perfectly willing to share my food with him. Last night I came home and he had cooked dinner, which I appreciated because I was tired and would have probably just eaten a bowl of Cheerios and gone to bed.
Seems to me that the key complaints of prophets such as Amos and Malachi is that the laws of God were structured in such a way that there would be neither poverty nor permanent slavery in Israel, given that every Israelite had an inalienable piece of property, and every foreign slave could obtain freedom by conversion. There would be no debt slavery or grinding debt or homelessness either, because of debt remissions and Jubilees.
Seems to me that the prophets excoriated Israel because the Israelites REFUSED TO OBEY the Law.
Seems to me that the Law said explicitly, from the mouth of God, that IF the Israelites obeyed, they would have all of that prosperity and permanent security in the land promised, but that if they DIDN'T, that all of that would be revoked completely and that, instead, they would be driven from the land and through the world, a horror, persecuted.
Seems to me that Jesus, in pronouncing the doom on the Temple, was God saying "YOUR TIME IS UP".
Seems to me that everybody who reads the Bible, who skips over all of those warning parts and pretends that God's promise is unconditional is either a liar and an idolator, or just an illiterate fool who should not presume to teach anybody about Scripture.
Yes, the Israelites didn't keep the tithe. Yes, there was poverty and opporession in Israel, And that is WHY there is no longer a Temple, a priesthood, or any hope of reconstituting Israel under the Old Testament protections: because God imposed the penalty clauses, and Israel cannot get its grace back, as God made it IMPOSSIBLE TO KEEP the Old Covenant. He didn't CHANGE it - he said it CAN'T change, and he removed from the world the possibility of obeying it.
In other words: Israel is finished. It cannot be resurrected. There is no promise at all anymore for the tribe of Israel. The only deal available now is for individuals: YOU can, individually, not as a tribe, please God and go to Paradise when you die. As Israel, you can do nothing.
Paul and James clearly did not believe this, but when THEY died, the Temple was still up.
PS,I could use a little of that subsidy you mentioned. Do you think they'd send me a check or something...
Call the local USDA office. They're always eager for customers. Otherwise, they might get classified as an underutilized branch and get closed and their work transferred to another office. We've seen that before when they consolidate USDA offices.
It shouldn't surprise you that the welfare agencies are looking for clients to "help". They have incentive to do so. If they bring more money into the town, you're that much more likely to buy a pickup from the USDA's lady agent's brother or buy higher priced cattle supplements from her brother's feed store, feel more able to patronize the local grocery store to help keep it open even if it's prices are higher than Walmart's which is 20 miles away.
Seriously, go to the local USDA. They will tell you what you can apply for. It is their job.
C'mon, you can be a welfare farmer and learn to farm the government just like everyone else. Go check that link I posted and see how much some of your neighbors are getting from the feds. Why are you less worthy? Why should your spouse and kids get by on less because you're too proud to sign up for legal subsidies offered by the government.
If you go in to talk to them in person, you should inquire about other subsidy programs too. Ask about programs that subsidize pasture watering systems so you can install underground pipes to put watering tanks all over your pasture area. You might also be able to get support for certain types of fencing.
I know someone (from the above list of people I know who are in the $2 million range for USDA subsidies over 11 years) who got a federal agency to finance the construction of his new house as a hunting lodge, so it was an economic development thing. It's a nice 3,500 square foot house. AFAIK, he has yet to have a single lodge customer after about 10 years. I think he does have a few buddies who come back that would stay with him anyway and he does some token charge. But most people have no idea that his house is a hunting lodge because it is never advertised and really not talked about much in town. Of course, to me this is just greed and fraud but if it is legal, it is legal. The problem is giving the feds so much power and money to create giveaways, not that someone takes advantage of these legal and lawful giveaway programs.
Sanhedrin have no more power to make new priests than Jeroboam, king of Israel, did.
Israel has some of the most extensive DNA tracing research programs around.
They might be able to find an Aaronic family unless you assume that no ancient priest ever slept around when they got a chance. Or they could do enough to insist that they had located such a priestly descendant. Even if there were detractors, any scandal would die down in 20 years or less once the Temple was there.
You might still be disputing whether he was a real Aaronic priest but they wouldn't care a bit what some Gentile thought.
I don't know. I have a homeless man living in my house right now, in the spare bedroom. If he really wanted to eat out of the garbage, I wouldn't stop him, but he doesn't need to, thanks to food stamps, and the fact that I'm perfectly willing to share my food with him. Last night I came home and he had cooked dinner, which I appreciated because I was tired and would have probably just eaten a bowl of Cheerios and gone to bed.
