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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 มิ.ย. 2024
- Patreon: patreon.com/tony4you
Twitter: Tony4youYT
In today's smt lore video we'll be talking about a demon that was voted to be one of the most popular in the series of shin megami tensei Mastema. Mastema is a character that doesn't appear in many shin megami tensei games but plays a very important role in them, and smt as a whole. Is he a loyal servent to yhvh or a deadly temptor of men masquerading as an angel, let's find out in this smt lore video. Appearing in smt strange journey and smt 4 as an extremely important guiding figure in the games, he has made his mark on shin megami tensei as a whole and people just love him. While his accounts and personality change between the games, mastema lore in shin megami tensei can still be understood from analyzing both. As a dark angel people are wary of him in smt games but what would you do if he appeared before you? A horrible foe or an incredible ally in shin megami tensei he is much more than meets the eye. With lore that runs deep to the book of enoch and the book of jubilees, shin megami tensei lore writers really did their homework, and I have my work cut out for me with this smt lore video. Only appearing in two smt games with a prominent role you'd think less people would know who he is let alone think he is one of the coolest characters in shin megami tensei. Throughout shin megami tensei mastema will converse with the player, but whether or not you believe him is up to you, he is the temptor angel of smt after all. The more I research, the more shin megami tensei lore blows me away. I've had to read the most amount of books for this smt lore video than any other. There are similar characters in smt lore but none fill quite the same shoes as Mastema in the kingdom of yhvh and on earth. I was surprised to see not many people discussing mastema lore and decided to fix that, though I had no idea the undertaking I accepted. When mastema is brought up, you only hear good things in the smt community, and now after this video you'll know all you need to know about mastema lore in shin megami tensei. This video will also substitute as a smt lore video about shin megami tensei strange journey as well as shin megami tensei 4 so I hope you will enjoy those as well. I hope you enjoy this smt lore video presented to you by youtube's number one law fan Tony4You.
Mastema is quite possibly both the most loved demons with his portrayal and design in SMT, with the least known about his origins. Mastema ,whose name means hostility, is without a doubt an agent of YHVH, but the ways he brings about his will is distinct from any other Law aligned figure. Able to bring about great misfortune to those who stray from God’s light, as well as be a powerful ally to those of the faith. Mastema is always present in the affairs of humans, and in very interesting places considering his angelic status. With information dating back to the 7th century, accounts of Mastema are infrequent, but intense. Let’s learn about this enigmatic angel of disaster and why God allows evil in this world. - เกม
Mastema: "Hey kids, wanna buy some sin?"
Kids: "I dunno, Mom says I shouldn't..."
Mastema: "Don't be a square, it'll be fun!"
Kids: "Okay!"
**Buys sin**
Mastema: "Okay, boys get him!"
Angels: "You're under arrest!"
Kids: "Noooo!"
**Kids get sent to Hell, directly to Hell, they did not pass Go, nor receive 200 dollars**
Mastema, the OG undercover cop
Never thought of it like that lol. He is the undercover cop of heaven
LMAO
based Mastema
Confirmed this guy made giants
I legit died reading this
“Great strategy. Unfortunately...”
[Megidolaon]
[Megidolaon]
[Megidolaon]
[Megidolaon]
Just spam debilitate and luster candy ezpz
YOU WILL RUE THE DAY YOU CROSSED ME!
*SPAMS MEGIDOLAON*
Lucifer: "Who are you?"
Mastema: "I'm you but on the winning side"
I've always seen him as sort of a mirror of Lucifer in the sense of: Lucifer tempts man to lead them into sin and darkness; while Mastema tempts man to test their righteousness. Mastema might seem to be evil, but ultimately wants to see humanity make the right choice. Honestly I feel like Mastema must have had some sort of empathy towards Lucifer's thought process, but had a complete difference in opinion about humanity and God Himself, thus he takes on a role similar to Lucifer but for God's sake and not against it.
If I ever were to have a Persona, I'd wish it to be Mastema.
interesting thought process.
I believe you're right in thinking Mastema felt some sympathy for Lucifer and went out of his way to utilize the demons rather then damn them for eternity. Interesting interpretation
Genuinely interesting take.
I will echo your desire to have him as a Persona as well.
