post the hundred-seventy-second, 2013

during the course of my work today, i read this footnote**. not book, chapter, article, essay, paragraph or even sentence. 

FOOT. NOTE. 

by its very nature, a footnote is not the heart of the matter. it's a small tidbit over to the side, a supporting player, not enough on its own to be gushed over and written about on the main page, but a mere scrap of information tucked away below the margin.  

reading this footnote, i felt equal parts intrigued... and glaringly ignorant. 

and, the more i pondered this piece, this item presumably so devoid of worth that it merited not a smidgen of space on the main page, this unworthy tidbit allowed only to tag along at the end... i slowly realized that if i don't know these, the lowly pieces, the red-headed stepchildren of publishing, how can i ever even begin to consider the possibility of entertaining the outside chance of ever even learning a fraction of a slice of a portion of a share of the body of knowledge that comprises this smothering whole that IS. 

i remain devastated by the amount of knowledge I will never even touch, much less grasp once, much less hold for a time, much less hold forever.

smothering. 

**263. Practically all Greek MSS read Βεελζεβούλ (Beelzeboul), although both א and B read Βεεζεβουλ (Beezeboul). Both are different from the traditional “Beelzebub” of the NIV, following the KJV, which had followed the Vulgate. No Greek MS reads “Beelzebub.” This name was related to the Hebrew epithet given to the god of the Philistines in 2 Kgs 1:2, Baal-zebub, “god of flies.” The etymology and the meaning of both Beelzebub and Beelzebul are disputed (cf. IDB 1:332, 374), yet “Beelzebul” may well have been used as the name of a pagan household god, “Lord of the House” (“Heavenly Temple”). Even if by Matthew’s time the etymology had been forgotten, the name was then adapted in Judaism as a pejorative name for the chief demon, equivalent to Satan and Belial. There may be a play on words in the Pharisees’ charge: Jesus, who claims to be Lord of the (Jerusalem) Temple (cf. 12:6), actually operates by the power of the pagan god/demon named “Lord of the Temple.” The word play in 10:25 on “master of the house” (οἰκοδεσπότης oikodespotēs) suggests that Matthew knew this etymology.