Moments with Dr Steve

AkelDeema the Saga  — Number Three

Strange Bedfellows

Politics makes strange bedfellows.

Baptists and bootleggers join forces

The historicity of AkelDeema is steeped in strange bedfellows.

The legendary backstory…

  • Judas Iscariot receives ‘thirty pieces of silver’ for betraying the holy one – Jesus Christ

  • The Sanhedrin and ‘Jewish Leaders’ put forth ‘thirty pieces of silver’ as this dirty payola

  • Judas Iscariot greedily clutches his newfound wealth to his bosom

  • Judas Iscariot begins to have second thoughts…

  • Maybe just maybe, he made a bad judgment

  • (Stop acting some self-righteous and pious – as if – you and I have not done similar things in our lives)

  • The guilt and personal affront causes Judas to off himself

  • Jesus Christ is betrayed, tried, found guilty, marched down the Via de la Rosa and infamy

  • Jesus Christ is nailed to a cross and bleeds and dies for the sins of commoners like you and me

  • Jesus Christ dies a cold, cruel and heartless death

  • Jesus Christ goes to hell presumably to speak life to, and free the captives

  • (I always wondered if he had a conversation or two with the devil and his cohorts)

  • Jesus Christ is buried in a tomb and lays in-state for just about 3 days

  • Jesus Christ is raised form the dead

  • Jesus Christ ascends to heaven in a cloud of glory

  • Fast forward 40 days or so…

  • The Sanhedrin and ‘Jewish Leaders’ come to the apostles – only 11 of these now – their numbers will continue to dwindle as the days march along

  • The Sanhedrin and ‘Jewish Leaders’ somehow get the ‘thirty pieces of silver’ back into their mitts

  • This is blood money

  • This is tainted funds

  • This is tarnished and even condemned ‘ill-gotten gains’

  • What’s betrayer to do?

  • The Sanhedrin and ‘Jewish Leaders’ call for a meeting with the 11 remaining apostles

  • They offer the money – the blood money back to the apostles

  • That’s the legendary scuttlebutt – they offer the money back

  • The 11 apostles say, ‘not on our watch’!

  • Both groups are smart enough to know they cannot keep, let alone claim ownership of such dirty money

  • The two groups come together and make a choice – use the funds to purchase

  • Akeldama – the place of death and sorrows

  • Akeldama – Psalm 109: 8 ‘the place where none dwell’

  • This becomes ‘The Potter’s Field’

  • Judas Iscariot and then, an uncountable number of other indigents and reprobates find final rest in this field

  • AkelDeema is borne!

  • I changed a few letters – and imagined a story about a place in America, ‘where none dwell’

  • I named it – AkelDeema – the land of death and sorrows

  • Take this journey with me…

  • I warn you, this is not a safe passage

Travel Far