I mean considering how hard Louisa Ferre shits on masteema if you beat him in the SJ chaos route, I'd say they don't get along at all.
@@crafalgar9719 Lucy wants humans to overcome God, while all Mastema does is the interview for humans to serve God.
So happy he is back in SMTV Vengeance!!!
Mastema became my favorite demon when I played SJ, he's he whole reason I choose Law on that game and it's amazing to learn a lot about him now
Bless you LAW fan. We will soon be the cool ending to get if I have anything to say about it
@@Tony4You LawBros?
law fans unite
Brainwashed much???
It's not brainwashed to like Law endings any more than liking Chaos makes you a nutjob. And personally I thought the Law ending of V *was* its cool ending at least. Spoilers below.
Issues with the story as a whole aside, the Law reps were a Fallen Angel (who we *watched* fall) and Dazai (who got the most development of any character in the game).
Tony4you is a secret government project to teach us about history through gaming lore
Don't tell anyone, it's all just fun and games 😳
No that's Atlus xd
So he's basically Big Y's exam writer? Like "oh do you really believe in Him, or is it just that believing in Him helps you?" But like,way more dangerous
Pass the test or else
"If lucifer is so popular, why isn't there a lucifer 2?"
Lucifer 2:
Man I would love to see interations between him and Abdiel, they missed out putting him in V
Would actually be very interesting to see that lol. Though most archangels don't like Mastema in the games
* comment about many demons that should have been in V but they weren't because they didn't have a P5 model *
Oh boy, do I have news for you
I always found it amusing how this series has like 7 different interpretations of Satan.
Yeah, now that we know it's a title it makes a lot more sense
HE'S BACK
Glad to see the Lore keeper discuss Mastema.
He was one of my favorite demons in SMT Strange Journey. Even when I was on Chaos I loved how pissed Mastema was at the fact that he tried to be Merciful to you but of course since you oppose him on bringing about God's thousand year kingdom. He almost made me go Law on SJ.
He wasn't gonna be merciful unless you chose Law, lol. He tried to manipulate you and retreated in Neutral after seeing your power when you defeat Zelenin. Still a great character.
@@ltb1345 Oh yeah I'm aware. He only stalls in Neutral and doesn't wish to fight you as you are tied between Law and Chaos. But I also chose Chaos so I could fuse Mastema.
Peace is always good, but seeing gow Zelenin literally brainwashed jack's crew, I changed my mind
@@Fermin-hw5pd I mean. It was either brainwashing or Death for them.
I chose to kill them because I still had a vendetta against them
@@tallflipkick I killed them because, as I said, I didn't like the brainwashing, returned to Neutral in the next choice anyways xd
Just a quick correction, the reason why God made Moses sit outside of the promise land is since Moses went against the Lord's command to talk to the rock that gave them water. Instead he struck it with his rod. (That is what he was supposed to do the first time. Not the second time.)
In The New Testament, we are told the rock was Christ. Was he actually the rock or a typology? Not sure. But it is supposed to be a procure of Jesus and the Jews. First Moses, (a Jew), pierces the Rock (Jesus) asn water comes out. Such as Jesus was pierced. With water and blood coming out of him. The second time Moses was supposed to talk to the rock, as to show the plan for the Messiah to the Jews. To accept and talk to the rock (Jesus). But instead Moeses had pierced the rock (Jesus) a second time denying him as so many of my Fellow Jewsih brothers do.
Thanks for reading.
Shalom and amen.
YES sorry my bad. I glossed over that fact and I shouldn't have. For the sake of the story I still think it was worth bringing up though
@@Tony4You no need to apologize Tony. Also, I know it is contentious, but I do think in Job Satan is just Satan. Not another perosn. If you look at his dialog he is contentious with God/YHVH. Plus, if we look at The letter James, it says that God does not tempt. For temptation leads to evil. By the biblical standards, cursing God is evil. As for Abraham, he was already told that his son Isaac would be the only one to make a great nation a few times before God told Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. For before that, Abraham broke God's commands before. It is also a shadow of Jesus. That we would not need to sacrifice out loved ones. Only God himself would sacrifice himself later on the cross.
Anyway, that is the Biblical look. I still find Mastema interesting as well as SMT. Thank you for the content Tony.
