There seems to be some confusion.
The group of seven men arrested in Miami, accused of trying to provide material support to al Qaeda, were a cult-like group that met in an abandoned windowless warehouse they called “The Temple.” That much everyone agrees on.
But the name of the group itself. As CNN’s Jeanne Meserve explained last Thursday, “there seems to be a little bit of confusion of whether it’s Seas of David, Seeds of David. I defer to John [Roberts], who says he believes it’s Seeds.”
Roberts was onto something: “Seeds of David” is a recognizable Judeo-Christian image. “Seas of David,” on the other hand, doesn’t seem to make any sense.
Unfortunately, knowledge of religious symbolism isn’t always that useful when you’re covering crackpot cults. CNN’s John Zarella described an encounter with a group member, “Brother Corey,” who cleared up the issue:
Brother Corey walks up to me. I’m standing literally right here, and he walks up to me and says, “I’m a representative. I’m authorized to speak on behalf of our organization.”I asked him what the name of the group was, and, you know, he said that — gave me the name of the group, and then we started the interview. I began to talk with him. He was detailing to me different things about the organization. He called themselves the Seas, S-E-A-S, Seas of David. Could be the Seeds of David, but he insisted it was Seas of David.
Whatever, dude, Zarella seems to say. It’s your cult, call it whatever you want.