Check. The story of the Woman Yaken in Adultery is … strange. As noted in one of the cites above, it doesn’t really fit where it’s inserted. Only about half the manuscripts have it there, others omit it, or present it elsewhere – including one which incorporates it into Luke’s Gospel!
But it’s been my experience, whenever I debate with conservative Christians on any subject and that text comes up, it’s the one passage that gets selectively abridged. The accusers take the woman before Jesus and say she was caught in the act – and it’s important what’s happening here, because they think they’ve got Jesus caught in a dilemma: either he has to convict her and call for her to be stoned, and lose most of his following; or else he has to denounce the Law as it applies to this case, and lose his authority as a teacher of the Law. He gets around this with his pronouncement, “Let the one among you without sin throw the first stone.” And writes in the dust. The accusers find reasons to be elsewhere all of a sudden, and finally it’s down to Jesus. He asks her if none of the men convicted her; she says no. And he says a very few words – I believe six in the original Greek; ten in modern English. “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.”
Would you believe that nearly every conservative Christian who’s posted on this passage focuses like a starving pit bull on a Porterhouse steak on those last five words, and insists on Jesus being focused on her sin, granting forgiveness after repentance conditional on turning from sin, and ignores the first five words? “Neither do I condemn you.” That whole idea escapes them totally.
Pretty clearly, that whole Sermon on the Mount thing was a motivational lecture, the kind of thing you find at an Amway District Sales Meeting. And that whole fishes and loaves thing was a demonstration of the wonders of compounded interest.
The one about the rich guy roasting in hell is going to present some problems, spin-wise.
Is masturbation acceptable to the kind of people who follow Conservapedia’s ideology?
Woah there! That almost sounds like “act locally” or “buy local,” which are seeds of the evil Green. Maybe you should make it “I’ve got stones for sale, and my stones are proudly made in America! Come buy my stones and be the first one to stone that dirty whore!”
I had a similar experience with a conservative Christian. The odd part is that “Go and sin no more,” sounds a lot like a slap on the wrist at best. I didn’t engage with the guy, because I found his excitability on the subject a little too puzzling.
THE CHRIST CLONE TRILOGY of novels explains the John 8 Adultress controversy.
The Apostle John has lived on Earth the past two millenial to be one of the Two Witnesses in Rev. 11 who will stand against the Beast & then be martyred. John explains that as the years went by, he would recall other incidents & have other thoughts which he would copy into his Gospel & letters, never thinking that scholars centuries later would have to pick though his early drafts & latter ones to decide what was authentic.
Hey, it makes sense! L
As for The Conservative Bible, I think it’s a major whoosh. There are otherwise Christian conservative sites & bloggers who are really shaking their heads at this one.
Assume everything on Conservapedia is the work of internet trolls. Everything. That goes double for any part that actually says Conservapedia is the work of conservatives.
Yeah, Poly, and most liberals totally act like His last words were “Harm none and do what thou wilt… except for abortion, then just do what thou wilt.”
My assessment there is every bit as accurate as yours. In reality I will admit that wacky Righties tend to focus too much on sin, but you have to admit that loony Lefties tend to focus too little on it.
I do wish they’d brought a serial killer, rapist or child molester before Him. We’d have seen a side of Him much closer to His Sinai days, I am sure.
Right, Ted. I was stating my experience, on another board, and carefully nuanced it with “most”, “almost every”, and other qualifiers. You equate that with liberals misquoting Jesus as preaching the Pagan Rede, and throw in a snide dig about abortion.
Most of the time, what you have to say is head and shoulders above the sort of people I was describing, in scholarship, thoughtfulness, and Christian charity. Except occasions like now.
These are two of my favorite lines, from Andy Schlafly in the talk page for that article.
So not only is the Bible not conversative enough, but even the languages that it was originally written in aren’t even good enough. Pure gold I tell ya what.
OK, below I bolded the “experience” and the one qualifier I see in your post. I italicized the words where I honestly thought it was a swipe on Christian conservatives in general & not ones you encounter on another board (which I do not see mentioned.) I am sorry for the misunderstanding, but I also did note that my caricature of liberals was a caricature, not a reality.
"Check. The story of the Woman Yaken in Adultery is … strange. As noted in one of the cites above, it doesn’t really fit where it’s inserted. Only about half the manuscripts have it there, others omit it, or present it elsewhere – including one which incorporates it into Luke’s Gospel!
But it’s been my experience, *whenever *I debate with conservative Christians on any subject and that text comes up, it’s the one passage that gets selectively abridged. The accusers take the woman before Jesus and say she was caught in the act – and it’s important what’s happening here, because they think they’ve got Jesus caught in a dilemma: either he has to convict her and call for her to be stoned, and lose most of his following; or else he has to denounce the Law as it applies to this case, and lose his authority as a teacher of the Law. He gets around this with his pronouncement, “Let the one among you without sin throw the first stone.” And writes in the dust. The accusers find reasons to be elsewhere all of a sudden, and finally it’s down to Jesus. He asks her if none of the men convicted her; she says no. And he says a very few words – I believe six in the original Greek; ten in modern English. “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.”
Would you believe that nearly *every *conservative Christian who’s posted on this passage focuses like a starving pit bull on a Porterhouse steak on those last five words, and insists on Jesus being focused on her sin, granting forgiveness after repentance conditional on turning from sin, and ignores the first five words? “Neither do I condemn you.” That whole idea escapes them totally."
I have an idea to get this project thing under our control. All we need to do is convince them we found some um… golden… [del]plates[/del] orbs in the woods. And then… uh… a [del]seer stone[/del] oracle ornament, and that the plates are written in an ancient language and contain the LORD’s word. Then all we need to do is look into a [del]hat[/del] SHOE and “translate it” for them, obviously inserting our own values in coded speech that sounds conservative, but ultimately they can’t argue with it even if they figure it out because it’s God’s word. Of course if they need to see the orbs we just say the LORD our God took them back to heaven.
Hold on, I’m gonna go write this in a safe place, it’s foolproof.
To lighten things up, when I want parody & religion mixed, I go here. http://larknews.com/current-issue/ When I want real Conservatism, I go to townhall.com. I don’t go to Conservapedia at all (been there three times perhaps since it’s existed & left in dismay every time).
I think FriarTed is using “rightie” and “leftie” to refer to competing interpretive traditions within Christianity, both of whom profess respect for scripture.
If “rightie” and “leftie” are used in a political sense, I struggle to see why either of them should be “in principle obliged to have some respect for scripture”.
Not always true- to cite two examples- Ayn Rand and Jim Wallis.
Btw, two posts back, I realize my apology to Polycarp was overwhelmed in my self-justification. I did not read his post thoroughly and I am sorry I misunderstood him & got snarky.
I’ve dabbled a bit in biblical scholarship, just enough to blink with wonderment at even the suggestion of being “sure” what the Bible says. They ought to wall off the whole Biblical scholarship/textual criticism wing of the library and put up a big sign saying “Abandon All Certainty, Ye Who Enter”.
Because the Conservative tendency, echoing its name, is to conserve the good things of the past. And one of the stroingly-held tenets has been that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God. That’s not an exclusively Protestant Fundamentalist view, it’s held by Conservative Roman Catholics and other groups as well. These are folks who don’t believe you can “pick and choose” the parts of the Bible you want (although they can interpret all over the place). To have anyone in that bunch sugest removing a part of the New Testament – even one that might be interpreted as against their agenda – is absolutely outrageous, in my experience. This is something wholly new. remember – you can always re-interpret.