The Pokey Finger of God
type: channel
description: Irritating Words to Scratch your Eyeballs
date: 2025-08-03T16:06:54Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
generator agent: https://wordpress.org/
items: Toxic Rome
items: Many Jesuses, One Christ
items: Framing the Good News
items: Imperial Cult
items: The Jewish War, Part Two
items: Introducing: John the Baptist, Jesus the Nazarene from Galilee, and Simon Peter
items: The Jewish War, Part One
items: Leap of Faith
items: Charting History

Toxic Rome
type: item
creator: Xephyr Burton
date: 2025-08-03T14:21:35Z
subject: Toxic Romans
description: Toxic Rome is the source for many of our self-defeating cultural obstacles. The post Toxic Rome appeared first on The Pokey Finger of God.
encoded: Episode Seven In the context of understanding the original ‘Christianity’, we modern people misunderstand the purpose of the Gospels, the position of the Hebrew scriptures in the Bible, and the very nature of Christianity itself. Originally, it was not Jesus worship, nor Christ worship, but an association of people who believe in the idea of Christ – that an imperial leader, a Caesar on Earth, would appear, anointed by the Caesar in the Heavens with the authority to rule over the world. In the context of beliefs about the righteousness of Roman culture and the inevitability of Roman global dominance, the beliefs of the fundamental truth of the Imperial Cult were self-evident. The Gospels were a product of the Imperial Cult under the Flavians, and they emphasized that the Flavian Caesar was the true Christ. The Gospels were the reminder of the might of Roman legions and the irresistible rightness of Roman culture. They were a reminder that the Judean peoples were not proper Roman citizens and were never going to be proper Roman citizens. These lessons were to be part of the cultural memory for all time, memorialized in some very clever books. The author of Mark had zero intention of creating a Jesus myth, but the Jesus myth was deliberately contrived by Church leadership, and that myth changed over time. Part of that change was a redirection of effort away from Roman political leadership (e.g. Christ Caesar) and towards a more abstract idea (e.g. Jesus Christ) that the Bishops could more easily manipulate. Other changes included integrations with cults popular during the peak of Empire, including the Great Mother cult, Mithraism, and gnostic wisdom cults, especially as the participation in those other cults gradually became criminalized. When the origins of Christianity get confused with the Jesus myth, people can become blinded to the degree to which the evils of Rome remain with us today. The Romans were the original fascists. They were a brutal people in an oppres…

Many Jesuses, One Christ
type: item
creator: Xephyr Burton
date: 2025-08-03T14:14:22Z
subject: Toxic Romans
description: There were multiple Gospel characters named Jesus. The post Many Jesuses, One Christ appeared first on The Pokey Finger of God.
encoded: Episode Six The modern English children’s magazine “Highlights” has long featured a small two panel comic called “Goofus and Gallant”, in which two young boys were shown illustrating examples of good and bad behavior, with the emphasis for the reader on doing the good thing. Goofus would be rude and full of hubris, while Gallant would be kind and polite. While the range of lessons presented have changed over the years to recognize a heightened sensibility, the fundamental structure has remained. In a similar vein, the Gospels present different men named ‘Jesus’. One is gallant, the anointed Jesus the Nazarene; one is goofus, Jesus the Zealot rebel; and yet another Jesus is characterized as having magical abilities like Pan. The joke was that the Jews didn’t know the difference between them and would get confused. The anointed Jesus was a high priest of the temple in Jerusalem, and thus “promised to God”, or a Nazarene. Modeled after Jesus of Gamla, he was, like John the Baptist, accepting of Roman culture and a consistent advocate for it. “Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s.” This is the Jesus we see in the baptismal scene at the beginning of Mark, and he is thus the anointed Christ. This Jesus teaches from the synagogue, and from his house in Capernaum, the “Good News” of Rome’s arrival as the Kingdom of “God”. He teaches the value of being part of the larger Roman family, and converts Jewish rebels into Roman citizens. He teaches primarily through aphorisms or parables (as did the great teacher Pythagoras), and instructs his students how to understand the hidden meanings within the stories. Rebel Jesus is not as well educated as Anointed Jesus, and he has to work a lot harder to build up his crowds. The model for this character was a rebel leader like Simon bar Giora. We see him loitering around the Sea of Galilee, gathering to him fishermen of the area, and preaching his message of rebellion, promising self-rule for the Jews – also the ‘Kingdom of God’. When…

