Time Times and half a Time

About 2400 years ago, the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar took control of what had been the land of the Jews—Judah and Israel. Because ole Neb was a smart guy, he understood that those Jews whom he had subdued were smart people. They were not street-smart like he was. They were not control freaks. They were not powermongers. They were people of the Book; they are the people pay attention to what is going on; who read and pay attention and pass from generations to generation the history and the theology that we know in this modern ago. Moses started the Book long ago when he wrote the story of their Exodus, a story that later inspired Martin Luther King, when he had spoken and acted with conviction to set free the captives of racist oppression. https://open.spotify.com/track/0NNQLsb7YExz88Fgak87Ze?si=ce9bd4eb7aaf4550&nd=1&dlsi=9fc79d1cb31e4cf7 The Book known as Bible is a profound historical narrative; it’s a preservation of wisdom, a foundtion for Law and proper relations among all peoples. The people of the Book have often found themselves in persecution and peril because, compared to their antisemitic neighbors, they know too much. It was for that holocaustic purpose that the little kraut colonel kicked off the nazi movement in 1923, his “third reich”, that strove to eliminate the Jewish race. That did not work out for the hateful nazis; nor will it ever work for future antismites. The People of the Book will not be eradicated from human history. That is why some watchful members of that Hebrew tribe discern the patterns of human behaviour accurately enough to prophecy events that would take place 2000 years later. That’s what Daniel did, long, long ago, because he was of the People of the Book, and he understood, by divine revelation, what the long arc of history would ultimately present: a brazen attempt to exterminate the People of the Book. Case in point: About 400 years before Christ, the scholar Daniel, a captive Hebrew, was taken prisoner. Nebuchadnezzar hauled the Hebrew wise man to his capital, Babylon, and prevailed upon the young man’s literacy and perception, using Daniel’s advice, much like Jewish lawyers are often prevailed upon in modern times, except at that time it was more about dreams and visions than Law. Even so, while in service to his boss, Daniel discreetly composed a book of his own, which we find, even today, in the Bible. Because the people of the Book send historic signals that raise red flags to signal the onslaught of a strange crooked crosses that represent holocaust and terrible abuses in human history. About 2300 years before it later happened, Daniel discerned and depicted, in cryptic Hebrew, the rise of a “little horn”. . . a despicable being who would erect a vast system of murder to snuff out the Jewish people, and also to put to death thousands of other folks who had answered the call to stop the little nazifying lunatic. In the biblical canon, the Book of Daniel, in 7:24-27, the prophet presented a literary, symbolic scenario representing events that would transgress human decency, many, many centuries later. . . even 2000 years later.

“. . . the ten horns of the kingdom are ten kings that shall arise; and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the rest, and he shall subdue three kings. “And he shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws; and they shall be given into his control until a time, times, and a dividing of times. “But the judgement shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, and they shall take away his dominion . . .” Then later, in my parents’ lifetime. In the early 20th century— it happened this way: The adolf hitler demoniac mounted up, in a great heap of third reich insanity, a mountain of hate against his European neighbours. During his hyper-murderous, swastikafied campaigns, his fascist minions captured as many Jews as they could, imprisoned six million of them in concentration camps and tried to murder them, en masse, to exterminate the Jewish race. But, but—praise be to God—the brave men of France, Britain.and the United States of America, along with many others, put a stop to hitler’s murderous campaigns. And when the great liberation from nazi holocaust and warmongering had been put and end, the Allies discovered the camps where the demon hitler had tried to exterminate the people of the Book, and they put hitler’s Holocaust officers on trial in Nuremberg. And that’s why Daniel had written,in his prophetic account—long, long before it actually happened. . .7:25. this: ““But the judgement shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, and they shall take away his dominion , to consume and destroy it to the end.” Furthermore, moving right along. . . the prophetic voice of the people of the Book is still active. That’s why—to present one expression of perseverance and courage— a couple of Jewish boys from the Bronx, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, sang Paul’s profound verses, which I heard sung two nights ago in a live, theatrical presentation set to Paul’s prophetic music, using literary symbolism that goes back, way back. . . in time. back in the day,-1970’s. . . ”In the clearing stands a boxer. . . a fighter by his trade, and he carries the reminder of every glove that laid him down and rocked him, ‘till he cried, in his anger and his shame, ‘I am leaving; I am leaving, but the fighter still remains.’ ” Paul’s “Boxer” is far more than himself; it represents his people, the embattled People of the Book who have managed, through all these millennia of time, to survive, carrying the reminders—written in the Book— of every attempt to knock them down into the the holocausts of prejudice, hatred and discrimination And. . . as Amos had said to Andy: “And I told him that!”. Smoke