If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple.
Family values? Discuss.
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Next week you should post the bit about not eating herons. I think it’s herons, maybe it’s cormorants. Either way it’s equally irrelevant to those (and I’m not one of them) that study the bible today.
Why not point out the zillion’s of LIBERAL Christian’s that are doing cool, liberal stuff instead? And it’s not like the Tanakh isn’t full of crazy shit too.
Remember, just because you have one doesn’t mean you need to be one.
The Contemporary English version translates this as:
You probably could have picked a better verse for Bible Study.
Don Joe @2,
And the King James Version says:
Folks here should feel free to debate Bible verse instead of just criticizing me for quoting it.
“…and he who loves his own life shall lose it and he who loses his own life for My sake will find it.” Merv Griffin
Seems to me the verse is saying if you are happy what the fuck are you doing here…go forth and be happy. Otherwise come on in.
I understand that at Paris Island, they tell Marine recruits something like, forget your family – the Corps is your mother and your father now.
Sound like Jesus is giving the recruits a little bit of standard drill-sergeant drill.
I think it makes sense in context — Jesus is addressing a large crowd of people and telling them that he’s looking for a disciple, not a lot of spineless followers. Jesus is looking for someone with cultish devotion. It isn’t going to be easy to be a disciple, so you’d better be a fanatic, a zealot (lowercase z) ready to reject your family, friends and lifestyle and in fact to give up everything to follow him.
@7…Goldy dealing with things in context is like oil and water – they just dont mix.
nice try Goldy….get educated next time.
That one is similar to the line given to a girlfriend some years back by some very strange folks from Amway WorldWide. If you want to follow the guy at the top of the WorldWide pyramid to fantastic wealth, if your family and friends weren’t customers then ditch the worthless fucks. Replace them with people who will buy from you.
wow Max, what an original metaphor.
Again we note the right wingers approach, which is to
a. avoid the issue (here, that the Bible is full of doggerel as well as nice sayings therefore it isn’t worthy of cultish devotion)…notice how Max avoids this whole issue?
b. Make a personal attack (to avoid whatever issue is being discussed).
c. make sure your personal attack is a mere assertion (the right wingers like empty suit obama think that asserting it proves it….yes, I know, that is so incredibly stupid, it’s hard to fathom any adult could think that way, but we see this all the time here), and
d. make sure your ad hominem attack is either rote, insipid, banal, or otherwise…unimaginative.
like this one, oil and water. wow, what a fucking combustible mixture…..very vivid metaphor….not. It’s a rather tame and boring one, it’s limp, it’s just sort of blah. Sounds like the person making this metaphor doesn’t really have a nice stockpile of good ones, perhaps he hasn’t read many books?
This is almost as bad as when eso theother day called roger rabbit a rodent. In one case, the unaware adoption ofthe other person’s own irony; in this case, using a banal metaphor that has absolutely no linkage or synergy with the topics at hand, which have to do with bible study. You could at least have played on the Goldy – Bible tension with some kind of reference to “Goldy dealing with context is like mixing the wheat and the chaffis by referring to wheat and chaff or goats and sheep or something…..maybe, shellfish and cream cheese? (Warning: requires cultural knowledge….).
but of course that kind of witticism would require …… wit.
Goldy/context: oil/water…god that’s so bland it’s like oatmeal.
Can the trollsplease come up with a better variety of insults? Please? Something original, maybe even….clever?
We’re dying of boredom here. In fact it’s so boring I think I’ll go out and litter, that always feels good and amoral heh heh heh [insert standard liberal dastardly archvillian-ish evil laugh here]
As far as I’ve read, the person(s) who wrote the Luke portion of the NT did not live contemporaneously with Jesus and thus didn’t hear what Jesus supposedly said. The NT was composed as a religious text by various people at various times and then picked over and accepted as canon at a later time. Much arguing ensued before that happened. Those are some of the many reasons not to take the Gospels as…gospel.
This admonishment and/or requirement of the ‘calling’ is commonly found in all religions and teh Discipleship for the commiteed body of True Believers…take the LaRouchies….please.
But really, what would you rather do, give up your family and yourself or Eternal Life? So Pascal wagers, Kierkegaard leaps……and life goes on.