Framing the Good News
type: item
creator: Xephyr Burton
date: 2025-08-03T14:09:21Z
subject: Toxic Romans
description: Exploring John the Baptist and the purpose of the Gospels The post Framing the Good News appeared first on The Pokey Finger of God.
encoded: Episode Five Flavius Josephus was a prolific writer, and his were the earliest independent mentions of the names “John the Baptist” and “Jesus the Nazarene” outside the Gospels. Due to his proximity to Caesar and the similarity in the narratives between The Jewish War and the Gospels, it is highly probable that Josephus was the source of Mark, Luke/Acts, and likely Matthew as well. With Josephus as the touchstone, the reader can see the events of his life and primarily the events detailed in The Jewish War reflected in the text of the Gospels. The character of John the Baptist appears to be modeled on John Hyrcanus II: an older, well-respected priest and sage who counseled for integration with the Romans and was killed by Herod. Understanding why he was ‘the Baptist’ requires some context. Prior to the arrival of John the Baptist in the Gospels, there is no one else in history who was referenced as a ‘baptist’ or ‘baptizer’, and there are no stories of rituals in Jewish, Roman, or Greek lore that compare to the modern rite of Baptism (in any of its forms) in its shape or intent. It turns out that the word is a very specific descriptor of John Hyrcanus II and his role in Jewish-Roman relations. Possibly the most famous and most valuable export from the Levant was a particularly rich dye that gave cloth and fur deep reds and purples, particularly the imperial purple that only the Caesars could wear. Part of the mechanical process that set that dye into the cloth was a repeated dunking and removing of the cloth from the dye: the Greek word for this action is where we get our word “baptism”. Hyrcanus was not a dyer, but a priest/king who worked to convert his people to Roman culture, and as he altered their allegiance, he metaphorically changed their colors. In the book of Mark, John the Baptist converted Judeans, Samaritans, Idumeans, and Galileans to Roman red in the Jordan: the river that ran red with the blood of the Judean rebels during the Jewish war. The point of…

Imperial Cult
type: item
creator: Xephyr Burton
date: 2025-08-03T14:04:40Z
subject: Toxic Romans
description: Creation and use of the Imperial Cult The post Imperial Cult appeared first on The Pokey Finger of God.
encoded: Episode Four The creation of the Roman Republic was a rebuke to tyrants. The Roman people rejected their Etruscan king in favor of a Senate, which was an extremely limited form of democracy among the heads of the wealthiest families. So great was their distaste for having kings, they put several processes in place to prevent a single man from ruling except in periods of calamity. Their executive office was held by two men chosen by the Senate for one year terms. Anything they couldn’t agree on would go to the Senate for a decision. Pressure on this system increased as Rome grew beyond the boundaries of what the Senate could effectively manage. The magic Roman cement of politics was the house system. Every house was a family headed by a single man who ruled as a tyrant within his realm, and all the members of that house – men, women, children, and slaves – would literally worship and praise the spirit of their paterfamilia – the father of the house. The houses were then related to each other hierarchically, such that every man who ruled a house had someone who ‘ruled’ them. This network of interconnecting control was the foundation upon which the republic and the empire were formed. Every Senator was at the peak of such hierarchies. Ultimately, the power of the Emperor came from his being atop this entire hierarchy of houses: everyone in the empire was subject to his house and expected to worship and praise his spirit. As a key part of the rise of Gaius Octavian to Augustus Caesar in 27 bce, his deceased adoptive father Julius Caesar was elevated by the Senate to the position of a god in the heavens, and the Senate directed Augustus to establish the Imperial Cult in all of the major cities of the empire dedicated to the celebration of the Holy Spirit of Rome; the Father, Caesar in the heavens; and the Son, Caesar in Rome. In this way, Julius Caesar became the chief and most holy deity in the Roman pantheon, and Augustus became the most powerful man in all of Rome. Th…

