[“Idolatry” matches “think^group“.  “Sinful attitudes” matches “conscience^lacking“.  The prophets stood in the place of the suprasovereign religion.   They placed the sovereign^infra into context.  They criticized think^pro-object and were accused of think^anti-object.

However, the prophets of old turned out to be correct.  Their correct predictions were thus recorded, incorporated into the Torah, when the exiles returned.  On this slippery foundation, the Pharisees, Sadducees and Scribes stood.]

Text (pages 10-12) [comments in square brackets]

The OT prophets challenged an empowered cult.

[This means that an infrasovereign religion, a particular type of think^group, had gained sovereign power and divided into think^pro-object and think^anti-object.  The sovereign^infra promoted think^pro-object.]

The prophets identified “idolatry” as “the root of all sin” and “Yahweh” as “the foundation of the morally good attitude of man”.

The prophets made explicit the complementarity of idolatrous thinking and sinful attitudes.]

[The Pharisees, Sadducees and Scribes were as close to sovereign power as any non-Roman could get in the Roman Empire.

Their sovereign^infra focused on “knowing how to fulfill the letter of the covenant”, thus generating two (vertical intersecting) nested forms headed by think^law-filled₃ and think^unlawful₃.

The normal context of think^unlawful₃ was projected onto almost everyone who was not a member or a supporter.  Political resistance was interpreted as disobedience to the Laws of Moses.  Political resistors were tagged as holding “unlawful views”; that is, think^unlawful₃; and having a “bad conscience”; that is, a conscience^unlawful₁.

The accusers, the Pharisees, Sadducees and Scribes, could not be accused.  They were “golden calves” in contrast to the “scapegoated” prophets.  Sovereign power was used by the Pharisees to close the language, so that everything could be defined as either “lawful” or “unlawful”.  As soon as any debate was phrased in the language of the Pharisees, the debate was over.

The prophets had to step out of the established framework.  They had to withdraw.  They went into the desert.

Both John the Baptist and Jesus went into the desert.  John baptized in the wilderness.  Jesus taught in parables.  Both stepped out of the totalizing paradigm of the sovereign^infra religion of the Second Temple.]

Comments on page 7 is in brackets.

[Infrasovereign religions are often insistent because they (sometimes unconsciously, sometimes consciously) aim to impose their (infrasovereign) religion universally through the use of sovereign power.

When this happens, the infra-sovereign religious think^group₃ usurps the position of think^divine₃ and projects a malign think^antigroup₃ nested form (complete with its own forms of “sin^anti-group₂” and conscience^{lacking_pro-object}₁) onto whoever opposes them – or – whoever even appears to oppose them.

The world closes as these two ways of thought (think^pro-object and projected think^anti-object) come to dominate every discourse.  At this point, the infrasovereign religion becomes a sovereign^infra (or an (infra)sovereign) religion.]

[The latest development, God in relation to a sovereign, points to another criteria that defines “religion” (in addition to “having the structure of a relation between think^group₃ and think^divine₃ along the moral religious axis of the intersecting nested forms”): All religions relate to sovereign power.

Religions relate to sovereign power as a nested form:

normal context₃(actuality or situation₂(potential or possibility₁).

Let me start with the sovereign.  The sovereign claims the exclusive use of “power”, that is, “violence”.   “Violence” belongs to the realm of actuality₂.

What about religion?  The nested form predicts two types of religion, suprasovereign₃ and infrasovereign₁.  That is:

religion^{suprasovereign}₃( sovereign₂( religion^{infrasovereign}₁)

Suprasovereign religions put the exercise of sovereign power into context.  In a sense, any particular sovereign is either justified or not justified by the Other: think^divine.  This stance matches the ancient prophets of Israel.

“Religion^{suprasovereign}₃” brings “sovereign₂” into relation with “the possibilities inherent in religions^{infrasovereign}₁“.

Through “religion^{suprasovereign}₃“,”sovereign₂” emerges from “the possibilities inherent in religions^{infrasovereign}₁“.

Infrasovereign religions are situated through the exercise and control of sovereign power.   In a sense, any particular “sovereign₂” is always being either subverted or supported by “infrasovereign Others: think^groups”.

Even more, some infrasovereign religions seeks to attain sovereign power in order to establish its “object” as “law”.  This stance matches the Sadducees at the time of Christ.]