@10: It’s that irony thing.
I like #5’s version.
@1 – @7: With only slight effort, you can make the Bible can mean anything you want it to.
@8 With no effort at all, you can say nothing at all.
It is because of this kind of dicotomy in the Bible (bible = biblico/library – the bible is no more than a library of books written by falliable human beings)that I take my place as a Humanist – Unitarian-Universalist. If Jesus was who he said he was, I do not believe that he would have made such a remark. We have to remember that Jesus was not a Christian, but a Jewish Rabbi. He was also human and not devine as the organized church would have you believe.
Jesus, an ordinary human, concieved the same as the rest of us. If he were to return today, which he obviously can not, he would be ashamed of what orginazied religion has erected in his image.
Substitute “GOP” for “me” and “my” and you have the psychological profile of a wingnut.
Goldy … good post.
For thosem who want to find excuses, it would be fine by me if fundies .. Islamic, Judaic or Christian would just take the blame for the bad stuff and commit themsleves to learning from the errors in the revealed word.
Of course, this would imply that fundamentalists HAVE a moral sense that goes beyond accepting the literal word of their gods and prophets.
Me? I trust in fallible human teachers .. Buddha, Spinoza, Hillel, Gandhi, Lincoln, Jefferson, MLK, my own Mom too … you now those folks who at least tried to do the right thing.
And on the 8th day the Republican’s ate their own young…
I find it moronically dumb to criticize gays for violating god’s law or some balderdash like that, when the right wingers know well that adultery is against god’s law, too, yet they never seem to say adulterers can’t teach our kids, can’t adopt, and can’t get married.
in general their involcations of biblical authority are as maladroit as their “arguments” in general.
And man, they don’t even quote the part of the bible that says that all liberals litter. Weird. You’d think they’d jump right on that one.
I’d tell you what I think about the Bible, but my comments would be deleted; I risk this comment being deleted just for mentioning that it could be deleted. But boy I’d like to tell you, not that you would agree with it.
But basically the Right Wing Radicals like the rest of the crazy religious nuts out there have hijacked religion and exploit it. That is the problem with Religion.
This really just goes to show that, if anyone out there wants to criticize a passage out of someone else’s holy book, that there are equally damning passages in their own holy books, too. The Christians who argue that the Qur’an promotes war come to mind here.
I’m a Christian – a fairly devoted one – and yes, this Bible verse (and many others like it) has often troubled me. I don’t know why it’s there. And I don’t think I’m alone in that.
I also voted for Obama, support socialized health-care, love my two gay sisters, argue at length with my father when he denies global warming, and read HorsesAss (dare I say it?) religiously.
Just saying… careful about the boxes you put people in.
What’s with all this nutty discussion about what “version” of the Bible to use? I’ve heard all my life that there is ONLY only ‘literal’ Bible and it’s word for word from god. You can not change a single word. Yet, you people on here are implying that we have dozens of “translations” (bounced around between Hebrew, Greek, Latin, English, German). COME ON..which ONE, and ONLY ONE is the real literal word or word instructions from god? Don’t whine about ‘translations’ or ‘versions’ that humans have changed or made their best guesses. What’s the ONE REAL magical version?
(laugh)
COME ONE. You SERIOUSLY think one being created 1.6 trillion galaxies and is telling you that you can’t eat bacon? ROTFLMAO. Childish. Thor creates the lightning and we ALL know it.
You all know the answer, you know the era of the writing, you know the forfeit of self this Christianity requires, or asks, you all know it is the same commitment the God of Abraham requests, you all know that any English interpretation or translation can never carry the depth of the Greek or Hebrew language………..so Goldy, why throw this raw piece of meat into the vat of ignorance?
Paul called it a “white funeral”, when one dies of self, when one puts this Jesus Christ first in his or her life.
This type of lack of self is foreign for many prideful blog posters of the 21st Century. Guys like Rush and Goldy and others………..but I still love you all.
Roots
Y’all “quoting” the Bible should read Misquoting Jesus by Bart Ehrman. You may quit nitpicking at words so much…..especially with the King James version which is apparently one of the poorer recreations of the texts.