The Jewish War, Part Two
type: item
creator: Xephyr Burton
date: 2025-08-03T14:01:14Z
subject: Toxic Romans
description: Summary of The Jewish War The post The Jewish War, Part Two appeared first on The Pokey Finger of God.
encoded: Episode Three After ham-fisted efforts by local Roman officials to collect taxes from the Judeans resulted in riots, Nero sent the governor of Syria, Cestius Gallus, with an entire legion – 5,000 men – in 66 ce to ‘restore order’ in the region. The governor was ambushed on the way to Jerusalem by Simon bar Giora, losing some siege engines in the fray. On arrival, he tried to set a siege but due to the loss of equipment was unable to capture the inner city and was forced to retreat. As they marched back to the coast, Simon bar Giora led his forces to ambush and destroy Cestius Gallus and his remaining legion. This was the greatest humiliation inflicted on Rome since Hannibal and it greatly roused the nationalist impulses of the Judeans such that the poison of rebellion began to spread to neighboring provinces. Caesar Nero was desperate to quash the Judean rebellions and to bring the whole area under regular consular rule, so in 68 ce, he sent his top general, Flavius Vespasian, with four legions – 20,000 men – to Syria. From there, they marched south, stopping at every town and junction where they either took tribute (from the towns that ‘supported’ Rome) or laid siege on rebel holdings until they would slaughter the inhabitants and burn the buildings down. Along the way, Nero died and Vespasian was summoned to take his place, leaving his son Flavius Titus to take over the Judean operation and see it through to the bloody end. As they marched south, rebel groups fled toward Jerusalem until the town was over-packed with rebels and Passover celebrants. By the time the legions had arrived at Jerusalem, there had already been a series of battles, a fire, and the deliberate destruction of supplies: Titus delayed attacking the walls presuming the Judeans would kill each other in due time. In Jerusalem, the people suffered greatly over eight months of starvation and disease before the city was finally taken. The survivors were either sold into slavery or crucified. Then the…

Introducing: John the Baptist, Jesus the Nazarene from Galilee, and Simon Peter
type: item
creator: Xephyr Burton
date: 2025-08-03T01:55:34Z
subject: Toxic Romans
description: Three remarkable biographies The post Introducing: John the Baptist, Jesus the Nazarene from Galilee, and Simon Peter appeared first on The Pokey Finger of God.
encoded: Episode Two John Hyrcanus II was a great-grandson of Simon Maccabeus. His mother, Queen Salome Alexandra, established him as High Priest in 73 bce. He then became Ethnarch of Judea in 67 bce when she died. Hyrcanus’ brother Aristobulus had originally planned a coup against his mother, but turned it against his brother instead once she died and took the throne. Hyrcanus remained as High Priest, and was backed by the Nabateans in his ill-fated attempts to regain the throne. His restoration finally came when Pompey decided he just liked Hyrcanus better and laid siege to Jerusalem in 63 bce, ultimately capturing Aristobulus and setting Hyrcanus as Ethnarch. This lasted until Aristobulus’ son Antigonus arrived in 40 bce at the head of a Parthian army, capturing Hyrcanus, and claiming rulership. The Parthians treated the exiled Hyrcanus as an honored spiritual teacher and special guest, and as he had been high priest of the Jerusalem temple for such a Very Long Time, his teachings had became legendary. As part of a cache of documents discovered at Qumran in 1949 ce, there was one particular scroll filled with aphorisms and parables attributed to a “Teacher of Righteousness”. Because of who he was and with his intermittent periods of temporal power, John Hyrcanus II may have been this Teacher of Righteousness. It’s also been suggested that due to similar themes and use of language, the Teacher of Righteousness was John the Baptist. I suspect that Hyrcanus II was both the Teacher of Righteousness and the model for John the Baptist in the Gospels. In 37 bce, the Romans returned to Judea and replaced Antigonus with Herod, who had married Hyrcanus’ daughter, Mariamne, thus ending the Hasmonean dynasty. Later, after Herod had been killing off all the other Hasmoneans “just in case” (including Mariamne: he was something of a completist), he called Hyrcanus back from exile in 30 bce and executed him as well. Unsurprisingly, once the Judeans had tasted sovereignty and independence…

The Jewish War, Part One
type: item
creator: Xephyr Burton
date: 2025-08-03T01:51:33Z
subject: Toxic Romans
description: A brief overview of the early history of the Judean people. The post The Jewish War, Part One appeared first on The Pokey Finger of God.
encoded: Episode One There was a book written contemporary to the beginning of Christianity called The Jewish War, and it describes the very events that led up to the creation of synoptic Gospels – Mark, Luke, and Matthew. The Jewish War was written in ancient Greek by Flavius Josephus, a man known to have been a member of the imperial family at the center of things in and around Judea for the events in the book. But it isn’t a book people talk about, and it’s not usually mentioned in history class or Sunday school. Most of us have never heard of it. Unlike the vast majority of Roman literature, this book still exists and you can still read it. The Jewish War centered on a place called the Levant – that hilly bit of geography between the Eastern Mediterranean shore and the Jordan River long called ‘Palestine’ and now occupied by the states of Syria and Israel. From times ancient even to the Romans, the Levant had been a prize long coveted by empires and royal families. It was captured from the Babylonians by the Persians in the mid 6th century bce, who built the temple in Jerusalem in 516. It was captured again by the Greeks in 332, and the Ptolemies and Seleucids bickered over it for centuries until it had been captured and recaptured so many times that its neighborhoods were interwoven with political conflicts several generations deep. The peoples in this area who followed Hebrew scripture were legendary for their dietary prohibitions and strict rules for conduct. Yet even among these were those called ‘Nazarenes’ who took on additional rules and restrictions as an act of worshipful service. This was done in order to be bonded by a promise to their god through their acts of service in thanks for a boon, in exchange for aid to the living or in memory of the dead. Nazarenes were forbidden to drink alcohol, cut their hair, or be present near the dead for the period of their binding: at release, they were blessed at the temple, their hair was shorn and burned at the temple fir…

