There's a good reason why no one follows Jesus

[_jon]

What is the reality that the people who wrote the scriptures attributed to 'Christs teachings' did so accurately? Luke is based on thw writings in Mark, so that probably qualifies it as second or third hand.

Let's be honest, there's a significant difference between what Joseph himself wrote concerning the first vision that he had, and the account written by someone else that the Church now uses as 'official'.

Scriptures are like statistics - they can be made to say whatever the speaker wants them to say.

For example, is murder bad?
Is Polygamy good?

[_The Nehor]

You are also a jackass.

Ah. The old 'soft answer turneth away wrath' trick, eh? Abuse is rarely a sign of confidence in one's position.

Neither is being thin-skinned which is what you are if you think that line is abusive. :)

As the OP pointed out, many of the sayings ascribed to Jesus in the New Testament have been such as to cause grave inconvenience to those who wanted to say they were his followers, but who also wanted to raise families, own property and businesses, invest for the future, defend themselves against robbers, and so on. That is because he often talked in ways which, if he meant the words ascribed to him, implied that doing none of those things mattered very much. One possible reason for this problem, favored by a number of scholars, is that the historical person behind the multi-layered Jesus of the New Testament believed that his deity was just about to intervene in history in a way that would render most wordly concerns irrelevant.

Nope.

But whatever the reason for him saying things like this:

Matthew 5
38 ¶ Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:
39 but I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.
40 And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.
41 And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.

it is clear that such sayings cannot be put into practice by a social group that intends to have a continuing existence - and that is what early Christians soon found (perhaps to their surprise) that they were going to be.

Or you can take it in the context given. Jesus taught solely the house of Israel. These people were currently an occupied people that routinely rose up in revolt on any (or no) pretext and got the crap kicked out of them by the Romans. These statements in that context make sense. Stop fighting the Romans and be kind to them. Take the abuses heaped upon you without complaint (similar lessons are taught to occupied peoples in the Book of Mormon).

Now a non-believer has no problem here: a millenarian preacher who thinks the world is coming to an end says things that make normal life impossible. Big deal. But for the huge majority of Christians in the centuries after Jesus, who believed that he intended to found a church that would endure for centuries, there was a huge cognitive dissonance to be resolved.

Not really. They just read it rightly.

You can attempt to do that in various ways, as the Nehor so kindly suggests. One way is the Lewis way: you simply sneer at those so naïve as to think Jesus might have meant what he said, by accusing your opponents of believing something clearly nonsensical.

Or you accept that Jesus taught in a different culture where hyperbole and exaggeration were common. He told his followers that if they had faith they could move mountains. I don't take this to mean he wanted his followers to perform large-scale geographical adjustments as a routine faith-promoting practice. Instead he was emphasizing what faith could do.

The passage to which he is referring is of course:

Matthew 10:16 ]Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.

Clearly no sane non-Christian interpreter of this passage, which ends with two similes, would ever claim that Jesus was instructing his followers to resemble doves in their reproductive practices, rather than in their harmlessness. But Lewis pretends that that is what they mean when he says:

People who take these symbols literally might as well think that when Christ told us to be like doves, He meant that we were to lay eggs.

And that is the kind of argument we are to call 'grown-up'? If Lewis had said anything so stupid in a seminar on medieval literature his colleagues would have laughed at him. But with his 'revered Christian apologist' hat on, he was addressing an audience who were less critical than willing to be reassured, and he could get away with a lot.

No, he was mocking facetious morons trying to make the teachings of Christ look ridiculous by pretending to be simpletons. Like the OP of this thread for example. He fed them their own medicine in response. It's not a 'grown-up' argument. But the argument he was facing was childish. No grown-up rebuttal is necessary.

As for the rest of the Nehor's ways of avoiding the inconveniences of a Jesus who means what he says, we seem to have the following:

Try getting the Holy Ghost to help you.

OK. Believe in my religion first, and then you will see that it is true. I don't think The Nehor can reasonably call a secular critic rude names for finding that unconvincing.

I cannot and do not. However I am not going to pretend that Jesus was intending his teachings for non-believers in any case. Secular critics can read the Bible all they want but they won't 'get it'.

Next:

consider the interpretation Christians have been giving to the text for thousands of years

That does seem to be a bit circular, doesn't it? The whole point of the OP is that Christians have, for good, practical, wordly reasons ignored much of what the founder of their religion said. To appeal to that practice to justify their ignoring what he said is not a strong argument.

No, not circular. Instead it takes into account how the earliest followers of Jesus took his words. They would be the ones who would understand most clearly after all. The further away in culture and time we get the less likely we are to get it. Some of this can be bridged by being well-read regarding the period. The moronic argument in the OP is light-years away from anything Jesus's followers he was actually teaching would have thought making it completely inane.