Homeless as in an old bud who needed a place to stay when his wife kicked him out or homeless homeless like a wino or meth head street person?
Most people with a wife and child would think twice about allowing a real street person to live in a home with them.
I wouldn't count them as homeless for instance if they have a job but just can't meet high local rents.
I have no doubt whatever that what you have said, DNA-wise, is exactly what those who are hellbent on setting up a new temple will do.
I also know, that we have no way of knowing who is a descendant of Aaron.
You're right, nobody cares what a Gentile thinks.
What matters is what God thinks.
If they push ahead and get it wrong, God will smite them - and they still won't get it. Religious nuts never seem to.
For my part, it's perfectly clear that there is nothing in the Old Testament for me after the laws given by God to Noah and his family after the Flood. After that, it's all the story of Abraham and his descendants, which I am not.
I know that the early Christian Jews - notably James, John and Paul - were very much into their "Jewishness" and worked very hard to synthesize the two convenants, because they just couldn't believe that the Old had nothing to do with life after death - they were very impressed with their Jewishness.
But they end up contradicting Jesus on several points, so they can't be taken seriously in those places where they depart from what the Son of God said.
Seems to me that the key complaints of prophets such as Amos and Malachi is that the laws of God were structured in such a way that there would be neither poverty nor permanent slavery in Israel, given that every Israelite had an inalienable piece of property, and every foreign slave could obtain freedom by conversion. There would be no debt slavery or grinding debt or homelessness either, because of debt remissions and Jubilees.
Seems to me that the prophets excoriated Israel because the Israelites REFUSED TO OBEY the Law.
I think it might be as much just a resentment that they were located along the path of conquering empires who wanted Egypt. They were just in the way. They didn't like being hosts to conquerors who mistreated them, stole their wealth and crops and livestock, disrespected their religion. There was a considerable element of nationalism and populism that ran through the history of ancient Israel over the centuries.
Of course, I don't entertain myself by finding ways to make O.T. more central to my thinking. If the New Testament is not adequate to lead to salvation, then the Old Testament won't save either. Defunct scriptures, like the Old Testament, have their only value in presenting prophecy failed or fulfilled.
I can see why you like O.T. as literature though. Any lawyer would. But since we all know that lawyers are all going to hell anyway, you may as well enjoy your Old Testament reading hobby. LOL
I also know, that we have no way of knowing who is a descendant of Aaron.
You have to admit that surely some of Aaron's male descendents did sire offspring with women who were not their wives or even went apostate. Or maybe they've kept the secret of their Aaronic descent secret all these centuries, knowing that the most persistent antisemites would love to kill them all off just to ensure that the Temple can never be returned to service under legitimate Aaronic priests.
Sounds like a ripoff of the DaVinci Code, eh?
For my part, it's perfectly clear that there is nothing in the Old Testament for me after the laws given by God to Noah and his family after the Flood. After that, it's all the story of Abraham and his descendants, which I am not.
I can't deny your consistency or criticize your interest seriously. You want to know how God dealt with Jews through history to get some insight into His character and the attributes of humans who desire to follow Him.
I know that the early Christian Jews - notably James, John and Paul - were very much into their "Jewishness" and worked very hard to synthesize the two convenants, because they just couldn't believe that the Old had nothing to do with life after death - they were very impressed with their Jewishness.
I can't imagine how you can seriously say that Paul was very much into his Jewishness. Exactly the opposite according to the New Testament and his writings.
Homeless as in an old bud who needed a place to stay when his wife kicked him out or homeless homeless like a wino or meth head street person?
Most people with a wife and child would think twice about allowing a real street person to live in a home with them.
I wouldn't count them as homeless for instance if they have a job but just can't meet high local rents.
Homeless, as in a man whom I know through the men's group at Church. An older man who lost his job and his savings due to the economy and various problems with his family. Not an old friend or anything, just a fellow Catholic.
Not a drug addict or alcoholic. Unmarried, without children. Simply a man for whom life has been very hard (and quite unfair, in truth), who was otherwise sleeping in his car.
Part time job that pays a pittance while he looks for new work.
I would not put anybody at risk, and do not expect people to bring drug addicts into their homes.
In fact, I don't myself expect anybody to do anything - I'm not God.
Jesus has said what he expects.
