[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.]

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

[How would “sin” as “opposed to God’s will” fit into the intersecting nested forms?

The New Testament delineates more explicitly than the Old Testament, the normal context of think^group₃ and the potential of conscience^lacking₁.

As seen in blog 1.1D, the Old Testament Hebrew words for “sin” captured the dynamic of one category emerging from the next lower category, along both the natural philosophic and the moral religious axes.

The parallel nested forms of the vertical axis, were not so apparent, even though the first commandment warned against other religions.  The OT revealed the “sins” of kings and subjects, kingdoms and peoples, not a “sin” that is the principle of it all.

I suppose that Jews began to recognize the Christ when Jesus pointed to “sin” as a principle – or relation – between think^group₃ and think^divine₁.]

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

[“Sin”, transliterated from the Greek as “anomia” or “a – nomos”, “without law”, emptied of the reference to “law” through the many, many configurations that “sin” can take, becomes “without —-“.

At first, I said that “—“ was “order”, but now I think that “—“ points to the buttonhole that sets the mark; the buttonhole that our self-aggrandizing buttons cannot secure.]

[Someone may fashion a button that fits into a buttonhole through deception.  A think^group₃ is born.  The symbolic order of that think^group expands, so that the reality outside its symbolic order seems to shrink out of view.  The think^group boldly proclaims that it holds the “truth” at the moment when the button begins to slip the buttonhole.  Think^group, “deception that is truth itself”, is, from the perspective of think^divine₃, false.

It is easy to imagine that is how we learn what think^divine is.]

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

[The New Testament shifts perspective on the Old.  The OT Hebrew words for “sin” applied to individual kings and subjects, kingdoms and peoples.  The NT singular dissolved the focus, looking short-range and long-range.  The singular “sin” “misses the mark” by removing “—” from “whatever is before you”.

Imagine entering an empty town, abandoned in a hurry, where did everyone go?  You walk into a house that was once a home.  The door is open.  The television is on with the 6 o’clock news hour.  Nobody is there, but the broadcast continues, as if it had been recorded days, months, years, decades, centuries, millennia before.

When “anomia” lost the core association to the word “nomos”, it went from “without law” to “without —“.  The word “order” is close but does not suffice for “—“.

You realize that the news report tells of a crisis being resolved by the anointed leaders.  Stay calm.  There is nothing to worry about.  You are not responsible for whatever happens.  Everything is in control.

Such is the “sin of the world”: a hollow broadcast that absolves you of responsibility even as it falters and triggers the sudden demise of “everything you have, imagine you have, or pretend to have”.

As noted in An Archaeology of the Fall, the “truth” is the opposite “deception” and the “truth” is the opposite of “false”.]

This Greek work for singular “sin” in John’s gospel, which I transliterate as “anomia”, contains the root word “nomos”, standing for “law”.

The word could be translated as “lawless”, “denying the law”, or “violating the law”, except for the historical twist: The connection to “law” faded over time.  I depict this fading by the empty slot “—“.  Anomia became “—less”, “denying the —“, and “violating the —“, where “—“ concerned “order itself”.

A related word, with slightly different spelling, took on an eschatological (end times) character.  This word labeled the “iniquity” and “wickedness” of those who went against God’s will, that is, the “truth”.

I summarize the text (pages 2-6).

For the New Testament vocabulary on “sin”, consider the Lord’s Prayer: Forgive us our … sins, debts, transgressions.

These plurals differ from the singular “sin” that is eternal, important, and translated using a particular Greek word, transliterated anomia.

Schoonenberg explored this singular “sin” that comes to the fore in the New Testament.  Christ saves us from “sin”.  This “sin” points to Ecclesiastes (27:10) where “sin” is personified as “someone lying in wait, ready to ambush”.  The same goes for what God said to Cain in Genesis.

Paul wrote that we are “sold into sin” and “slaves of sin”.  Also, “sin dwells in the flesh”.  “Sin” entered the world with Adam, at the beginning.

The Gospel of John describes the singular “sin” in the same fashion: The Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world.

This singular “sin” is both in us and bigger than us.

Here is a drawing of the previous blog.