#usempiredecline #Rome #fallofrome #christianity #SeperateChurchAndState #oligarchy

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Stxtus learning about the fall of rome, it sounds pretty sucky. a plague resulting in labor shortage, bad military leadership, christianity mattered more than the government, multiple civil wars, infighting, decisions created to benefit the rich more than the poor- hey wait a minute UGM

How one simple request saved the Jews.

#AncientHistory #Israel #Rome #Jewish #History

I noticed this as well!

#AncientTexts depict all kinds of people, not just straight and cis ones – this college course looks at #LGBTQ sexuality and #gender in #Egypt, #Greece and #Rome

By Tina Chronopoulos
Published: September 11, 2023

Title of course:

“LGBTQ Antiquity: A View from the Mediterranean”

What prompted the idea for the course?

I study Greek and Latin literature and have noticed that ancient authors wrote about sex, #homoerotic feelings or relations, and gender more often than we assume.

A few figures from ancient Mediterranean mythology are sometimes held up as LGBTQ ancestors – such as the Greek gods #Apollo and #Zeus who both loved other men. But in a mythology course I taught in the fall of 2021, I found myself highlighting a number of other stories about same-sex attraction and gender variance beyond a strict male-female binary. For example, spells from Egypt show that there were women who tried to get other women to fall in love with them.

Students responded with such curiosity and excitement that I decided to create a stand-alone course that would focus exclusively on these topics.

What does the course explore?

The course explores literary texts from the #AncientMediterranean – including #Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and Roman Italy – in which authors describe relationships that can be said to fall under the LGBTQ umbrella. We read the texts in chronological order, rather than grouped by theme or identity. This allows students to encounter the texts relatively label-free, since the words U.S. society uses to talk about gender and sexuality today – like “gay” or “transgender” – do not always align with ancient understandings.

Why is this course relevant now?

Assaults on members of the LGBTQ community, especially trans folks, are rising in the United States: both through legal means in a number of states and through physical attacks and hate crimes.

My goal is for students to take courage and hope from knowing that same-sex relationships and gender diversity have existed in various guises for millennia. In antiquity, homosexuality was not considered an identity category the way it is today, making it hard to determine if and how LGBTQ-like people were discriminated against, but they certainly were not always met with contempt. For example, the body of #Hermaphroditus, a god whom Greeks sought out for help with fertility and child care issues, combined female and male characteristics.

I also want students to connect with the past as a way to feel rooted and validated. In this, I took a cue from trans activist #LeslieFeinberg, who wrote in the 1996 book “#TransgenderWarriors,” “I couldn’t find myself in history. No one like me seemed to have ever existed.”
What’s a critical lesson from the course?

LGBTQ-like individuals have always been here, although modern conceptions of self, gender and sexuality cannot be mapped directly onto the past.

The identities we know today were unknown then: The concept of homosexuality as a distinct sexual orientation or distinct kind of behavior did not exist. For instance, elite men in ancient Athens often engaged in same-sex relationships with men alongside their marriages to women. Those who were in exclusively homoerotic relationships, however, tended to be ridiculed.

Another critical lesson is that language matters. The words we use today are often inadequate to capture how social status or age intersected with one’s gender in the ancient Mediterranean. Take the Greek word for a woman or wife, “γῠνή.” Typically, this word refers to an upper-class woman, rather than, say, one who is enslaved or a foreigner. Norms around sexual activity depended on a person’s social status, age and gender.

What materials does the course feature?

Students come into the course expecting to encounter celebrated characters such as the poet #Sappho, from the Greek island of #Lesbos, whom lesbians have regarded as an ancestor.

However, we also read less famous authors, such as #Lucian of #Samosata, a Syrian-born satirist from the second century C.E. In one of his dialogues, a sex worker tells her friend about an encounter she had with two other women, one of whom describes herself as “quite like a man.”

Not all authors are sympathetic. #JohnChrysostom, archbishop of Constantinople at the end of the fourth century C.E., vilified people who engaged in homoerotic acts or homosexual relationships as criminals, mentally ill, diseased or diabolic. Many of these views are still being promulgated by religious leaders today.

The course also explores the lives of some Byzantine saints who were seen as women before they entered a monastery or became ascetics. Yet their self-punishing practices, such as extreme fasting, transformed their bodies, and the surrounding communities started to see them as men. These stories, which aimed to uplift their audiences, serve as a reminder that cross-dressing and gender variance were not always seen as objectionable.