Dawyne "The Rock" Christ
YES! We finally get to know why he did it to them, and *WHAT* he did to them!
Also, I’m somehow more confused about why he gives off “Sleazy Used Car Salesman” vibes after watching this than before.
He's nothing but trustworthy, believe him 😏
Just take the demon magic kid. He promises it's okay.
Mastema is you friendly neighborhood entrapment officer.
We were robbed not getting him in SMT V. Zeus, Demeter, and Amon from Strange Journey but not Mastema? We Law Lads are an oppressed people
IDK, keep clinging to it and you'll get double back what you lost or whatever.
Asherah... where was Asherah?
Sadly the reason he's not in V is high likely just them either don't want to spend time modeling new demon and having to pay extra money just to invite Toshiyuki Morikawa (DSJ VA) or Takagi Wataru (SMT IV VA) to voice less than 20 lines for him
@@ProfessionalNamielleLewder69 Sadly they got rid of a lot of the good designs from the DS/3DS era. In general the Nocturne/SJ era is when demon designs peaked in my opinion
Wait until V: vengeance comes out. Maybe he's one of the demons added
Wow, he is cool. But so underutilised. Would be great to see him as law representative once again
Fully agree, it could lead to so many great stories
I never knew about Mastema before this video and he seems like a pretty interesting SMT figure.
I’m not sure how accurate this assessment is, but I get the impression he embodies the phrase “God works in mysterious ways.”
He is trustworthy
mastema be like: you know i had to do it to em
Mastema is a quite interesting character that while he varies drastically depending on the game, his appearances does fit his lore in this video. In SJ he seems to be a upstanding angel and steadfast ally but in actuality he is only doing this for his own benefit as Sheinkah (who usurped a benevolent version of YHVH) will somehow uplift him into god status for his service. Which is why he turns on you on New Law, unlike YHVH. Despite this, Alex reveals that the original Law ending is the ONLY original ending where humanity survives, so while Sheinkah and Mastema did turn from the Great Will/Axiom/God's will of humanity having their free will, (as said by Kagutsuchi) they did save humanity like God would want.
Meanwhile in 4, Mastema is fully good and plays a role of keeping the archangels on the straight and narrow and is implied to directly serve the GW/God. (Compare and contrast the archangels in Clipped Wings who were gun ho about killing those that weren't chosen to the ones in the main game and Merkabah, who wanted to save more people but the reactor forced his hand.) Sadly not only must he die to join your party in 4, like most of 4's cast original cast he suffers from SMT4A's butchering of 4's original characters and setting, to force Neutral as the only legitimate option, going from implied agent of the GW/Axiom to mass produced demon, something that also happened to Metatron.
yes! exactly! I'm so grateful that you understand!
Yeah absolutely, it took me a while to understand his seemingly contradictory existence in both games. I love him so much, and I'm glad the community does too
Ah, so the Three Wise Men did usurp YHVH before Strange Journey? I was always confused about that, since Mastema was saying that God would promote him if he carried out his plan, and Mem Aleph was saying she'd defeat God, but I guess they were talking about the TWM/Shekinah? I guess that also explains why Lucifer called Mastema a "false angel" for following the TWM.
@@ltb1345
Yeah, to give some context God in SMT creates multiple avatars like YHVH to safely interact with humans as a "face" (as like mentioned in the Bible, God's fully revealed presence would kill humanity by merely looking at him) and help run the multiple universes. If either the forces of Chaos start acting up or one of his avatars starts going rogue due to a mysterious flaw in reality, (which is only mentioned in interviews and SMT4A implies it somehow makes YHVH completely isolated and so he goes mad as a result) a "messiah" (the multiple player characters, mostly no connection to Jesus who only outright appears in Persona oddly enough) is created to fix things. Unlike Lucifer who across multiple titles knows about the avatars of God/Great Will/Axiom and so has moved past just fighting his avatars, Mem Aleph has incomplete knowledge and assumes TWM/Sheinkah is God.
The reason Mastema says so is he's telling the truth from a certain point of view, TWM/Sheinkah is indeed one of the avatars of God albeit a rogue one that wasn't supposed to act as the main "face" like YHVH.
