Subject:
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Re: The Brick Testament - More Teachings of Jesus
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Tue, 17 Oct 2006 01:04:01 GMT
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Viewed:
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3408 times
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In lugnet.build.ancient, Samarth Moray wrote:
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This is great work as usual. I don’t think I replied last time, but the scenes
with Osama accepting Gifts from Bush (and most of the other scenes in that
series) made me laugh VERY hard. :)
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Thanks, Samarth.
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Although I’m a bit curious (bricktestament being my only source to biblical
teaching) does the Bible really quote Jesus as saying such things?:
http://www.thebricktestament.com/theteachingsofjesus/onfamily/lk1251.html
Or am I reading it out of context here or something?
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It is out of context in the strict sense of the term. The same could be said
of any of the illustrated passages from Jesus’s Teachings, but the same must
also be said of anyone else’s quoting of Jesus’s teachings, including such
far-more-popularized gems as “Love your neighbor as yourself” (which itself is
simply a quote of Leviticus 19:18 from the Hebrew Bible, and as the
non-Istaelite neighbors of Israel painfully found out, was never intended to
apply to non-Israelites), or “Do unto others as you would have them do unto
you.”
But I assume you are asking whether this (and other Jesus quotes from The Brick
Testament’s Jesus’s Teachings section) are misleadingly taken out of context
such that when returned to their original context they would actually mean
something quite different.
I do not think this is the case, and I will try to back that up, but of course,
in the end you could only make a truly informed decision about whether I’m right
by reading the source material yourself. It is, of course, available in many
places on the internet. The
Bible Gateway is a nice way to conveniently compare several different English
translations of the same passages. The NetBible is another good, readable modern English translation with many helpful
textual notes especially for ambiguous translations.
And just how much context is needed to put a Jesus quote in its proper context?
Does it simply mean to consider its meaning in regard to what comes directly
before it and afterward in scripture? Or should one always consider a Jesus
quote in the context of everything Jesus said and did (as recorded in the
Gospels)? Should extra-Biblical materials also be used to put Jesus’s quotes in
their full context? Does one need to know more than the Bible relays about the
popular sects of Judaism of 1st century Palestine, or about the Roman occupation
of Palestine in order to consider Jesus’s quotes in their full context?
I won’t attempt to answer all those questions, but I can say that, at least in
the most limited sense, I do not think the intended meaning of these quotes has
been significantly changed by divorcing them from their surrounding passages of
scripture, nor by removing it from Jesus’s “overall message” as best I
understand it based on what The Gospels portray him as saying and doing.
The quote you picked out (Luke 12:51) is taken from a section of scripture where
Jesus is (much like I’ve protrayed it in my illustrations) simply preaching to a
large crowd including his disciples. What leads up to Luke 12:51, I would
paraphrase as follows:
-Jesus says not to fear any human who can kill you, but only to fear God because
he can send you to Hell
-Jesus says that anyone who acknowledges him will be be acknowledged by God’s
angels, but anyone who does not acknowledge him will not be acknowledged
by God’s angels
-Jesus says that anyone who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be
forgiven
-Jesus says that the Holy Spirit will tell you what to say when you must defend
your faith under persecution
-Jesus tells a parable whose moral is not to store up riches on earth
-Jesus says not to concern yourself with matters such as what you will wear or
what you will eat, but that your only concern should be seeking God’s
kingdom, and that God will take care of the rest
-Jesus says (in no uncertain terms) to sell all your possessions and give the
money to the poor
-Jesus tells another parable about a slave who does not know when his master
might return, and therefore must behave properly at all times, lest he be
cut in two when his master returns
-Next comes the passages I illustrated about Jesus coming to bring fire to the
earth, and that he wishes it were already burning; that he has not come to
bring peace, but hostility, specified by the explicit example of rending
families apart such that they are against one another.
-Immediately after this, Jesus scolds his listeners for being able to predict
the weather, but not being able to interpret the signs of the times
(ie. that the end is very near)
-Finally Jesus exhorts his listeners to settle disputes out of court so that
they don’t wind up in prison
This is the scriptural context of Luke 12:51. Does placing it back in this
context reveal a significantly different meaning than the plain meaning one gets
from reading the quote by itself? I would say no, and that, to the contrary,
the apocalyptic tone and teachings of the rest of Luke 12 only supports the
plain meaning of the Luke 12:51 quote taken at face-value.
I would also say that if we consider the quote in terms of Jesus’s overall
message (as presented in The Gospels), its plain face-value meaning is also
supported. As best I can tell on my own reading of The Gospels, Jesus was
admonishing fellow Jews to completely forsake all their normal concerns in life
(such as love of family, and pursuit of material comforts for oneself and one’s
family), in favor of a last-minute preperation for the extremely imminent end of
the world.
I realize this is not quite the same “overall message of Jesus” that most
Christians take away from reading The Gospels, but it is (as far as I
understand) the interpretation that most modern non-theologically-interested New
Testament scholars share.
-Brendan
P.S. Or maybe you were looking for a simple yes/no answer. Sorry if I rambled.
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: The Brick Testament - More Teachings of Jesus
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| In lugnet.announce.moc, Brendan Powell Smith wrote: SNIP Hey Brendan, This is great work as usual. I don't think I replied last time, but the scenes with Osama accepting Gifts from Bush (and most of the other scenes in that series) made me laugh (...) (18 years ago, 16-Oct-06, to lugnet.build.ancient)
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