For my part, I have a house with spare room, and an old Catholic man who can use some help, and a wife and daughter who temporarily live a couple of hours away for school and work, so there is no skin off their nose except on weekends, but then I just go down and stay with them.
I can't imagine how you can seriously say that Paul was very much into his Jewishness. Exactly the opposite according to the New Testament and his writings.
Here's how.
(Before I write this, I already know that you are really not going to like it.)
Paul goes on and on about how Jesus is the perfect unblemished lamb of sacrifice, to save "us" from our sins.
The "us" here is not us Gentiles. There was no animal sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins of Gentiles. God did not give law like that to Gentiles, and Jesus never preached anything like that. For Gentiles (and Jews as individuals) to be forgiven our personal sins by God, such that we do not have to pay for them in the afterlife (through Gehenna), we must do what Jesus said we had to do, and sacrifice had nothing to do with it. Jesus said that to be forgiven our sins by God, we must forgive those who sin against us. We will be forgiven by God only to the extent we forgive others. Because this is a completely new thing to the Jews to whom he preached, he told them they had to trust (believe in) him on this matter, and that if they did not believe in him, such that they did not do what he said - in this case forgive others - that they would not be forgiven their sins.
Animal sacrifices forgave ISRAEL the sins of its people, so that the sins of the individuals would not be visited upon Israel. But the Old Covenant has NOTGING TO DO WITH life after death, or eternal life.
The Jews of the First Century NEVER accepted that, they were NEVER able to accept, intellectually, that their Law was about what it says it is about. Ancient Judaism has no real concept of life after death, paradise, etc. That only appears with the Hellenic conquest in the mid-300s BCs. The Greeks came with a highly developed theology of the afterlife, of Hades, of sin and punishment. The Jews found their own religion lacking in discussion of this, so they syncretically added on the idea of Gehenna (which is Jewish Purgatory). That never appears in the Old Testament, however. It's a pure Jewish tradition, based on Greek religion. Jesus affirmed it with his own references to Gehenna in the Gospels, and the prison to which the unforgiving will be sent by God to pay their sins "until the last penny is paid".
The animal sacrifices of Israel were not about life after death. They were about covering the sins of individual Israelites SO THAT Israel would remain safe under the covenant.
Paul did not really accept this. Rather than accept Jesus' formula for forgiveness of sins: which was exclusively that one must forgive others their sins for God to forgive them, and that one would be judged by God using the standards by which one judged other men: the merciful with mercy, and the merciless without mercy. "You shall be measured by the measure by which you measured."
There is absolutely none of this in Paul. Paul either discarded Jesus, or never knew that Jesus taught that (the Gospels having not been written), and instead extended the Jewish Law of sacrifice to make Jesus "the perfect sacrifice" for all the sins of his followers, such that, according to Paul, the blood of Jesus washes away all sins of all followers of Jesus, and the consequences of sin.
Paul's theology annuls Jesus's teaching about the forgiveness of sins, and substitutes the Torah blood sacrifice of animals - in this case Jesus - for the forgiveness of sins of individuals with regards to the afterlife.
Jesus never taught anything like that. It is an example of Paul straining really hard to synthesize a Judaism that his Pharisaic heart loved with Jesus and the New Covenant.
But Paul was wrong about that, dead wrong. It's a lovely story, but it was neither true for the Jews nor for the Gentiles. Animal (and human) sacrifice never forgave Gentile sins, and while Jesus - the perfect lamb of God - his sacrifice DID cover the sins of Israel theretofore, and DID serve to allow Israel to proceed forward blamelessly under the Torah - but Israel pitched headlong into the sin of its high priesthood having killed him - an innocent man - to get there, and then having rejected Jesus' message along with him.
Paul the Pharisee was proud of his Judaism, and desperately sought to give a significance to it under the New Covenant. Jesus' bloody sacrifice was the true type of sacrifice under the old covenant, but it was also the last such sacrifice. It having been done as it was done, with the rejection of him, meant that there was no going back for the Temple and it leaders.
Unfortunately, Paul's focus on the Jewish sacrifice aspect of it has befuddled Christian minds ever since. So, how are we forgiven sins, by forgiving others, as JESUS said, or because of some Old Testament blood sacrifice ritual that never pertained to us in the first place, and that never had anything to do with life after death? The former.
