I came upon a site that piqued my interest with some of the following bible goodies :
Okay, so this stuff didn’t exactly come from an unbiased source. The Freedom from Religion Foundation to be exact. But hey, this is some pretty damning stuff and I’d be interested to hear the other side of the story. Any Christians care to weigh in on these quotes?
Yes, every one of those is taken out fo context, except perhaps the “fool” one, and even that, some ( after all, you do not apply the same stds to a God, that you do to a man, a God CAN judge, as he knows he is right, but a man cannot).
The “innocent” animals: the demons REQUESTED that, and “ran off” to be drowned on their own accord. Remember, at that time to eat a pig was a sin.
Matt10:34 The “sword” is not literal, see Matt10:37+
As for the swords in Luke, see Luke22:38, and :51+
Those were not just"merchants", they were blasphemers.
Sick child?: he appeared to be testing the Mother’s faith.
To address the “fool” issue… I think the point was to not be hasty to throw judgements around. If you have ample reason to label someone as a “fool” (or “boob”, or “idiot”, or “moron”, or “SPOOFE”… oops, strike that last part), then you probably won’t have pitchforks shoved in your bottom upon death.
However, if you run around, spouting off your mouth, and calling everyone who disagrees with you a “fool” would probably find some sort of punishment.
“Sick child?: he appeared to be testing the Mother’s faith.”
Forgive my ignorance but I think that reference is where Jesus refers to the woman and her child as swine. Did not Jesus also state that he will set father against son and mother against daughter?
Let me get this straight.
If I point out that the story of Adam and Eve or the story wof the flood were metaphors, Christians will insist that they are factual.
If I point out that Jesus was a nasty man that killed innocent animals, whipped people, and called a mother and child “swine”(supposedly to test their faith!) and called for the taking up of swords, Christians will insist that that is a metaphor.
Gee, that clears everything up! 
Oh wow, what a delicious point! 
Did you bother to read Matthew 15? JC NEVER calls the woman of her child “swine”. the closest he came was “it is not meet to take the chilrens bread, and cast it to the dogs”, which is clearly a metaphor. The mother, also replies in a Metaphor, and scores big.
Again, JC killed no “innocent animals” during the “swine” incident. He was about to destroy the demons, and THEY requested to be cast into the herd of swine. They then, of their OWN accord, ran into the sea & drowned. He performed the act out of mercy, even to demons(which are, after all, only fallen angles & sentient beings)not out of meanness. If you know Christian legend & “magic”, if JC killed them they were dead forever, without hope of salvation, but if their mundane (swine) bodies died, they were just sent back to Hell for a long time. In other words, in order to save the souls even of demons, JC had mercy on them. I think to save the lives/souls of “fallen angels”, a few pigs can die, as they were going to be killed, cooked & eaten soon anyway.
The scourging (not whipping) of the Merchants is not a metaphor. JC did not like seeing his dad’s house profaned, and trespassed in. Shows that He was human, too.
The taking up of swords is clearly a metaphor, if you read it in context. JC used a LOT of metaphors & parables.
You cna’t just take a bunch of verses out of context, and say they show an “nasty” Christ. Taking things out of context is a cheap sophmoric trick.
And as regards the Flood, most non-fundies will agree that the flood only covered all the KNOWN world, ie the Tigris-Euphrates valley. Which DID have some whoppers of floods, including one around the right time.
And now, experts are saying we can possibly trace all HUMANkind to one “mother”, who they call “Eve”. Again, non-fundies will agree that the “days” in Genesis could have been as long as the Lord wanted them to be. Not really a bad description of how Scientists believe the earth & life came about- if you consider it was written some 2000 years before the 1st scientist
Re: The mother and child
They were Gentiles and Jesus said that he came for the Jews, not the Gentiles. And that was true. The mother said “Even the master’s dogs get scraps off the table.” Jesus was sent to Israel, but when they rejected Him, the church became his chosen ones. Not just Jews, but Gentiles as well. Just think about what Israel threw to the dogs…
Daniel, you sed:
Er, huh? Can you give me a citation for that? Is it Biblical? I sure don’t remember anything like that . . .
That’s the first time I’ve heard that interpretation. He allowed the pigs to die to save the souls of the demons?
Sure. And it could also show that He didn’t turn the other cheek.
Again, I’m not denying what you say, but can you support it?
Bearing in mind that taking things out of context is sophomoric, please provide a cite/site for that one too, if you don’t mind. Thanks!
Re: letting demons kill pigs.
This is God we are supposed to be talking about, right? Are you saying that there was no way for Him to cast the demons back into Hell without letting them kill the pigs?
Now, being quite fond of bacon-cheeseburgers myself I hardly consider killing pigs to be a great sin. I do, however, feel that killing any animal without need is a less than perfectly moral act. Also, there is the slight question of property loss to whatever gentile owned those pigs.
How about the part where Jesus blasts a fig tree for not producing figs? I know he uses it as a metaphor afterward-but it was still someone’s tree.
Not to mention his “appropriation” of a donkey for the march into Jerusalem…
(and before I forget, good one slythe!)
We seem to have tracked into the wacky world of demonic theology. Which provides an odd insight.
The earlier Gospels, especially Matthew, place a much greater emphasis on Christ’s “magical” nature, recounting a numerous instance of casting out demons (as compared with curing leprosy, etc.)