Read more:
https://theconversation.com/ancient-texts-depict-all-kinds-of-people-not-just-straight-and-cis-ones-this-college-course-looks-at-lgbtq-sexuality-and-gender-in-egypt-greece-and-rome-210182

#AncientRome #AncientGreece #AncientEgypt #LGBTQHistory #Histodon #AncientHistory

"This is surely the most exciting development in the field of ancient history in many years." —Carlos Noreña for Aeon

https://aeon.co/essays/uncovering-a-global-ancient-history-beyond-greece-and-rome?src=longreads

#longreads #greece #rome #ancienthistory #reading #writing

"This week, #Jews around the world will mark #TishaBAv, the ninth day of the #Hebrew month of #Av and the saddest day on the #Jewish calendar. It is a fast day that mourns the destruction of both Temples in #Jerusalem, the first by #Babylon over 2,500 years ago and the second by #Rome in the year 70.

When we mourn on Tisha B'Av, we tend to travel backward in time. We place ourselves at the moment the Temple stood ablaze. We picture Jews sold as slaves and thrown to the lions in #Roman amphitheaters. We focus on what was lost then.

The full weight of a catastrophe is not measured at the moment of impact. It is measured in everything that follows."

https://aish.com/why-tisha-bav-should-hurt-more-every-year/

Colorful Rainbow Over Rome, Italy

Art, Home Decor: https://fineartamerica.com/featured/colorful-rainbow-over-rome-italy-joseph-s-giacalone.html

#rome #italy #rainbowart #wallart #homedecor #mastoArt

A map to the future

A tourist uses a map of Rome to shield themselves from the sun beside the base of the Temple of Venus and Roma, opposite the Colosseum, in Rome, June 20. REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane

#photography
#Rome
#ClimateChange
#GlobalWarming
#AltText

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A close-up, side view profile of a tourist walking outdoors in bright, harsh sunlight during a heatwave. The tourist's head and face are completely covered and shielded by a colorful, unfolded paper street map of Rome (showing the winding Tiber River), which they are holding up like a makeshift sun hat. In the blurred background, another tourist wearing a straw hat and sunglasses walks past a black metal gate.

"In 1547, during #Rome’s #Carnival, crowds gathered for a ritual designed to remind #Jews of their place. Then it began: the sharp slap of bare feet against ancient cobblestones. #Jewish boys — stripped completely naked, terrified, exposed — were forced to sprint through the streets as mobs spat, laughed and jeered.

This was the #CorsadegliEbrei, the “Race of the Jews,” a ritual of humiliation and abuse that took place along the #Corso, or main street, of Rome. It was sanctioned by the #pope, funded by the state and applauded by the public.

The purpose was not entertainment. It was humiliation elevated to public policy.
Jewish dignity existed only by permission. Jewish safety existed only until revoked.

We comfort ourselves by imagining such cruelty belongs to another age. It does not. The race never really ended. Only the route changed.

Today, the setting has changed[...]"

https://www.jewishtimes.com/naked-then-exposed-now-the-race-jews-are-still-forced-to-run/

While everyone is distracted by the scripted ICE theater the counter-reformation unification of Roman Church and state proceeds stealthily. Rome's agents are slowly converting America to the Imperial Roman religion.

From his bully pulpit the President is proclaiming Imperial Roman religion about the Roman goddess Mary, formerly known as Minerva, also sometimes known as Venus, and formerly known as Isis in Egypt and Semiramis in Babylon.

Presidential Message on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception

"In her honor, and on a day so special to our Catholic citizens, we remember the sacred words that have brought aid, comfort, and support to generations of American believers in times of need: Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen."

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/2025/12/presidential-message-on-the-feast-of-the-immaculate-conception/

This is deadly Imperial Roman dogma being proclaimed from the Presidential bully pulpit.

The Roman "Mary" is Isis of the Egyptian trinity. The Roman "Mary" is NOT the Miriam who gave birth to Jesus of Nazareth. The Roman "Mary" is also known as Astarte, Easter, and in Babylon as Semiramis. The Roman Church pasted a "Mary" nametag on its pagan idol, then by the sword of Constantine and Justinian forced all Christians to worship this idol.

Anyone who can actually read the Bible can see that the 'immaculate conception' of a 'sinless mother of god' is nowhere taught in the Bible. But it was taught in Babylon, Greece, Egypt, and Rome. The trinity is a pagan idol having nothing to do with the God of the Bible. Trinity worship is the chiefest of things the true God of Abraham despises. The trinity is a hoodwink to trick Christians into worshiping the old serpent and insulting the divine Creator.

The Bible is clear on who God is:

"Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one [echad:singular] Lord alone!"

This is the first great commandment of the Law of Moses. Upon this one commandment hang all the Law and the Prophets.