Paul did good service by noting the signficance of Jesus' sacrifice UNDER the Hebrew Covenant, a true fact. But Paul's erroneous emphasis on that as the means by which the liability for personal, individual sin is relieved before God is an error that has caused dramatic divisions in the Church ever since.
It is, I'm sure, going to be at the very heart of the division between you and me.
And it ultimately comes down to a matter of authority: Jesus or Paul, or some blend of the two.
I say Jesus alone, for he alone was the Son of God, with divine knowledge, and of him alone God said from the sky for the crowds to hear: "This is my beloved Son, listen to HOM." And Jesus repetitively gave but one way to be forgiven sin.
Now, he did say that his blood would be shed for the forgiveness of sin, and he said to drink the cup of it, so yes, the EUCHARIST is important, but Jesus' actual death on the cross itself completed aspects of the OLD TESTAMENT COVENANT OF THE JEWS, but, contrary to Paul, does NOT absolve you of yuor personal sins before God Only the forgiveness of other people and merciful treatment of them does that.
Had Jesus NOT died on the Cross, had he been accepted, the same rule would apply: to be forgiven, you must forgive. Blood doesn't cover it. His crucifixion doesn't cover it. Works under the Law of Moses doesn't cover it. YOU have to FORGIVE other people. If you will not, then you will not be forgiven your sins by God. Period. Jesus said so.
Paul says differently, because Paul is a Jew, and cannot let go of the idea of animal sacrifice for the forgiveness of PERSONAL sin, vis a vis the afterlife. He's simply wrong, and he's wrong because his Jewishness won't let him simply segregate the Old Covenant and the New.
The Reformation itself was in large part fought over this very issue.
Not a drug addict or alcoholic. Unmarried, without children. Simply a man for whom life has been very hard (and quite unfair, in truth), who was otherwise sleeping in his car.
Part time job that pays a pittance while he looks for new work.
I would not put anybody at risk, and do not expect people to bring drug addicts into their homes.
I believe you. And it is commendable. You can understand why I distinguished between homeless-by-circumstance-or-misfortune from drunk-insane-methhead-homeless.
Still, good for you. And I don't think you're doing it to cultivate any admiration in local church circles. I'm not quite as cynical as I probably sound at times.
For my part, I have a house with spare room, and an old Catholic man who can use some help, and a wife and daughter who temporarily live a couple of hours away for school and work, so there is no skin off their nose except on weekends, but then I just go down and stay with them.
For some reason, I had already thought your wife and daughter were not present in the house but I didn't want to pry too much. You can see why.
The house has toxic mold in it thanks to a flood last year that I haven't had the resources to abate.
So, in addition to the fact that my daughter's school and training facility are both two hours away, and my wife's job is there as well, there's the fact that the mold makes my wife sick every time she comes into the house.
So we got a tiny apartment down in the City for them to stay in until school is done and the mold is cleaned up. That will be next year.
So the fellow has a year to try to make something work. Once family comes home it will be harder, because it's a small house.
#148. To: Tooconservative, watchman, Vicomte13 (#113)
Mmm...subtle. So Israel might build a Temple and restart sacrifices but it would still not be pleasing to God as He had not ordained it. So you think it possible that Israel will revive the sacrifices in a rebuilt Temple while the Antichrist institutes the abomination of desolation inside the Third Temple leading to the final dramas of the Tribulation. I think the usual view is that Israel will reclaim the Temple Mount and rebuild a legit Temple. But maybe I've just made that assumption with no proof. Vic may have a point. I can't think of any objection from the usual prophecies. Anyway, an interesting angle that you offered.
Yes there are many theories. Learned long ago to deal with certainties.
But you make a valid observation. If the state of Israel does build another temple on Zion, there is always the issue of the Dome of the Rock 'getting in the way.' Many considerations of how that happens, meaning the dome goes away and there is temple built in place, or some archaeology shows the two can co- exist etc. But a lot of happening needs to happen for that to happen. :)
The other observation I think you make is, if this second temple is just the re- institution of the sacrifices and feast keeping...and of course would not be ordained by God as Jesus is the once for all sacrifice for sins...and the man of sin (aka anti-Christ) somehow creates an abomination there, then what is the significance of a non God ordained temple being desecrated.
That makes me think too. If that is what the conversation so far was getting at?
So maybe the pendulum will swing back and it will suddenly be hip for young people to abandon Facebook and focus on studying scripture and evangelizing. I can't be much surprised at anything these Millennials do any more.