@@ltb1345 I think Mem Aleph was either referring to the Three Wise Men or was unaware that God was not behind the resurgence of the angelic host.
"restored double what he had lost"
*HIS KIDS WERE MURDERED* you can't go back from that, that shit ain't restored
shibboleth dialogue was one of the best smt little talks ever...
"You pronounce it well."
His absence is felt in smt v but I still love my mastema. Definitely my favorite demon in the series.
I feel like Mastema would be a perfect candidate to be a final persona for a character with the devil arcana
Who is Mastema? The greatest angel of all time who can totally be trusted, that’s who.
Exactly, do everything he says. Nothing bad will happen
When I first played SJ I looked up a video because I was stuck on Bootes, and found a comment that said "Mastema is evil!!!", I'm not joking
This dude always fascinated me tbh. I remember reading his lore in 4/4A and just thinking how weird that someone so closely related to Record Scratch would be named the “father of evil” hahaha
Yeah it always made me wonder. Researching this vid was a rollercoaster, but now we know why lol
Thanks for the video, Tony! About Mastema, I remember the chill I felt the first time I saw its sprite when first playing Strange Journey! It's good to know more about the lore, and its depiction definitely makes sense in the games, standing out from pretty much all of the Divines/Heralds whenever it is present.
Glad you could appreciate the game and learn more about this stuff from me! This was one of my favorite scripts to write and Mastema is one of my favorite demons
@@Tony4You Keep up the good work!
God: man this job guy's the model human, virtuous and devout, just the coolest guy
Mastema: lets fuck with this man for absolutely no reason lol
God: this is why i love this angel mastema youre a genius
Always gotta have that guy, even in heaven
0:05 mastema jumpscare
Mastema is a lot like Samael. I wonder if he was another piece of development leading to modern Lucifer.
probably the other way around. Mastema seems like another interpretation of the angel of temptation/divine tempter entity in abrahamic faiths. the tempter is called ha-satan in the book of job, so mastema is not just like samael, he is an interpretation of samael literally, but one just of a different tradition. samael is also a called a destroyer angel, in hebrew its Masshit, which if you look at the term, Mastema most likely comes from that root word. In talmudic traditions Samael is the chief of satans, and depending on the source is responsible for a significant amount of times humans have fallen from grace.
these stories have a long history of interpretations throughout time. this is similar to Melek Taus in Yazidi traditions. outside of the bible, it is said satan fell after having too much pride when he refused to bow to Adam, and in Yazidi tradition, this order was a test to see who would obey him. Melek Taus refused because he cannot bow to something lower than god, and he was rewarded for his resolve and for passing the test. because this story is so similar to satan's refusal to bow in other traditions, especially islam, yazidis have been accused of being devil worshippers.
Oh hell yes more Tony4Me?! We in here! Thanks and keep up the good work.
Thanks a lot! More coming for sure
@@Tony4You hell yea! As a new comer to making videos and the SMT series in general I always come out of these vids with a whole lot of knowledge about making a good video and the SMT Demons!
I have been waiting for this episode since I first found this channel, and it could not have come at a better time for me!!
The series is only just starting, I hope I can cover more essential demons of the series one day
YESSSSSSSSS NEW TONY BANGER KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK KING
btw i dont think i can ever get enough of your vids, they are so interesting that they're the reason why im now so interested in the lore of the demons in the series. i literally pop off whenever the best smt lore youtuber, the keeper of the lore if you will, uploads a new vid. really looking forward to the next one
Thanks man, keeper of irl lore reports for duty. I will share my passion with everyone possible
Great video as always! Maybe my fav single demon in the series both for how he’s portrayed narratively and just how sick his art is
Voted as one of the best and we all can see why. We love Mastema
These videos are so good
It was cool finally learning a little about this guy - while I'm yet to play a SMT game with him in it, it was Digimon's interpretation of the character that introduced me (and almost immediately became one of my favourite Digimon designs too). In that series Mastemon is a fusion of Angewomon and LadyDevimom, half light and half dark, and while I initially dismissed it as as rule of cool fanservice it's neat reading it as a take on an "angel of evil", opposite natures in perfect harmony.
Now I just gotta figure out between SJ original or Redux for a first playthrough, and actually get on that ha ha...
