Comments by "Sam Aronow" (@SamAronow) on "UsefulCharts" channel.

  1. Fun fact about Esther: like a lot of literature relegated to the Deuterocanon (except for Maccabees), Esther was probably originally performed as a play after theatre was introduced by the Greeks– meaning that the way we read it aloud today, with audience participation, has probably changed very little from its original use!
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  2. I have a friend who just moved back to the US with her Israeli street cat. She has a large quotient of African wildcat ancestry, even though she is quite small and ridiculously soft.
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  3. I'm so happy to see Jabari getting more attention from bigger channels; he's one of my favorites.
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  4. Those are some fine-looking posters! Kudos to whomever designed them!
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  5. Congratulations! And Courland is present-day Latvia.
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  6. I bloody knew it'd be Jack.
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  7. I went through a big Welsh phase in high school but never even attempted to make sense of the small states. Thank you for this.
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  8. I think we all know that the Merovingians were best known for lecturing protagonists about causality and baking exceptional chocolate cake.
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  9. Happy 5782! Fun fact: the new year is also the seventh year of the Shmita cycle (Sabbath year), so if the Temple was still standing, this would probably be the point where a foreign power or civil war faction would capture and loot it.
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  10. I'll be doing a Hebrew evolution series on my channel.
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  11. I visited Morocco– admittedly for one night– and I need to go back. I did notice that they had pictures of the King everywhere.
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  12. Bold move, UsefulCharts. Let's see if it pays off.
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  13. Obligatory comment here. I don't have anything to say about this video except that the Pharisees introduced the concepts of the immortality of the soul and special providence, as opposed to the pre-existing concept of General Providence which is more like Karma in Hinduism and Buddhism and remains the more influential moral concept within Judaism; i.e. that the consequences of our moral actions are visited on the entire world, not merely oneself. Denying the immortality of the soul, however, is ultimately the hill that the Sadducees died on– other than, you know, no longer having a Temple and priestly elite to rally around.
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  14. A vast improvement, sir! But I promise I'll take a different tone and emphasis with my own video in a few weeks. ETA: Kabbalah dates back quite a bit further back than Luria; he is just the most widely accepted authority on it. And Jewish mysticism in general goes back to the Roman era.
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  15. "Another sucker punch from the Campbells!" –Possibly Mad Men's greatest moment
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  16. Judaism doesn't really do separate denominations in the Christian sense. They're just different schools of thought, and the movement of people and ideas between them is pretty fluid. This is actually something I've been covering in my own video series on Jewish history, which has just reached the early 18th century.
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  17.  @Mango-webIl  Oh, archeologists have found ticket stubs from Jerusalem's theatre in the Second Temple Period!
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  18. Internet Explorer can also be traced back to King Solomon.
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  19. ​ @maxglendale7614  Ah, but due to the way the Presidential Succession Act interacts with the 25th amendment, successors below VP would only become acting President, not someone placed into the official position of President. This is not the current interpretation, but a constitutional argument can be made for someone who is not a natural-born citizen to be in the line of succession.
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  20. I can see why semi-Salic law died out. It's way too complicated!
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  21. Meqabyan is one of those mysteries that I really wish there was more contemporary context for. Historians are pretty sure now that Jews arrived in Ethiopia in the 1st century CE, yet not only is the actual history of the Maccabees missing, but there's...like...a Maccabees fanfic borrowing elements from the First Temple Period? And we don't know how much the Jews influenced early Ethiopian Christianity or vice-versa. It's endlessly frustrating.
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  22. There are like 100 Hasidic dynasties, and a few non-dynastic Hasidic branches!
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  23.  @elmajraz6019  Judaism doesn’t teach inerrancy as most forms of Christianity and Islam do.
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  24. When you play the game of kitot, you win or you die.