I am constantly amazed with the young families in my church. They seem to make due with a much lower salary (and give) as military families which I have encountered more in over 30 years of service and now retired military. They do great work evangelizing at home and keeping busy with church ministries (not just showing for a weekly Bible study) and form strong bonds with other Church and out of our particular church families.
I have never heard any Christian preacher or teacher approvingly quote Ayn Rand. Or even seem to know who she is. No, really. Her name just never comes up. Reagan gets mentioned, mostly for standing up to the godless Soviet commies and bankrupting them with his arms buildup. I don't recall any discussion of Milton Friedman either. Maybe sermons at the Catholic churches are much different than I imagine them to be. : )
Moved a bit around in the military and never heard any name but Reagan pop up now and then. But never in a sermon or Bible study or anything like that. Just that he was a good president who respected human life.
If family legends about themselves can be believed.
Look how many American hillbillies are descended from British royalty for a comparable situation.
This is a wrong analogy. Yarn of hillbillies is one thing, but in a close knit traditional society, where the respectable families are watched, admired and have ritual functions and obligations, where everyone knows their ancestors, it is quite hard to insinuate oneself into aristocracy.
Nobody remembers family lines back to the Roman Empire, not through the chaos of the Dark Ages. The Kohanim business is a set of yarns from the middle ages, not real.
But the Jews believe it is real, and you are right that, if they were to reconstitute a Temple, they would use that as the basis to re-establish the "Aaronic priesthood" - and there would be many idiot Christians cheering them on too.
#153. To: Vicomte13, redleghunter, watchman, A Pole (#144)
Paul goes on and on about how Jesus is the perfect unblemished lamb of sacrifice, to save "us" from our sins.
The "us" here is not us Gentiles. There was no animal sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins of Gentiles.
I see your point. My first impulse would be to argue that when God decided to enlarge His plan of salvation from His Chosen People to all mankind but He had to keep faith with His former requirement for expiation of sin by blood sacrifice. So to include all of the non-Chosen People (Gentiles) while abolishing the Temple system, He had to replace it with a one-time all-encompassing sacrifice, a perfect sacrifice, the same sacrifice He had demanded of Abraham in the sacrifice of Isaac: the sacrifice of his only begotten son as a blood sacrifice for sin. God stopped Abraham since such sacrifice would have frustrated God's plan for Israel but it foreshadowed the eventual sacrifice of Jesus as the one-time perfect sacrifice to suffice to expiate the sins of all mankind under the New Covenant. And it ultimately was justification of His pardon of the sins of faithful Jews prior to the time of Christ who had never known or believed in Christ Himself but only in the popularly promoted idea of the Jewish messiah to come.
Paul did not really accept this. Rather than accept Jesus' formula for forgiveness of sins: which was exclusively that one must forgive others their sins for God to forgive them, and that one would be judged by God using the standards by which one judged other men: the merciful with mercy, and the merciless without mercy. "You shall be measured by the measure by which you measured." ... There is absolutely none of this in Paul. Paul either discarded Jesus, or never knew that Jesus taught that (the Gospels having not been written), and instead extended the Jewish Law of sacrifice to make Jesus "the perfect sacrifice" for all the sins of his followers, such that, according to Paul, the blood of Jesus washes away all sins of all followers of Jesus, and the consequences of sin.
I do agree with Paul but then that's pretty convenient, eh? No great leap for a Prot type.
Paul's theology annuls Jesus's teaching about the forgiveness of sins, and substitutes the Torah blood sacrifice of animals - in this case Jesus - for the forgiveness of sins of individuals with regards to the afterlife.
You know us Prot types pretty well but you also know we would not express it in those terms.
Tell me, when Jesus died on the cross after He said, "It is done.", was the 'it' just his own life? Or was 'It' the end of the old covenant so the new covenant could begin, the end of the Temple veil as a dire warning to Israel and the priests, the end of the ability to use animal sacrifice to expiate sins, the end of exclusion of Gentiles from joining the covenant with God? I could go on but you get my point. I think that Jesus was not talking about the smaller matter of His own imminent death but about much larger matters.
So I think you are accusing Paul a bit much on a thin basis. I don't think he missed the mark by that much. But then, I once got into a dispute back at FR on those endless Calvinism threads where we debated Hebrews 10:1-13 and especially verse 14, the center of the dispute. You understand that we debated things like the placement of a comma or semicolon in the vernacular translations. We got far down into the weeds, what should be properly termed as "unprofitable disputes".