Interesting, I had no idea he was in digimon lol. He's more well known than I thought. I'd say play Strange Journey original as it has a better narrative and UI.
Devimom??
I have only played the original, still like it because it's on the DS and I like it's hardware limitations xd
Dropping my algorithm booster! Love the videos and can't wait to see more!
YOO I JUST FINISHED BOOTES (again) AND YOU UPLOADED THIS
I love this serie. Thanks dude ! ❤️ Keep up the good work !!
Thanks a lot! I love making these vids, hope to see you in the next videos too
Mastema is super interesting. This is a great review on him! It's surreal how he expels evil by tempting those into evil. He almost acts in a similar way to the current definition of a demon! Great video.
This channel just keeps getting better and better. I love it!! Tony4President deserves more love and attention for everything he gives us.
I live for the people, I am Tony4YOU after all. I really appreciate people enjoying my vids, and thanks so much for this comment
Love your content! Keep ‘em coming 👌👌
Thanks a lot, More to come!
I'm not a big Law fan, but Mastema is one of my favorite characters and demons of any SMT game. His role in Strange Journey especially is great
You don't have to be a law or chaos fan to love a good character. Strange Journey is just perfect for everyone
Mastema is the most unique angel in SMT and to his etymology. I enjoy his design since it has that level of purity as well as the level of sinister intent.
Absolutely, rarely do you see an angel disguised as a demon
hey man I enjoy your videos thank you for making them
Hey thanks! Glad you enjoy them
Now that the man has returned in SMT V Vengeance i can confirm...
That Mastema, does a little trolling.
another great video!
Thanks bro
love your videos
Hey thanks!
My boi tony is blowing up and I love to see it I was here before 1,000 subs🙏🙏🐐🐐🐐🐐🐐
The OG crew showing up
Mastema is one of my favorite Demons in SMT! He's got one of the best designs too!
while you're on a roll with entities described in the book of Enoch I'd love to see a video on Satanael and the various interpretations of him, though I suppose he's not been very present in SMT as a whole
I plan on doing something involving him. The list on things to cover is long, but he is very high priority
Honestly, I didn't really care about Mastema, but his role is really interesting tbh, although you forgot to mention he appears in RONDE, but considering there's no information about him in that game besides stats makes obvious why you didn't 😅
Banger video as usual
Lol yeah I was debating whether or not to mention RONDE, though I didn't think it was important. Still worth mentioning he is IN the game at least
Hee-Ho from the Expanse boyfriend of Stupei
@@NotThatUser no ksksksks
That moment when you realize Mastema in SJ has the same Japanese voice as the One-Winged Angel himself, Sephiroth!
Banger work as usual! How are you getting the hang of videos like these? They are usually my favorite that you put out
Seems like what people like and interestingly they are my favorite to make. Win win. I hope I can keep making more. I'll go back to making other stuff like discussions and persona videos one day, but for now I am loving these little lessons
@@Tony4You They're coming out great, the bit about trisagion from the angels video made me wonder about the etymology of other attacks which I think could be interesting to talk about
I love these lore videos! I can't wait until you do Lilith.
Oh yeah, she's been requested before. I'll add her to the list
i love Strange Journey so much
Same tbh
congrats on 10k subs 🖤🖤
Thanks a lot, hope people keep enjoying!
Merry Christmas Tony.
Merry Christmas!
I love Mastema’s design and role in SJ, surely one on my favourites demon of the whole series
Just doing the last grind in SJ before i get the law ending, perfect upload
Law fans rise up, keep up the good work
Hope you got Meteor Dragoon, makes the grinding a joke!
@@Fermin-hw5pd Of course, that won me the fight lol. It was a great game! 10/10 Although the commander gore fight made me wanna die a bit
Do a video about mother harlot, i think it would be an interesting video
I have her on the list for sure! Have something really interesting with her
Maybe do Samael next, to keep with the theme of angels with more ambigious morality.
He's definitely on the list
VELA
Hi
@@vela7802 :)
Thank you for showing Ham-Hands Mastema. It's super cursed af.
this series really highlights how weird it is that SMT tells stories using "historical" beings
like, 99% of the time it feels like when a demon's cast in a role in SMT their historical provenance has no bearing at all on what they're doing? "let's just grab Baldur and make him Beldr lord of hell"
and that particular example at least kind of wrote him a backstory in that context! usually it's just...