Comments on page 7 is in brackets.

[In many ways, the change from a legal perspective (obey these commandments) to a personal perspective (circumcise your heart), fleshes out awareness of the complexity of religion.

Think^divine₃ developed, in the traditions of Abraham, then Moses, then David, from an almost personal promise, to a God in a world filled with gods, to a God in relation to a sovereign.

Conscience, too, developed from a personal belief in the “One Who Promised”, to the dedicated fulfillment of the Laws of Moses, to a battle between sovereign and subject on the meaning of the Law.]

I look at the text (page 7 on).

Section 2 of Chapter 1 is titled “Sin is against God Himself”.

The Old Testament says as much.  The OT emphasizes the Law given to the children of Abraham.  The OT idea of “sin” is “going against [think^divine₃]”.  The Greek idea of “sin” as “going against the essential laws of nature [or law^essential₃] is not apparent.

At first, the OT view of the Law did not entail a personal relation between human and God.  The Law was coupled to the covenant.  The covenant was with the people of Israel.

For the prophets, disobedience to the Law was treated as if the sinner abused her, I mean, ‘his’ relation to God.  God’s laws could be twisted and rejected.  God’s own people could call the evil, “good”, and the good, “evil”.  Some did not bow to Yahweh.  Some rejected the yoke of Yahweh’s commandments, displaying a hardened heart.

For the prophets, the Law entailed a relation between person and God.

[Jesus pulled the rug out from under the Temple.

The Temple could be described as “the object that brought individuals into organization”.  That object was “fulfilling God’s covenant”.  That object defined the difference between think^lawful and (projections of) think^unlawful.

The scribes and the Pharisees knew how to fulfill the covenant.  Everyone else did not.  Of course, the latter were pathetic morons, fearing accusation, even though they strove to be lawful.  These fools may have known, at some level, that they would be accused of think^unlawful even though they were innocent.  The “golden calves” accused them of “intentionally not fulfilling the letter of the law”.  In actuality, they were “unintentionally not fulfilling think^lawful’s convoluted interpretation of the law”.

If you understand that, then you can see why these common folk recognized Jesus, the Son of Man, as the Christ.  Like Jesus, they stood condemned even while trying to conform to the Law.

This is the structure of all (infra)sovereign religions.

Christ speaks to every one under the rule of sovereign^infra.  So did the prophets before him.]

I comment on the text.  Pages 2-6. Comments on the text will appear in square brackets.

[The scribes and Pharisees rightly concluded that God made a covenant with the tribes of Israel:  Obey my laws and I will bless you. Disobey my laws and I will no longer protect you.

So they focused on the law.

A think^group₃ emerged along with an intricate web, a symbolic order, that trapped the imagination – and the conscience – of all who belonged.  A bureaucracy, promulgating multitudinous and conflicting regulations, left the believer paralyzed, unable to cope, dependent on the experts to tell her what to do.  Everyone broke the ritual constraints one way or another.

The locus of responsibility shifted from the free person to the bureaucratic accuser.  The scribe and Pharisee implicitly accused the believer of holding an unlawful worldview and a lawless conscience; that is, a think^unlawful₃ and a conscience^unlawful₁.  They thought that they were better people; that is think^lawfilled₃ and conscience^lawfilled₁.

Jesus pointed this out.

In doing so, he sounds strangely relevant to our times.  His critique grounds one feature that defines my category-based definition of the word “religion”.  “Religion” is precisely structured as “a relation between think^group and think^divine “ (even though it may not contain these elements explicitly) within the structure of the intersecting nested forms.]

[The Jews always knew they had a destiny.  Otherwise, the imperial Persian would not have miraculously allowed them to return to establish the second temple. Otherwise, Abram would not have received that crazy message: I will make of you a great nation.  A universal has always hidden beneath the robes of Jewish particularism.  For centuries, the question was: If it came out, what would it look like?

To the dismay and joy of many, it looked like a carpenter from Nazareth, pointing out something that no one had ever thought, revealing the pinnacle of what anyone had thought before.

What did the carpenter say?

Everything you know is think^group₃.  And look, your think^group does not live up to the expectations expressed in your own Scriptures.   You miss the mark, even though, from your own perspective, your aim true.]