Short biblical version: Bail on all that 10 commandments shit.
Luke? Luke. Didn’t he used to post here? Funny looking little guy with glasses?
sighhh ….
Buddhism … claims to be built dirfectly ion the teachings of Siddartha. No actual holy book and no requirement that you believe anything.
Judaism … claims God WROTE the five books of Moses (torah). That is supposed to be authentic. The rest of the old testament was assembled by a committee and is NOT supposed to be revelation. As far as Jews are concerned, Elijah was no more a reliable source of God’s word than I am.
Islam … claims God’s angel whispered into Muhamud’s ear and that he accurately recited the poem. Again the Quran, is supposed to be the literal word of God.
Mormons … another bunch of folks with an exact text.
Christianity … welll … the idea seems to be that the Christian God endorsed those parts of the old testament that the Jewish God had not yet told anyone were revelation. Then their God went around giving speeches but noone wrote them down and he never gave anyone the authority to claim to know his exact words. NO REVEALED TEXT?
So if Jesus did not claim to be leaving an instruction book, and a bunch of folks walking around the Roman Empire passed rumors around, why would anyone care what some books says were Jesus’ words?
From the Religion of Peace”
“According to a Rand Corporation commentary, hundreds of women in Pakistan, Kashmir and Afghanistan have been blinded or maimed “when acid was thrown on their unveiled faces by male fanatics who considered them improperly dressed”.[20] Attacks or threats of attacks on women who failed to wear hijab or were otherwise “immodestly dressed” have been reported in other countries as well.”
Discuss.
Dear Mr. Ass,
will this study be restricted to just Bible study?
Goldy is afraid to bring the Koran up. He knows Christians won’t hunt him down, but Muslims will.
Goldy’s a smart boy. Cowardly, but smart.
This passage is troublesome. I’ve never quite reached reconciliation with this passage. I do suspect that this passage blows the clothes off the family values people, not that they wore any clothes in the first place.
Troll,
Hey, how’s it going, dude? I know that 8th grade is tough, but hang in there. Listen to your teachers, do your homework, and go to bed when your parents tell you. (And, really, keep your whacking off to a minimum–you shouldn’t be doing it at school.)
@31 “Discuss.”
It’s never a good idea to let ignorant religious fanatics run a society. That includes ours. Discuss.
@35 “(And, really, keep your whacking off to a minimum–you shouldn’t be doing it at school.)”
Yeah — didn’t his mother tell him it’ll make him go blind?
This one is simple. The love that we are supposed to have for Jesus is so great that by comparison it looks like we hate the person or persons we love next.
Goldy @ 3
Folks here should feel free to debate Bible verse instead of just criticizing me for quoting it.
That wasn’t meant to be a battle of dueling translations. There are a number of passages that are exceedingly difficult to translate. For this particular passage, the New Oxford Annotated Bibles notes that, “Hate is used in vigorous, vivid hyperbole; the parallel passage in Mt. 10.37 reflects Jesus’ meaning.”
If your argument is meant to show some contradiction in the thinking of those who interpret the Bible “literally” (an ill-defined term in and of itself), then this passage is little more than a straw man. There are far better passages with which to make that point.
Don Joe @39,
The Greek translates literally to “hate,” but that’s really beside the point. My question for you is, what’s more important? What Jesus meant, or what most readers will understand him to have meant? (And that’s totally ignoring the question of whether these are Jesus’ actual words, assuming there really was a historical Jesus.)
No hate is the right word. I am not a preacher, but my church sometimes lets me preach. I once preached a message with my mother in attendance. I told everyone that I really love her. However, I said that I love Jesus more. that I loved him more than I love my mom so much that when you compared how much I loved Jesus and my mom it would look like I hate her. My mom said that was right and that is how it should be. God does not want us to hate our families he just wants us to love him more. He is entitled to it. He loves us more than we could ever love him.
I think I can summit up like this. If I had to choose between my mom or my dad or any person on Earth I love and Jesus I would choose Jesus. If my mom said Jesus or me I would pick Jesus.
If Jesus did not exist than neither did Julius Ceasar. The historical evidence for both is equal.
http://www.findtheopendoor.org
Jesus Christ Kicked Off Jury Duty
I don’t see how the MSM missed this story.