Hebrews 10:14:For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.
I felt I lost close friends in that debate and thought they were being unreasonable when they tried to insist that verse 14 contained six different doctrines in it. I had gotten a little antsy over this insistence that bible verses were intended to teach 4-6 different doctrines at once. When people write letters or speak to others, they don't ever seem to have more than a double meaning at most. I spent some time and effort and concluded it is possible to get to 3 or even 4 meanings in a joke (I do well at tortured humorous wordplay and punning). So, while constructing such phrases with multiple meanings, yes, it can be done through clever wordplay (a waste of time). However, I can never believe that any of the writers of the New Testament had any such intentions. I'll concede a little humor and a few double-entendres in the New Testament but I otherwise believe that New Testament writing is straightforward accounts of history (the Gospels) and doctrinal books and epistles that strived for clarity, not subtle wordplay or trying to pack six entirely different theological doctrines into one verse just so a few thousand years later someone can "discover" all the hidden meanings. And I didn't think you should condemn someone like me who just thought such claims were overblown and ridiculous and led toward a view that one could "discover" a half a dozen doctrines in any verse of the Bible. But that's just me. So you picked an example of Pauline theology that you probably can never sell me on, based on my experiences with That Verse back at FR. Perhaps I mentioned this incident to you before.
But Paul was wrong about that, dead wrong. It's a lovely story, but it was neither true for the Jews nor for the Gentiles. Animal (and human) sacrifice never forgave Gentile sins, and while Jesus - the perfect lamb of God - his sacrifice DID cover the sins of Israel theretofore, and DID serve to allow Israel to proceed forward blamelessly under the Torah - but Israel pitched headlong into the sin of its high priesthood having killed him - an innocent man - to get there, and then having rejected Jesus' message along with him.
Can you cite any Catholic doctrinal source that says the same things you are saying here? You are saying that scripture has no divine inspiration or mediation if you allege that Paul could foist his own false doctrine on the church and it would still be included in the canon and then promulgated for the next 2,000 years.
So, scripture is infallibly inspired or not? Please answer yes or no. Are you with Luther in attitude toward some books of the canon and perhaps want to move all the Pauline writings to the back of the canon to make them quasi-apocryphal writings? So it would make your own theology more consistent?
Paul the Pharisee was proud of his Judaism, and desperately sought to give a significance to it under the New Covenant.
I would say that Paul took considerable risks as the major leader who advocated for inclusion of Gentiles in the New Covenant and resisting requirements of Old Covenant law such as requiring circumcision of converts (since all the apostles and leaders of the early church(s) were Jewish and circumcised). This was a bit of an issue even before the time of Jesus. Circumcision and uncircumcision were both fiercely debated over the centuries.
It is, I'm sure, going to be at the very heart of the division between you and me. And it ultimately comes down to a matter of authority: Jesus or Paul, or some blend of the two.
You go almost to the point of the secular scholars who claim that Christianity's distinct doctrines are entirely due to Paul, not to Jesus or the other disciples. I don't agree. But the Bible was created by Roman bishops and certified by the popes over the centuries. If you have an argument with the infallibility of scripture, you have a much bigger problem with Rome than with me. I'm still not confident that Catholic theologians would agree with you. I think they would go as far as asserting that Prot types have misused Paul's inspired writings as a basis for Prot theology, starting with Luther.
Had Jesus NOT died on the Cross, had he been accepted, the same rule would apply:
I'm not going to debate alternative histories of Christianity and Judaism. What happened, happened. It is unprofitable to debate what would have happened if Jesus hadn't been crucified and had just died of old age or disease and therefore was not the savior of mankind.
I really do think you are robbing Jesus of his role as savior to a certain extent with this line of argument.
It strikes me how many times, almost a senseless number of times, the Bible speaks of the glory of God, of God glorifying Himself before men, His desire to be glorified by men with all their hearts. So please don't suggest that Jesus was only supposed to save Jews in ancient Israel and it's all Paul's fault that us nasty rebellious Prots split off from the corrupt popes whose shameful legacy you are willing to accept as the conduct of the head of the church on earth. Vicars of Christ? Mostly, corrupt men who gave no evidence that they were anything but corrupt, murderous, luxury lovers and manipulative atheists who enjoyed displaying fancy art to impress each other and the rubes who came to Rome on pilgrimage to much local profit for the church and the local business community. The Roman Chamber Of Commerce loved all that stuff but I don't think Jesus died on a cross so some corrupt pope could have the power to marry his daughter off repeatedly, stage orgies in the Vatican, and take advantage of gullible pilgrims from the sticks who came to gawk at a pile of phony relics and tasteful art created by some very un-Christian homos.