Next:

Or what scholars of the language and time think it means?

I don't think that you will find many scholars of New Testament Greek who will say that this simple bit of Greek:

ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω ὑμῖν μὴ ἀντιστῆναι τῷ πονηρῷ· ἀλλ’ ὅστις σε ῥαπίζει εἰς τὴν δεξιὰν σιαγόνα, στρέψον αὐτῷ καὶ τὴν ἄλλην·

means anything but:

but I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.

New Testament Greek is mostly simple, straightforward stuff that people like you and me can follow without straining our brains too much.

Yes, but scholars of the time period also know how they talked and the subtext behind what was being said.

Are you thinking, I wonder, of attempts to explain away the 'eye of a needle' passage about rich people entering heaven by reference to an imaginary narrow city gate of that name?

Not at all. While a cute way for some churchman in the Middle Ages to ease the consciences of his rich flock it doesn't work. The apostles would not have been amazed (as the scriptures assure us they were) if they knew of that gate. Taking this literally though rich men should spend time trying to figure out how to breed a really small camel and stretch out a metallic needle to get the damn thing through it regularly so they can be saved.

Instead the faithful take some solace in Jesus's statement that all things are possible with God.

Next:

just use basic common sense?

Tut. The literal words of supposed divine saviors are to be interpreted away unless they conform to the 'common sense' of a 21st century American? Any one foolish enough to do that might deserve a worse name than 'jackass', I think.

No, I meant the common sense of someone who has read the Bible and knows what he is talking about.

The OP is the common response of a typical pigheaded 21st century American. That is why it should be ignored.

[_The Nehor]

Scriptures are like statistics - they can be made to say whatever the speaker wants them to say.

Congratulations on finally reaching basic comprehension of one of the most basic problems in communication recognized by experts throughout the ages and around the globe. Now stop limiting it to scripture and start applying it to all communication and reading in your life and enlightenment can begin.

[Guest]

It seems I can add few more standard defenses to my list, for use in the more specialized field of New Testament interpretation:

Jesus was only talking about the <Romans/Lamanites/other occupying powers> when he said you should forgive people, be kind to your enemies, and so on. None of that applies to how you have to treat normal people.

He was exaggerating when he said all that stuff, like everybody did then.

Christians who lived well after the time of Jesus and the Apostles understood the true meaning of the New Testament, except when they didn't because of the Great Apostasy.

As for the rest, I am content for people who care about the topic of this thread to read my post, and then to read the Nehor's reply, and make up their minds who has the more reasonable position.

[_jon]

It seems I can add few more standard defenses to my list, for use in the more specialized field of New Testament interpretation:

Jesus was only talking about the <Romans/Lamanites/other occupying powers> when he said you should forgive people, be kind to your enemies, and so on. None of that applies to how you have to treat normal people.

He was exaggerating when he said all that stuff, like everybody did then.

Christians who lived well after the time of Jesus and the Apostles understood the true meaning of the New Testament, except when they didn't because of the Great Apostasy.

As for the rest, I am content for people who care about the topic of this thread to read my post, and then to read the Nehor's reply, and make up their minds who has the more reasonable position.

What about - knowledge about what Christ taught is not essential for your eternal salvation...

[_Buffalo]

It seems I can add few more standard defenses to my list, for use in the more specialized field of New Testament interpretation:

Jesus was only talking about the <Romans/Lamanites/other occupying powers> when he said you should forgive people, be kind to your enemies, and so on. None of that applies to how you have to treat normal people.

He was exaggerating when he said all that stuff, like everybody did then.

Christians who lived well after the time of Jesus and the Apostles understood the true meaning of the New Testament, except when they didn't because of the Great Apostasy.

As for the rest, I am content for people who care about the topic of this thread to read my post, and then to read the Nehor's reply, and make up their minds who has the more reasonable position.

Every devout Christian must be prepared with a litany of excuses for why they don't pay any attention to what Jesus taught.

[_The Nehor]

What about - knowledge about what Christ taught is not essential for your eternal salvation...

True actually. The earliest Christians didn't have the gospels. Nor did faithful saints for millenia before Christ came.

[_asbestosman]

You're a jackass. Please interpret this literally.

I think Balaam is one of the few people who had a literal conversation with a non-human mammal. You, Nehor, are one of the few.

[_Hoops]

Every devout Christian must be prepared with a litany of excuses for why they don't pay any attention to what Jesus taught.

I guess that explains why millions of Christians spend a fair portion of Sunday morning studying what he taught.

[_Hoops]

It's hilarious that your real response is exactly the same as Chap's parody. :D

I'm not particularly impressed that Chap was able to predict what one's response might be to such nitwittery. Even considering that this caution has been proposed for literally centuries.