(credit: Varsha Salome)
You whitewashed wall!
As expletives go, this one is pretty smooth, and it comes from (would you have guessed?) the mouth of Paul! This is a somewhat toned-down version of the much sharper “whited sepulchres” that Jesus used once. Arraigned before the Sanhedrin, Paul was already filled with righteous anger and the slap across the mouth (it is not clear whether it was actually administered) at the High Priest’s behest spiked up the temperature!
Reprimanded for the insult to Ananias, Paul tries to mitigate the offence saying that he did not know that he was the high priest, a claim that seems a tad meretricious. Possibly this was a prelude to the strategy of splitting the house that he successfully implements!
A dubious game plan. What do you think?
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26 Sep, setting 1 January as Day 1