Leap of Faith
type: item
creator: Xephyr Burton
date: 2025-07-31T20:40:50Z
subject: History
description: I'm starting my first podcast project. The post Leap of Faith appeared first on The Pokey Finger of God.
encoded: I have batted around the idea of doing podcasts and videos for several years. I’ve threatened my wife and several friends that they would someday be witness to my genius, but to date they have all remained blissfully safe as I have produced nothing. Unless you want to count anxiety about not finishing projects — I produce massive quantities of this. It is not for lack of ideas that I have not completed a project, I am filthy with ideas. The problem is that production takes time and I get hung up in the weeds and loose sight of my projects. By the time I get free time again, it is snapped away by my latest novelty. But I am not beaten! I have a couple of short projects that lend themselves to a podcast format. To that end, I have enjoyed some technical exploration with a fancy microphone and different production software options. I decided that Audacity was the best choice for what I was trying to do. I learned about the ‘podcasting’ mode for my microphone. I experimented with recording the first episode, doing several takes and working with the editing feature to clean up the result. And thus have I manifest my seven part series called ‘Toxic Romans’. This is a very naive, first attempt at a product. There’s no music, there are no sound effects. When I get the whole set built, I’ll make a page — possibly on substack — to host them all. But for the time being, I’m looking for feedback on this as a podcast, and what elements are missing or are expected to be better. Is the volume good? Is my diction comprehensible? Too fast? Too slow? Post your opinions as a comment. Originally, these were video ideas, and they could still be videos. It would be nice to show maps and familly trees and the text being discussed. But all of that is more production work, so this is an achievable ‘next step’ instead. Just having one set of podcasts done might be the incentive I needed to build more. I hope that’s the case, anyway. The post Leap of Faith appeared first on The Pokey Finger o…

Charting History
type: item
creator: Xephyr Burton
date: 2025-05-26T20:40:21Z
subject: Reframing Christianity
subject: #christianity
description: Explorations in the creation of a chart of the ideological development of early Christianity. The post Charting History appeared first on The Pokey Finger of God.
encoded: Because of my interest in history and in communicating the story of the past to others, I’m always on the lookout for the different ways folks make sense of things. Maps are my go-to: so much makes sense when you can see how nations align geographically, how trade routes and physical obstacles actually guide cultural development. My next favorite and related format is the time chart. Instead of a map with two dimensions of space, it has one of space and one of time, so the changing relationships can be charted. <img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" width="250" height="250" src="https://pokeyfinger.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/World_History_mid_res_v2.2_thumb.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-1380" style="width:296px;height:auto" srcset="https://pokeyfinger.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/World_History_mid_res_v2.2_thumb.jpg 250w, https://pokeyfinger.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/World_History_mid_res_v2.2_thumb-150x150.jpg 150w" sizes="(max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px" /> Time Chart of World History, Wikipedia Some folks have made their careers out of creatively displaying information. There is a lot of room for variation, and a lot of information to show. One form of chart attempts to show the development of ideology as a kind of waterfall, from one idea down to another, such as this one titled “The History of the Church from Judaism to the Protestant Reformation.” I was excited to see such a chart pop up in my social feeds. Not because I think it’s accurate or a good representation of the development of the church, but because it shows what most people today seem to think is the truth. Its simple, naïve perspective on the development of modern theology is so obvious. To be clear, this is intended to be a highly simplified diagram of a pretty narrow window of history, so I’m not going to get bent out of shape arguing that important things may have been left out. There is still a lot here to consider and question. A Protestant History <img decoding="async" width="10…