Then in the Decalogue given at Sinai a similar command is given:

"Thou shalt have no other gods before me."

In the Hebrew of this phrase, the word BEFORE is means REPRESENTING. Thou shalt have no other gods REPRESENTING me. Notice he says GODS in the plural, as Israel just came out of Egypt where there was a trinity of gods.

The next commandment is a further condemnation of the trinity:

"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:"

In the religion of the trinity, the father reigns over heaven, the mother/son/daughter/hermaphrodite reigns over the earth, and sometimes the third person of the trinity reigns over the waters. We see this with the Sumerian Anu, Enlil, and Ea, who are copied by the Romans in varying forms, for example as Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. In this one command the God of Moses is rejecting this form ot trinitarian worship, saying he alone is God, and he is jealous against all idolatry of this trinity demon.

Why did the first commandment need to be about God being one or singular?

Because Israel just came out of Egypt where the god of Egypt was a trinity. So God founded the entire law of Moses on a complete rejection of the trinity. The first commandment that God gave to Israel was to HEAR that he is SINGULAR.

Jesus Christ also rejects the Catholic Trinity:

" And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."

Out of Jesus own mouth he says that only the Father is God. More over, he says that the Father is the "ONLY TRUE GOD" showing that Jesus knew there was a false god--the trinity of the Grecians and Romans that came from Egypt that came from Babylon.

The Christian religion is an organized insurrection against Jesus Christ while claiming to represent him. Jesus warned us that many would come in his name, and that they are all liars:

"All that ever came before [representing] me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them. ..... But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep."

We have 30 thousand sects full of hirelings who teach you to worship their false trinity idol. Christ's sheep reject this idol and follow the true shepherd, who teaches that the Father alone is God. Jehovah, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is the only divine being that has ever existed. There is no other. There is no 'god the son' or 'god the holy spirit'. There is only and ever GOD THE FATHER in heaven.

Only Jehovah is God. Jehovah does not share his glory. He shares his life. He shares his wisdom. He shares his titles. He shares his power. He shares his authority. He shares his property which he created. But he does not share his GLORY, his right to be known as the only singular God and Creator. And he especially does not share his glory with idols such as the Roman trinity.

Everyone worshiping the trinity is an idolator, just as ancient Israel committed idolatry with the trinity of Babylon and Egypt.

The Demonic Trinity of Rome was the Capitoline Triad:

The Capitoline Triad was a group of three deities who were worshipped in ancient Roman religion in an elaborate temple on Rome 's Capitoline Hill (Latin Capitolium). It comprised Jupiter, Juno and Minerva. The triad held a central place in the public religion of Rome. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitoline_Triad]

The Capitoline Triad Temple is related to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_Holy_Sepulchre#Connection_to_Roman_temple]

Babylonians worshiped a trinity:

"The ancient Babylonians recognised the doctrine of a trinity, or three persons in one god--as appears from a composite god with three heads forming part of their mythology, and the use of the equilateral triangle, also, as an emblem of such trinity in unity ..." (Thomas Dennis Rock, The Mystical Woman and the Cities of the Nations, pages 22-23). [https://archive.org/details/mysticalwomanan00rockgoog]

Moses, the Prophets, the Apostles, and Jesus Christ of Nazareth rejected the trinity idol of the nations. All of these men gave glory to singular god whom they called, Father. So ask yourself why Christian preachers are teaching you to worship a trinity when the God of Abraham and Moses declares himself to be SINGULAR.

The answer is simple: The Christian religion is a centuries-long insurrection against the kingdom of God, masquerading itself as the kingdom of God. And this is what Genesis tells us about the kingdom of Nimrod.

The Father created Jesus Christ as the only valid image of deity that men can bow to. Humanity is always bowing to idols of their own making, both physical and mental idols. The Father in Heaven HATES this. He met mankind halfway since mankind is incapable of worshiping what he cannot see. So the Father made an image of himself in the man Jesus Christ, and commands us to bow to that man as God's face or representative. This in no way makes God a trinity nor does it make Jesus a person in a trinity. It makes Jesus a man, like any other man, who was chosen and formed to be the image of God. God solved the idolatry problem, yet to this day the Christian religion persists in denying God's mode of worship and substitutes their idolatry in place of what God commands.

Jesus is the Image of God. Jesus is the Son of God. Yet Jesus is neither God nor God the Son. That is a clever trick of Rome to fool people into worshiping their ancient trinity deity.

#Trinity #Rome #Catholicism #Trump #Mary #ImmaculateConception #Isis #Babylon #Egypt #Pantheon #God #Demons #Dogma #Church #Gospel #Idolatry #Reformation