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/.....jury-pool/
Goldy @ 40
The Greek translates literally to “hate,” but that’s really beside the point.
Sorry, but I think the way you’re ignoring the usage of “hate” in that context is very much part of the point.
My question for you is, what’s more important? What Jesus meant, or what most readers will understand him to have meant?
Neither. The important question to ask is, what would most Christians understand Jesus to have meant? It’s their text.
Matthew@41,
Puddy agrees with you definition of loving Jesus more than your fellow family members will look like you hate them. As you become more like Jesus you see your faults and how they keep you from perfection.
Jesus Christ said “If ye love me keep my commandments”. As you see yourself and your sins you begin to hate yourself too.
Jesus Christ said “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
Jesus Christ said to the rich young ruler “If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.”
Jesus Christ said, “And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.”
I’m reading the Bible with the kids and we got to Exodus 4. This passage appears:
24 At a lodging place on the way the Lord met him and sought to put him to death. 25 Then Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin and touched Moses’ feet with it and said, “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me!” 26 So he let him alone. It was then that she said, “A bridegroom of blood,” because of the circumcision.
God is seeking to put Moses to death? The antecedent of ‘him’ in verse 24 is not clear. You would think that God doesn’t really need to seek to put someone to death. God kills so many people, one more is not a big deal.
This is not the first time I have had difficulty trying to explain stuff to my kids, aged 10 and 13. Maybe the Bible should be rated ‘R’, giving the incest and foreskins and stuff.
Some of you are commenting on the use of the King James bible, but my conservative friend jokes
“If the King James Bible was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me.”
@25
Let me guess… you’ve never learned any language other than English?
Anyone who has even cursory knowledge of a foreign language knows that no translation can be exact. All translations of texts from one language to another are affected by the interpretations of the translator – many theses have been written about how to best interpret, e.g., the writings of Plato and other Greek classics. The Bible should not be expected to be any different.
Don Joe @43,
You’re splitting hairs here by distinguishing between readers and Christian readers, but regardless, your answer moves the conversation on.
What you are suggesting is that the Bible is open to interpretation, right?
Matthew @41,
And in that sense, Jesus is portrayed very much in the tradition of the Old Testament God… displaying a personality trait that I’ve always found rather off-putting. You are suggesting that I should love God more than I love my own child, as Abraham did in his willingness to sacrifice Isaac.
Honestly, a God so jealous and vain as to demand that kind of love and loyalty isn’t worth loving.
Matthew “DelusionalDawg” Renner @41:
Bullshit and a half. There are references to Caesar throughout the administrative records of Rome. Thousands and thousands of them, in boring stuff like meeting minutes, acqueduct-building contracts, military supply requests, and on and on and on. I’m sure there are also references to him in the archives of Egypt and other regional powers.
In contrast, there is absolutely no contemporary evidence of Jesus. Every word written about him, every reference to him, was penned when he was no longer alive. Only a few of those words were (allegedly) written by someone who had ever met or even seen him. Those “up close” individuals had the strongest of motivations to, ummm, embroider their recollections — their careers depended on the cult they were building.
There are no non-Early Christian references to Jesus as an individual. Sure, there are plenty of reports in those Roman records about the cult and its rising strength, but nothing whatsoever about the individual on whom it is based. Not even in the Roman archives of Pontius Pilate, who supposedly had him put to death.
PS. WTF does the homepage of your church have to do with historical evidence for the existence of Julius Caesar? Or Jesus, for that matter?
I grew up next door to a Republican family which took this approach – with Christanity, not Amway.
It was my first taste of Talibangelism.
There was thing they put in front of Jesus, however: the NFL. I am not kidding. Sunday services were skipped for early Seahawks games.
@33 – What is it about wingnuts that causes them to yearn to debate things they know nothing about?
What you are suggesting is that the Bible is open to interpretation…
That’s the way it used to be taught and still is under the Protestant tradition (bible thumpers not included in the term “Protestant”). You might have noticed the various versions of events don’t actually agree in the NT.
