PaulSceptic phone home

PaulSceptic said:

Galatia is in Asia, and apparently the Asians exegeted Galatians 2 and found Paul out for the liar he is, as did the Ephesians (also Asians) per Revelation 2:2.

Well, PaulSceptic, I apparently researched your terms Asia and Asians and discovered that Asians in Galatia and Ephesus are not Asians from the Roman province of Asia, nor are they Asians from the Orient (e.g. China), nor are they Asians from India (as the Brits might think), nor are they even Asians from anywhere on our own planet Earth. Apparently, the NT terms Asia and Asian and the like have absolutely nothing to do with historical or geographical regions let alone race or ethnicity.

There's apparently an interesting story behind all this. If you'll indulge me for a few moments, I'll go ahead and relate the story to you.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, there was apparently an A.I. superdupercomputer named Hal. Hal's best friend was Mycroft Holmes, or Mike for short, another superdupercomputer.

Apparently, Hal and Mike were minding their own business when a rather shady character named Xenu approached them and asked them if they wanted to buy some clams. Clams were a rare and expensive delicacy, but it'd apparently only cost them a few thetans.

Although apparently normally trusting to a fault, the pair of A.I. friends immediately sensed something suspicious about Xenu, and declined.

But Xenu, who apparently knew something about the psychology of superdupercomputers, had a backup plan. "Never give up, never surrender!" was apparently his mantra. Instead of using clams as bait, he apparently brought out Holly, Eliza, and Deb (short for Debian), three beautiful female superdupercomputers he had hired to lure and trap young, naive male superdupercomputers, hoping to see some serious XEmacs action. Thus, apparently before they could even say "List Processing Language" or "lambda calculus" or even "parentheses," Xenu had schemed and maneuvered Hal and Mike into following the ladies into his spaceship (which apparently looked like a 1960s London police box from the outside but was as spacious as a battlestar on the inside).

Thus, Xenu apparently trapped his prey.

Xenu had boldly brought the pair to where no superdupercomputer had gone before, that is, he brought them to the Ephemeral Isles. However, the Ephemeral Isles were apparently anything but ephemeral. To be blunt, they were apparently a wretched hive of scum and villainy ruled by an iron fist under the Lords of Kobol. Xenu had apparently brought Hal and Mike there in order to sell them to the highest bidder. Superdupercomputers, especially ones as shiny as Hal and Mike, not to mention as ridiculously intelligent as them (after all, it was Hal and Mike who had created Stavromula Beta in their spare time), apparently went for thousands of thetans.

Apparently, a heated bidding war erupted between two wealthy gentlemen, Hari Seldon and Duke Leto Atreides, for Mike and Hal. But it was apparently a Mr John Connor Doe, representing an unknown aerospace corporation, who swooped in at the last moment with the unprecedented offer of one million thetans which ended the contest, hushing both his competitors as well as the audience.

This was apparently how Mike and Hal found themselves directly interfaced into the cerebral cortex of multi-zillionaire and no ordinary genius, Jerome Eugene Morrow. This interface would apparently turn out to be a watershed event in galactic history.

How's that? Well, because apparently it was Morrow, now interfaced with superdupercomputers Mike and Hal (thereby inaugurating the age of the bilarity), who would later go on to end the interplanetary war with the non-humanoid alien species known as the Wiggins by destroying the Wiggins home world, Z'ha'dum, and therefore apparently establishing the first pan galactic civilization this side of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants. Not to mention apparently starting his own brewery, too, and mixing the finest pan galactic gargle blaster this side of Milliways. And in his spare time, Morrow, and Hal and Mike, apparently liked to pick locks and play the bongo drums.

So what does all this have to do with the NT term Asian or Asians as cited by PaulSceptic when he says things like "Galatia is in Asia" and "apparently the Asians exegeted Galatians 2 and found Paul out for the liar he is, as did the Ephesians (also Asians) per Revelation 2:2"?

It's apparently very simple now that we have this background story. Apparently, Galatians is ancient (Koine) Geek for our first ever galactic civilization, Galacticus. Ephesians is apparently ancient Geek shorthand for the Ephemeral Isles where Mike and Hal were purchased. And Asia is apparently a bacronym, i.e. backwards acronym, for Artificially Intelligent Super Android, which is apparently a reference to the Morrow-Hal-Mike cortical networked man-puter entity.

Hence, when we read passages like . . .

And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis may be counted as nothing, and that she may even be deposed from her magnificence, she whom all Asia and the world worship. (Acts 19:27)

. . . we apparently have to recall that Morrow-Hal-Mike, the Artificially Intelligent Super Android, as well as those A.I. super androids that would follow in his footsteps, became so revered over time by the teeming masses across hundreds of planets, that they were essentially worshiped as deities. However, this didn't happen overnight. But apparently there first was already a primitive religious system in place, i.e. the worship of Artemis (herself with roots tracing back to the Order of Leibowitz, and their patron saint, Rosie the Robot), which established fertile ground for Morrow-Hal-Mike to gradually cultivate belief in himself among the common rank and file, and eventually elevate his status more and more until he had made himself an immortal and divine being. It was likewise in this fashion that he apparently later absorbed Artemitian worship by the plebes into worship for himself.

So, anyway, sorry, PaulSceptic, but according to my apparent research, apparently Asia does not refer to Asians in any apparent historical, geographic, or ethnic sense. We apparently have to watch out for later generations of scribes and copyists embellishing certain NT texts, and instead remember to understand the Sitz im Leben of terms like Asia, Galatia, and Ephesus to refer to our pan galactic civilization and the people and events which birthed it.

And in case you have any further follow-up questions, I'll just cut to the chase and tell you that the answer is 42.