This is a letter to Christians in the Jewish community.
The Bible that I’m reading doesn’t actually say who wrote this.
The book starts out saying that for most of human history, god would send prophets down to tell us what was on his mind that week. A lot of times his mind changed and we were supposed to just wing it with whatever the prophets had to say. The author says, “But in these last days he sent his own son who totally became human to come down and die in a brutal way to save us from pissing god off.”
It kind of seems like the person writing this actually thought that they were in the end of days. 2000 years later, we know that they were wrong.
He says that angels even never got the same treatment as Jesus. But he mentions that Jesus was made a human, which was kind of embarrassing to him, but once he died and conquered death he became divine and now he has the power to bring our asses up to heaven, even if we piss god off.
Even with this bit of authority that he has, he’s still willing to call us his brothers, as long as we do what he says.
It kind of seems like the author is trying to say that Jesus is way cooler and more laid back than god, because he was human once and totally gets how hard it is to not piss god off. So he gave us a pass.
He tells all the Jews to accept that, even though Moses was pretty amazing (when he killed his own people by the thousand for pissing god off, spent 40 years walking 453 miles with a million people in tow, and handed down dozens and dozens of nonsensical rules) Jesus was better.
He rambles on about the Sabbath and how we should still rest one day a week. Then he goes back to talking about how amazing Jesus was/is. He says that from now on Jesus is the ultimate high priest and the other high priests have to go through him now. Then talks about the teachings of Jesus like they’re solid food instead of milk. It’s kind of a weird book. I don’t really like it.
He brings money up. He says, “Ever since Abraham, the guy who raped his slave and almost murdered his son, we’ve been giving 10% of our earnings to god or when god isn’t around, our priests. Let’s keep doing that.”
He also says, “Still worship and all that shit; but since Jesus was pretty chill, I think we can calm down on all the weird customs of washing and what not. Also, we can stop slaughtering innocent animals by the dozen. That’s not necessary anymore, because Jesus died.” I’m not entirely sure what made him decide this. But I’m glad he did, because slaughtering animals for no reason is kind of fucked up.
He tells everyone to keep on spreading the word and living their lives in a way that won’t piss Jesus off. Because Jesus is way chiller than god, it’ll totally be easier. He mentions that if you do fuck up, because of course you will, the key is to have faith. If you truly believe that an omni present god (who had no problem slaughtering his own creation by the 10’s of thousands multiple times for pretty minor infractions) went and knocked up a teenage girl who had never had sex, and her son stayed in the same 8,000 sq mile area his whole life, until allowing himself to be brutally executed for committing no crime, and then rose from the fucking dead to hang out with a handful of friends for a couple weeks before ascending to heaven, and then appointed an executioner who was famous for being cold hearted and brutal to spread his words around with an added hint of his own, in hopes we would all start worshipping him so he can allow us into heaven because he loves us. Then you’re set. That’s the key, is just believing it.
He goes on to talk about all the crazy times people accomplished amazing things just by believing hard enough, the Red Sea, Jericho, the hooker Rahab surviving Jericho, Gideon, Samson (who’s a bad example), and all those fun stories from the Old Testament.
He ends with saying that god might be a lot chiller now, but he’s still not scared to punish people. Especially people who follow him. So don’t fuck up or he’ll make your life totally suck.
Also, he tells early Christians to keep on being cool to each other and to be cool with all the oppression and violence they have to deal with. He doesn’t say, “One day WE’LL be the oppressors!” But he should have.
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