Goldy @ 48
Sorry, but I don’t think I’m splitting hairs. If we’re going to value empathy, then we need to show it even to those people whose beliefs strike us as ridiculous.
More importantly, there’s a difference, when looking for contradictions in someone else’s system of beliefs, between injecting, either purposefully or inadvertently, exogenous assumptions into that system of beliefs and starting within the epistemological framework. The latter is a compelling argument. The former is little more than an elaborate straw man.
As for the Bible being “open to interpretation,” the question is nonsensical to most Christians. The Bible requires interpretation, and the question is, what’s the “correct” exegetical framework for properly understanding the Bible’s message.
In that sense, within Christianity, you’ll find a wide variety of frameworks spanning a spectrum from those who apply what some people call a highly “literal” (I prefer the word “material” but that’s another discussion entirely) framework to those who see the Bible as largely allegorical–as a text that’s better understood the way we would understand a piece of poetry than the way we would understand standard prose.
So, I’m moved to ask, what’s your rhetorical objective, here? Or do you really not have one, and are you interested in understanding the variety of view points and approaches that people take to understanding the Bible?
@41 Matthew
Sounds a lot like the Taliban teachings. Hitler taught th8is sort of thing too. Scary.
Hunhh? Caesar is described in the records nto just of Rome, but other cultures. He also left descendents .. possibly we could “find” him today by looking at DNA.
Jesus? There is no mention outside of the official documents published by Constantine. Odd.
Puddy
So? are you ready to accept the first commandment that bans thye trinity?
and exactly how do you know that Jesus said this? Has he signed your copy of the Roman Bible?
Hmmm .. is tis another commandment you ignore? Did you get a pass from Jesus?
Jesus Christ said, “And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel ….” Did he say this before or after humans understood quantum physics?
North in Seattle
Actually, the “truth” about the records is worse than this. By the time of Tacitus, ~100 CE, there were many messianic cults. The term “Christian” refers to them all so there is not even evicence that the Jesus cult had stood our form all the others by that time.
BTW, Tacitus also refers to Christians (and Jews) as atheists because they denied to reality of the Roman Gods.
Finally, the emperor who established Christianity, Constantine, remained a Solarian all his life. His son, Justinian, had a high level Greek education and tried to re-establish belief in the Gods rather than the atheistic superstitions his badly educated warrior father had made Rome’s state religion!
Down with the Atheists, we need the wisdom of Minerva, the knowledge of Apollo, the leadership of Jupiter, the love of Venus!
As a start, I suggest we all sure the Catholics to restore the true Gods to their rightful places in the Pantheon.
By Jupiter you’re right, o SJ! Am I too late for the Saturnalia?
@49 God is not forcing you to love him. God gave us the choice. It is called free will. He deserves our love. We rebel against him, we spit at him we hate him yet he still loves us. Goldy he loves you more than you could ever know. And yes we should be willing to sacrifice like Abraham was. After he did no less for us. He sent His Son to die for us. Think about it. We hate and despise him. Yet he was still willing to pay the price for us to get the gift of salvation. If God gave us what we deserve we would all be sent to hell. And we all deserve it.
@50 and other. That is a statement from historian Josh Mcdowell. Yes I know that he is a Christian. He came to that conclusion during a time when he was an athiest trying to prove that Jesus never existed. He wanted to destroy Christianity. The more he researched it, the more he knew it was true. Like the writer of the book Ben-Hur. The book was supposed to be written so Christianity would be finished in America. So the research was done and the conclusions were just the reverse.
Again, Goldy with how much you mis-understand the NT. Read [If any potential disciple comes to me, and does not reject every single point of Law, then he cannot follow me.] Also, see Luke 9:50-:61. Why is that story a pattern that repeats three times? What else repeats three times? In the Law? Come on, Goldstone, why do I have to hint you on about this repeatedly?
The message of the OT is that all the laws of Kosher are not the way to be well-situated for entrance to the “Dominion of God.” Where ‘dominion’ means ‘realm ruled by.’
The bear thing was good, thanks for posting that as I had been looking for Elijah summons Killer Bear at Taunting Children lately and had not found it easily.
BTW, how about the Levirate duty and Onan? That would suit your posting theme.