"oh hey it's Orcus, here he is, shouting buono
why was Orcus the right guy for this role? uhhh the art direction we went with for him mostly"
idk how this knot can be untangled
They can't all be zingers. I just wanna highlight the good ones
Thamks for making a video about me :D
I like that the third Watcher's pic looks like he going "Don't look at me, I ain't a part of this shit".
The art really makes it look like an awkward day in heaven lol
I still can't get over how he looks like Todd Howard
Same energy
Mastema is the famous Baraka Obanama, and his last name in Tony. No cap, only facts. But don't tell anyone. 🤫
The day Sephiroth turned into an actual angel.
Interesting vid. Since you tackled Moses, I do recall that he was unable to enter the Promised Land after disobeying God from one of His commandments. He was still allowed to see the Promised Land, however, before being taken by God.
Anyways, Aniel and Kazfiel when? JK. I understand how these videos aren't meant to be rushed. 😊👍
I have a list that gets longer after every video lol. One day I hope I can cover all standout demons
I just know him as “that guy in DX2 who’s my first useful light element user” because I’m to broke to get one of the mainline games.
Strange journey redux was my first smt game and he always creeped me out lol I definitely thought he was gonna betray me by the end of the game
He's nothing if not a trustworthy man
Hopefully we get a video on satanael
On the list for sure! That one is going to be interesting
I'm just really sad that we don't have a full design for him. His twisted form emerging from Speaker is all we get.
Sure we can extrapolate a little based on his portrait and the other two Grigori that show up, but it ain't the same. I've been hoping for him to show up again for quite some time.
@@cheesepuffsthings satanael is in persona 5 and has a design there as well
God is pretty hardcore
I love Mastema and SMT 4 gave me my favorite version of him.
Instead of blindly following the last orders of god in his absence, he allows the importance of context and new information to color his opinion.
He's less "God said to do this" and more "I believe that god would do this"
He doesn't have an ego issue and doesn't hide his own decisions behind the cloak of god's word. He simply does what he thinks is right, though the lens of god.
In a way, he feels like a new age of law. Still valuing things as they were in many ways, but ultimately coming to his own decision on many things.
Mastema in SMT 4 is the type of angel that's ideal version of law is a council of many ruling bodies that have to persuade and convince the others to vote for or against changes to reality.
Because Mastema didn't have all the answers and never claimed to. He sought the answers of the humans to help himself reach an answer.
Mastima is a chad, Pray to be half as a chad as him
when u learn more from smt lore videos than school
Yeah same honestly. Amazing what they don't teach you
Ha-ha-ha what a video Tony
Hoy Mastema, just spreading the good word
Mastema
Mastema
Mastema
I don't play SMT. But I do like learning about mythology. So I may stay a while.
When playing Strange Journey Redux, I nicknamed him as "Mustard". Lol 🤭
So this is where Mastemon from digimon is based from, interesting thing that since mastema is basically a reverse Lucifer so Mastemon and Lucemon are the only Digimons with Both Light and Dark attribute.
incoming players of SMT V Vengeance lmao
I think what God has that we do not have, which through this video about Mastema is reflected, is hindsight. Like, imaging seeing how much good your following some order that for your societies standards seems absurd only for the future to become ultimately a better place and you getting your spawns to literally become countless and even Child of God.
Tfw i am slowly retreating to catholicism after playing SMTV and watching your vids
Interesting thought! I'm glad I am making people more introspective of themselves and thoughts on theology lol
Amen
Another successful bible lesson. I wonder how many of these I can do before people think I'm nuts
What's the name of the song starting at 00:56?
really curious :(
Mastema's role simplified: Gaslighting ppl
mastema had to do it to em
Music towards the end?
