Jesus: abandon your families

[_quark]

Let me ask everyone this:

Would you rather Muslims around the world take a more loving, family oriented approach or a harsh, zealous, egotistical approach to the Quran?

How do you think the world might benefit from a liberally, loving interpretation of the Bible as opposed to the opposite?

Maybe the argument in the OP can change to this:

"While it may seem as if the Jesus of the New Testament emphasized spiritual ideals more than practical family issues, people of the modern world are able to transcend this approach to a more lofty ideal. This is made evident by the fact that most Christians don't see Jesus the way the cited article posits."

In addition to this, we might suggest that, "The beauty of religion is in the interpretations of the followers. Might we look upon the non-Christian beliefs with this in mind."

[_cksalmon]

Let me ask everyone this:

Would you rather Muslims around the world take a more loving, family oriented approach or a harsh, zealous, egotistical approach to the Quran?

How is that analogical to Christian interpretations of the relevant passages from New Testament?

If you're asking whether I would like to see Islam, writ large, advocate an interpretation of the Quran that minimized the slaughter and/or brutalizing of Christian communities, then, yes, sure. I would prefer that. But not all Muslim communities advocate such things.

I'm missing the analogy.

Would I rather that Islam, writ large, privilege family over extrinsic faith commitments? Dunno.

Or, does a "more loving, family oriented approach" to the Quran nullify "a harsh, zealous, egotistical approach to the Quran?"

You'd need to flesh out your analogy. It's not at all clear to me.

[_Buffalo]

Please excuse me disagreeing with you. But what you are doing is simply rewriting the passage so as to remove a difficulty in it. If you did that through the whole Bible you would end up with a pretty bland book: indeed one criticism of the Book of Mormon I have heard is that it is all far too easy to make sense of to be a real ancient text.

But John was written in Greek. And the Greek of the phrase you reinterpret has a definite meaning, which is not hard to decipher, even if it is at first sight rather strange:

τί ἐμοὶ καὶ σοί, γύναι;

The first word means 'what', the second is the word 'me' in the dative case (to me), the next word means 'and' and the one after that means 'to you (singular)', then you get the vocative form of 'woman' (O woman).

So the words mean literally 'what to me and to you, woman?'

Sounds bizarre. But to someone who knew the Old Testament, as the writer of John certainly did , this is a well-known pattern of speech with a familiar significance. See this online commentary, for instance:

(literally, “What to me and to you, woman?”) This phrase is a semiticism. The Hebrew expression in the Old Testament had two basic meanings:

(1) When one person was unjustly bothering another, the injured party could say “What to me and to you?” meaning, “What have I done to you that you should do this to me?” Examples: Judges 11:12, 2 Chr 35:21, 1 Kings 17:18.

(2) When someone was asked to get involved in a matter he felt was no business of his, he could say to the one asking him, “What to me and to you?” meaning, “That is your business, how am I involved?” Examples: 2 Kings 3:13, Hosea 14:8.

Meaning (1) implies hostility, meaning (2) merely disengagement. Meaning (2) is almost certainly to be understood here as better fitting the context (although some of the Greek Fathers took the remark as a rebuke to Mary; I feel such a rebuke is unlikely).

So we are stuck with a strange scene. Jesus at first tells his mother to get lost, it seems. "Stop bothering me, Mom!" But she is perversely confident that he will respond to her implied request, and that is just what he does. ("Okay, okay. I suppose it's the only way to get some peace ..")

Isn't that a lot more true to life about mother-son relationships than a smoothed out version of the story?

I think Chap nailed it.

But I have to admit to not having really made this thread in good faith. I made it to see if our Mormon defenders would defend Jesus. It appears they're only interested in defending Joseph.

[_Buffalo]

Just put those same words in the mouth of a contemporary religious figure or guru and everybody would be shouting 'Dangerous Cult!' or 'Delusional Fanatic!'

Taking the canonical gospels at face value, Jesus' message is clearly not 'family first'. If anything it is more like 'Jesus first'. Whatever we may believe about his divinity or lack thereof, the Jesus portrayed in the gospels was a revolutionary. He made radical demands of his followers that often went against the prevailing culture: breaking familial obligations, voluntary poverty, celibacy, lending to people who will never repay, etc. He seemed to also center a lot of his teaching on his own person. That's ok I guess if you really are the unique son of god, sent from god for the salvation of the world. If not, its a just a personality cult.

The Jesus of the gospels is always a radical and challenging figure if we just pay attention to what he is actually saying. Thanks Buffalo for reminding us of that. You are truly doing the Lord's work.

Hi, Buffalo

:)


Peace,
Ceeboo

Hey, I don't need to make up sock puppets to back myself up, like Mr. Schryver does.

Sincerely,

lostsheep

[_lostsheep]

Hey, I don't need to make up sock puppets to back myself up, like Mr. Schryver does.

Sincerely,

lostsheep

The secret is out Buffalo! Confess!

[_Buffalo]

Hey, I don't need to make up sock puppets to back myself up, like Mr. Schryver does.

Sincerely,

lostsheep

The secret is out Buffalo! Confess!

Nevar!!!!!

- Lost Buffaleep

[_KimberlyAnn]

CK, you need a new Avatar!

Now, you see my true form.

The Cobra Commander is back!

Your gun casts a sweet shadow, Sir, if I do say so myself.

KA

PS. Your Dawned on Me and Message from Midbar links no longer have corresponding videos, unfortunately. There is no replacement for Midbar that I can find. Such a shame that the fine folks here are deprived of those lovely stops.

[_stemelbow]

But I have to admit to not having really made this thread in good faith. I made it to see if our Mormon defenders would defend Jesus. It appears they're only interested in defending Joseph.

Possibilities not considered by Buffalo, apparently:

1. We didn't pay attention to your thread at all. therefore we didn't know this was supposedly an attack on Jesus.
2. We saw it and noticed the, as you admitted, disengenuous nature of it and decided not to respond at al.
3. We have Buffalo on ignore because of his disengenuous posting.

Personally I didn't opne this thread until today. Sometimes, without really noticing, I don't open threads, randomly. Odd, I know since I comment in so many of them. Much to your guys' chagrin.

[_Drifting]

But I have to admit to not having really made this thread in good faith. I made it to see if our Mormon defenders would defend Jesus. It appears they're only interested in defending Joseph.

Possibilities not considered by Buffalo, apparently:

1. We didn't pay attention to your thread at all. therefore we didn't know this was supposedly an attack on Jesus.
2. We saw it and noticed the, as you admitted, disengenuous nature of it and decided not to respond at al.
3. We have Buffalo on ignore because of his disengenuous posting.

Personally I didn't opne this thread until today. Sometimes, without really noticing, I don't open threads, randomly. Odd, I know since I comment in so many of them. Much to your guys' chagrin.

Stemelbow, when you use the word 'We' who specifically do you mean?

[_Buffalo]

But I have to admit to not having really made this thread in good faith. I made it to see if our Mormon defenders would defend Jesus. It appears they're only interested in defending Joseph.

Possibilities not considered by Buffalo, apparently:

1. We didn't pay attention to your thread at all. therefore we didn't know this was supposedly an attack on Jesus.
2. We saw it and noticed the, as you admitted, disengenuous nature of it and decided not to respond at al.
3. We have Buffalo on ignore because of his disengenuous posting.

Personally I didn't opne this thread until today. Sometimes, without really noticing, I don't open threads, randomly. Odd, I know since I comment in so many of them. Much to your guys' chagrin.

And you still have no defense for Jesus. He's not Joseph, so, meh. :)