The inference is that exorcism was a comparitively common practice in the early years AD. Indeed, Matthew seems to lay a lot of emphasis on this, pointing out that Jesus could cast out demons on the spot, buy His word alone, He said “Git!”, and they did. In one instance, a demon is said to address Him by name. Matthew, and to some degree Mark, seems to point this out as a proof of Jesus’ divinity.
Later in the narrative (it may be Mark, not sure) there is recounted an instance of the disciples telling Jesus that there were “magicians” (for lack of better) using His name in their exorcisms for its impact (apparently successful), and that the disciples got on thier case because they weren’t in the club. Jesus said something to the effect that if they were copping his energy for good, they were on His side anyway, let them rock.
The later gospel writers, especially “Iron Ass” Paul, thought this whole “magic” stuff carried a whiff of Judean trailer park, bit too trashy for the sophisticated Hellenic culture, and only glancingly referred to exorcism.
Demons in that mileau were understood to be malicious spirits, but not having any particular theological bent, they were cruel and malicious because they were evil spirits, not that they were particularly anti-Zoroastrian or Anti-Jewish. The whole “fallen angel” stuff is of much later fabrication, sort of back-engineered to fit.
Picking on Christians is so fashionable these days.
Keep in mind that whatever the Bible says, even the earliest accounts of Jesus were written decades after his death, so they might not be the most accurate, and probably some of those writers were fictionalizing stuff to get a point across. Say Paul was a bit miffed at the Romans and wanted his “flock” to engage in some civil disobedience. He might rile them up by saying Jesus told them to “take up swords” or whatever. Jesus might never have said any such thing.
I don’t personally think the Bible is a guideline for running one’s life, but neither do I see it as basis for defiling Jesus either.
Interesting. Back in Jesus’ time, there were magicians that could do “magic”, like casting out demons. Jesus could do exactly what they did, but he did it in the name of God.
Nowadays, magicians who perform these feats are either performing before a knowing audience, or are phonies out to defraud others.
Now-is Jesus more like the first example, or the second?
not to belabor the digression but…
what impressed Matthew so much was not the act of exorcism itself, which he was familiar with, but that Jesus could command obedience from an evil spirit instantly. “Bugger off!” sayeth the Lord, and off they buggereth. As I recall, Matthew mentions some onlookers saying, in effect, if he can command demons he must therefore be a high-ranking evil spirit himself.
They rather missed the point, I take it.
Of course,none of this is remotely possible. Wouldn’t be much of a miracle if it were, now would it?
I always like to stress, in Biblical threads like this, to post which version of the Bible that y’all are using as a reference. There’re enough differences throughout the versions that messages can be REALLY screwed up, and misunderstandings can lead to anger and Pit-like reactions.
To deal with the as-yet undealt with idea about the “metaphor/literal” translations that Slythe’s first posts brought up…
Why can’t a single book contain both literal and metaphorical meanings? Assuming the Bible is 100% true, then the stories of Adam/Eve and the flood are historical records… Jesus’ teachings are historical records of what someone said. See the difference? From what I’ve read in the gospels, if Jesus is talking, it’s a metaphor (in some way, shape, or form). If he’s doing, it’s not-quite-so-metaphorical.
I know, it’s complicated… but remember, the Bible wasn’t original written in English… in fact, I don’t think it was all written in the same language (didn’t Paul write his stuff in Greek?) If you had original copies of the Bible writings, and were capable of reading them fluently, I’m sure it’d make perfect sense. Well, sort of.
Oh, I understand perfectly.
If I choose to believe the story because it doesn’t conflict with what I already believe in, it’s literal.
If it conflicts with what I already believe in, it’s metaphorical.
Doe’s that about sum it up?
Andros: there is a whole magazine devoted to “Biblical archeology”. And all the archeology I am talking about is common knowledge, in that field. It has been covered in Scientific American, Nature, and National Geographic. I’m not going to bother to look up and quote them, as I have already quoted Biblical references extensively, and you didn’t bother to read them.
SLYTHE: AGAIN- JC did not kill the pigs. JESUS did not SLAY any INNOCENT swine. And nobody really GIVES a good goddamn what happened to some pigs who were about to become bacon anyway. Jesus did not call the woman a “pig” or “swine” or anything. If, of course you believe that ALL miracles are phony, then you beleive Jesus is a Phony. In that case, why bother? You saying that Biblical experts change their mind about metaphor/literal at will to support their religion does not make it so. In fact, the “expert” I use extensively is Issac Asimov, who was a Secular Humanist/ Atheist of Jewish heritage. I do not think he is changing from metaphor/literal at will, or that he would do so to benefit the Christian religion.
Jesus was Human. He thus had some human failings. So what? There is no hero anywhere that has no “tarnish” at all. And even if one does not accept he was the Messiah, and Son of God (which I am in some doubt of, myself), he was still one of the greatest men & Teachers of all time. And that is not just the opinion of Christians, but of Secular Humanists, Atheists, and those of other religions.
I bet it mattered a great deal to the poor farmer who owned those pigs and could have made money off of them at the market. Did Jesus compensate him for the loss of those pigs?
Who knows, Phil? Maybe he did. Not all of Jesus’s acts are in the Bible (didn’t Paul say that if all the words and actions of Jesus were written down, the world couldn’t hold the number of books they were in?). I think it’s entirely possible that the pig-farmer WAS compensated for the loss of his pigs. Who knows?