Paul says differently, because Paul is a Jew, and cannot let go of the idea of animal sacrifice for the forgiveness of PERSONAL sin, vis a vis the afterlife. He's simply wrong, and he's wrong because his Jewishness won't let him simply segregate the Old Covenant and the New.
I think Paul believed Jesus' place as the savior of mankind could never be questioned or limited in any way. I don't think you can argue otherwise.
John 1:29: The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
John 1:36 And looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God!
What meaning can you assign to these quotes in John? That Jesus was "the Lamb of God" but that really meant instead that He was "the Lamb of Israel only until those bastard priests killed him"?
Are you going to join the Calvinists to try to twist the word 'world' in John 3:16? "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son..." As you've heard asked before, perhaps from others, does "world" mean "world" or does it mean, as you are suggesting that "world" means "Israel" and that dumb Paul decided to use his writings to impose false doctrines on the church for all time and the bishops of the Council of Hippo decided they would just include all of Paul's writings and false doctrine anyway, just for the fun of it? You know, people were dying for these writings at the time, not just chit-chatting on some anonymous internet forum. This was not a casual and consequence-free debate for them.
The Reformation itself was in large part fought over this very issue.
It certainly was though there were other crucial factors as well. Corruption and greed and worldliness of the hierarchy. Cruel and wanton persecution against any dissenters. Opposition to vernacular translations of scripture and being held in private hands.
The house has toxic mold in it thanks to a flood last year that I haven't had the resources to abate.
I'm sure I don't have to warn you about how dangerous it is to you. Take no chances. Better to burn the house down than to succumb to mold. I'm sure you have sealed the affected area and would not enter the room(s) without a respirator but mold is really dangerous.
So we got a tiny apartment down in the City for them to stay in until school is done and the mold is cleaned up. That will be next year.
Too bad. I know it must be hard for you to be without family around but adults do make choices to benefit their children and keep them safe. I'm thinking you are willing to take the risk yourself but not to risk your wife or especially your daughter. Typical father.
So the fellow has a year to try to make something work.
Or just find work in the sticks where he can afford rent. Of course, he has to know your charity isn't permanent.
The other observation I think you make is, if this second temple is just the re- institution of the sacrifices and feast keeping...and of course would not be ordained by God as Jesus is the once for all sacrifice for sins...and the man of sin (aka anti-Christ) somehow creates an abomination there, then what is the significance of a non God ordained temple being desecrated.
I have to ask that I am curious about how many modern Jews would still want to be Jews if it involved animal sacrifice. Admittedly, a mean hypothetical question. But they do recite "Next Year In Jerusalem" every year when they could just fly to Jerusalem at reasonable cost for a few days and then they wouldn't have to say it because they'd be standing in Jerusalem already.
I don't listen much but Ben Shapiro sometimes ends his show by going through descriptions of what a modern Orthodox Jew believes as doctrine and he asserts the views of Judaism in certain OT passages that Jews think the Christians have distorted. And he's amicable enough about his language choice. Give him credit, he's a good wordsmith as any Harvard lawyer would be. I'd just like to hear him say he wants to sacrifice a lamb for forgiveness of his sins in the Third Temple.
But, yes, that would be the question I would ask him. Or a rabbi if I ever met and was on good terms with one. Do they even want their Temple back so they be The Animal Sacrificers again, just like in 69AD before the Romans spoiled their fun by leveling Jerusalem and killing everyone (mostly Jewish pilgrims who were trapped in the city during Passover when the Roman siege began).
Ben Shapiro might say yes but I think a lot of modern Jews would not enjoy the question or answer it. Who wants to wind the clock back 1951 years and restart a religion of animal sacrifice? I sure don't want to sacrifice a chicken or goat or lamb in a church. Being a Baptist type, I say we slaughter the animals elsewhere, then bring the carcasses to the church to cook up for a nice potluck supper for the retirees and children. A choice of vegetable, a few fruit-and-jello salads, and a nice mint-and-nut cup on the side with big piles of sweets to finish. But no slaughtering on church property, please.
I am constantly amazed with the young families in my church.
Around here, they're a lot more likely to want to get tattooed than baptized. It's a little surprising to see how fast it has changed over the last decade or so. But then, they're dumbasses so that's just how it is.