SMT is my favourite way to learn about different religions and stuff lmao
If it wasn't for SMT I definitely wouldn't have gotten into researching this much. I love this series so much
Fat nerd essay:
On the Book of Job, there is actually an ironic heart to the story which suggests that - as opposed to Job's suffering being justified by some divine plan - the takeaway is that there is no such thing as a guarantee of meaning for our suffering. Throughout the book, Job simply does not accept that his suffering has any meaning; he maintains a properly ethical dignity by asserting the meaninglessness of his suffering against his three theologian friends, who argue that he must have sinned or that there must be some cosmic work at play (the function of the three theological friends is perhaps to obfuscate the impact of the trauma). By the end, Job effectively becomes a blasphemer and a doubter. When God finally does appear, however, he does not reprimand Job for ever doubting and instead praises him - saying that only he has spoken truth. He then chastises his three friends, who had confidently defended their ideas of God, for speaking falsely.
The violence contained by a sacred sacrifice to God/a higher being/a higher calling/ideology/religion is called into question. As a rule, rituals of a certain religion consist in staging the violation of prohibitions of this same religion (for example, human sacrifice). But in actuality, the sacred sacrifice to God is the same act as murder. What makes it sacred is the fact that it limits, contains, murders in ordinary life. In times of crisis of the sacred, this distinction disintegrates. There is no sacred exception. A sacrifice is all of a sudden perceived as a simple murder. The story of the Book of Job is not told by the collective which stages the sacrifice, as in the so-called pagan rituals, but by the victim, from the standpoint of the wholly innocent victim of divine wrath. Once the innocence of the sacrificial victim is known, the efficiency of the entire sacrificial mechanism of scapegoating is undermined. Sacrifices become hypocritical, inoperative, a fake, but we also lose the containment of violence enacted by the sacrifice.
So this means that there is nothing, no external limit, to contain our ordinary violence. So the ethical problem Christianity aims to resolve is how to contain violence without this sacrificial exception. A quote from Jean-Pierre Dupuy: “Concerning Christianity, it is not a morality but an epistemology. It says the truth about the sacred and thereby it deprives the sacred of its creative power, for better or for worse. Humans alone decide about this.” Therein resides I think the world historical rapture enacted by Christianity. Now we know about the fate of the sacrificial scapegoat logic, and we can no longer pretend we don’t know. The impact of this knowledge one cannot get rid of once it is here is not only liberating but deeply ambiguous. It also deprives society of the stabilizing role of scapegoating and thus sets free the space for violence not contained by any mythic limit. This is how in a truly perspicuous insight, Dupuy reads the scandalous lines spoken by Jesus from Matthew 10:34:
“Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword.”
Why then did Job suffer? God replies with what is usually read as his supreme arrogance, as the assertion of the gap separating God from man, you know, that, “Who are you to ask me this? What do you know about all the monsters I created?” and so on and so on. Chesterton proposes here a radically different reading. I quote Chesterton: “To startle man, God becomes for an instant a blasphemer. One might almost say that God becomes for an instant an atheist. He unrolls before Job a long panorama of created things: the horse, the eagle, the raven, the wild ass, the peacock, the ostrich, the crocodile. He so describes each of them that it sounds like a monster walking in the sun. The whole is a sort of psalm or rhapsody of the sense of wonder. The maker of all things is astonished at the things he has himself made.” I prefer much this reading, which means God’s answer is, “Who are you to complain? Look at all the mess that I’ve created, the whole universe is crazy, like, sorry, I don’t control it.”
This reading of Job basically prohibits us to take refuge in the standard transcendent figure of God as a secret master who knows the meaning of what appears to us as a meaningless catastrophe.
Very interesting. I never thought of it that way and can completely see the significance of it. Thanks for the comment for real man
@@Tony4You All good! While I love most of everything about SMT sometimes I wish it went a bit further into the more radical/revolutionary aspects of Christian/Islamic theology, especially with the role Abrahamic religion plays in almost all of the series' stories.
For example, it would be amazing to be able to ally yourself with a Jesus figure in what would typically be seen as the Anarchy (or maybe more appropriately the Peace) route in Apocalypse. I'm convinced the YHVH we see in SMT would be even more alarmed by and opposed to the God in the New Testament than the Divine Powers or Lucifer.
And he is the reason I always go chaos.
When I finnish SMT Strange Journey Law Ending all people disappear damn
Came for the Algo, stayed for the lore.
The real hero
Ok the enoch story reminds me of the gaiseric story in Berserk
whats the music at the begining of the video?
YOU ARE A WORTHY OPPONENT FOR MASTEMA