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  25. Something important I'd dissent from is the characterization in Conservative Judaism of Jewish law as being binding. It's actually much more similar to Reform, and can be considered an offshoot thereof. Ironically considering your caveat at the beginning of the video, the difference between Conservative and Orthodox largely stems around belief. The value Conservative Judaism places on Jewish law is symbolic rather than material. As I said in my video on the Hamburg Temple Disputes, "the traditional belief in a coming messiah was wholly irrational, and had no bearing on the reality of Jewish life…but so what? It’s religion! It’s allowed to be irrational!"
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  26. Surely if the Russian Empire no longer exists, its laws of succession no longer exist.
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  27. Yes, Hanafi! Founded by Abu Hanifa, cellmate of Anan ben David!
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  28.  @VSP4591  The Hasmonean Dynasty was still extremely Hellenistic in character, taking Greek regnal names, fighting in the Greek style, and often appealing to Greek allies as their fellows. Religious leadership was always deliberative and heterodox and the high priest by this time was basically a figurehead. Their invocations against theatre were not dictates.
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  29.  @מ.מ-ה9ד  Well this is more complicated because Buddhism in itself does not require a belief in other gods; the Buddha himself isn't a god, and inasmuch as buddhist teachings reference other gods it's only as a rhetorical point of comparison.
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  30. Sure, I'll tune in. My mom is ashamed of me for it.
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  31. ​ @elmajraz6019  Because Chronicles is a mess, and is kinda famous for it. In this particular case, the book of Ezra describes his mission as taking place during the reign of Artaxerxes I, half a century after the rebuilding of Jerusalem/the Temple. For this reason, critical scholars mostly agree that he was not contemporary with Nehemiah and may have been a descendant of Seraiah but could not possibly have been his son.
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  32. There's a language in Indonesia that only recently adopted a written form and decided to use Hangul.
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  33. I don't think this was clarified, but critical scholars generally believe now that Abraham was a later addition during the Babylonian exile, mirroring the exile itself and subsequent return to Judea after the Persian conquest.
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  34.  @joshuacarre06  Trying to learn Welsh and wanting to visit Wales and learn pre-Anglo-Saxon British history.
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  35. I think it's worth saying that Teddy Roosevelt arguably started the partisan shift that FDR presided over. Prior to 1912, both parties had left and right wings of about equal strength– the main division between the parties was over whether US dollars should be backed by gold or silver. But after the 1912 election, most members of the Progressive Party were gradually absorbed into the Democrats. Other progressive Republicans soon followed, and this was the root of Democrats' dominance from the 1930s to the 1990s. In the 1960s, Southern Democrats began defecting to the Republicans, so by the 1990s the party switch was complete.
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  36.  @UsefulCharts  Like, literally right now.
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  37. 0:32 I feel somehow responsible for this map.
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  38. Fourth!
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  39. Everyone avoids Arthur because it would only serve to confuse future schoolchildren.
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  40. Happy Thanksgiving and welcome to the tribe.
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  41.  @therongjr  "Rabbinic Judaism" is only used here to differentiate Judaism after the fall of the Temple, but Jewish thought and practice as something primarily directed by rabbis had been the norm since Simon the Just, a contemporary of Alexander the Great.
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  42. Happy Passover, and apparently Happy Jews Talking About Jesus Week!
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  43.  @hecticfreeze  Ah, but this cat is from Afula!
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  44. Charles was right. He is a minor royal. And lo, it was impressively c**ty.
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  45.  @UsefulCharts  ​ Plus I don't think my channel is what anyone would call pro-Herod.
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  46. You must work amazingly fast.
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  47. Congratulations, my friend!
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  48.  @patriciakeys4873 Yes. It’s called code switching. Anyone of mixed heritage could have informed you. It’s not malicious, it’s necessary for functioning in society. For example: me right now revealing my own mixed heritage for the first time in public to defend someone else who goes through the same very normal thing.
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  49.  @Rafirafael.1  He has been an ex-king longer than he was king. That's a small club.
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  50.  @ikr9358  Oh goodness no; the minhag of the Beta Israel is way more consistent with Second Temple Judaism; it just never got the Talmud or subsequent consensus writings (why they were so isolated when the Indian Ocean trade was right there is something I hope to research). First Temple Judaism wasn't even technically monotheist.
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