Seems to me that the key complaints of prophets such as Amos and Malachi is that the laws of God were structured in such a way that there would be neither poverty nor permanent slavery in Israel, given that every Israelite had an inalienable piece of property, and every foreign slave could obtain freedom by conversion. There would be no debt slavery or grinding debt or homelessness either, because of debt remissions and Jubilees.
That was indeed the intent and what was commanded. In Nehemiah we see this reinforced as the returned Jews immediately drifted from this. The priests were hoarding supplies and the rich were preying on the poor and lesser land owners forcing them into servitude. Nehemiah flipped out when he saw this coming back for the second time to Jerusalem.
This is a wrong analogy. Yarn of hillbillies is one thing, but in a close knit traditional society, where the respectable families are watched, admired and have ritual functions and obligations, where everyone knows their ancestors, it is quite hard to insinuate oneself into aristocracy.
Uh-huh. I'd like to put that to a test. A comprehensive DNA test.
A lot of people claim ancestors based on dusty scraps of paper. I think there is a lot more promiscuity and marital infidelity than that.
But the Jews believe it is real, and you are right that, if they were to reconstitute a Temple, they would use that as the basis to re-establish the "Aaronic priesthood" - and there would be many idiot Christians cheering them on too.
I see your point. My first impulse would be to argue that when God decided to enlarge His plan of salvation from His Chosen People to all mankind but He had to keep faith with His former requirement for expiation of sin by blood sacrifice. So to include all of the non-Chosen People (Gentiles) while abolishing the Temple system, He had to replace it with a one-time all-encompassing sacrifice, a perfect sacrifice, the same sacrifice He had demanded of Abraham in the sacrifice of Isaac: the sacrifice of his only begotten son as a blood sacrifice for sin. God stopped Abraham since such sacrifice would have frustrated God's plan for Israel but it foreshadowed the eventual sacrifice of Jesus as the one-time perfect sacrifice to suffice to expiate the sins of all mankind under the New Covenant. And it ultimately was justification of His pardon of the sins of faithful Jews prior to the time of Christ who had never known or believed in Christ Himself but only in the popularly promoted idea of the Jewish messiah to come.
Yep, that would be your first point.
To which Jesus would answer: 'Not a letter nor a penstroke of the Law shall be changed until the end of the world.'
So no, you cannot ADD the rest of humanity to people covered under the Sinai covenant with the Hebrews and their heirs in Israel.
And no, you cannot ADD the bit about forgiveness of personal sin by God for everlasting life to the Sinai land deal covenant.
And no, God's original covenant with Israel HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH "SALVATION" for life after death. There is not ONE WORD of that in the entire Old Testament. The sacrifices and the Law PURELY promised, the Hebrews - Just them, no one else - IN Israel - just there, nowhere else - a secure homeland in which to dwell (Israel) - IF, and ONLY IF, they as a tribe followed all of the laws, and where they departed, if they expiated the sin of Israel through the sacrifices. There was NEVER any promise of life after death or paradise in the Sinai Covenant, so the whole idea goes off the rails immediately with the idea that the sacrifices in the Temple "saved the souls" of Israelites in preparation for life after death.
God never, ever, revealed anything like that. It is adding what Jesus did - the NEW Covenant - to the Old, by reading life after death and "Salvation" for the afterlife into it. There is no Salvation of ANYTHING in the Old Covenant. It is PURELY the preservation of Israel, as a country entity, for the security of the Hebrews living there in this life. That's all it says.
What you did there is driven by the error of Paul, and it is the cardinal source of division in Christianity.
There isn't any bridging it other than by ignoring it. But the belief gives rise to two very, very different Christianities that can't be reconciled. So Christians can retain unity by not making any of that important in the religion, or they can be disunited.
Personally, I think disunity is the inevitable result of holding onto ANYTHING other than what came from Jesus, and that whole sacrificial system was for salvation business came from neither Jesus nor YHWH. It came from the Jewish apostles and the traditions they spun.
Nobody remembers family lines back to the Roman Empire
This is tedious, but I will try to explain. It is not needed to remember the whole line over many centuries. It is enough to keep it continuous in the community.
Unless the tradition is broken catastrophically and reestablished from the scratch by the usurpers , the prominent families will continue, know each other and be known. Perhaps it is different with the lower classes, maybe it is easier for them to lose their identity.
You claim some aristocratic lineage. Is it made up?