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PearlsSand2
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Posted: Tue Jan 13th, 2009 07:28 am |
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My pleasure, ToniLoryn. 
So many things were spoken in parables and metaphors, yet His target audience at the time, more or less understood what those 'stories' represented, in their time & days & sayings.
So much is puzzling to us now as we read it all in English translations, ....but I do believe the more we look into the cultural use of words/phrases then, and the 'literal' Greek usage then, the more we approach the truth of each matter.
Last edited on Tue Jan 13th, 2009 07:33 am by PearlsSand2
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ToniLoryn
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Posted: Tue Jan 13th, 2009 07:53 am |
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Henry Sidgwick wrote: Norrin, I think Hype is more interested in debating the pseudo-problem, as opposed to really understanding the meaning of the text.
If he rejects Pearls' commentary on the meaning of that verse, then we'll know that's true.
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Buttons
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Posted: Tue Jan 13th, 2009 10:00 am |
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ToniLoryn wrote: Henry Sidgwick wrote: Norrin, I think Hype is more interested in debating the pseudo-problem, as opposed to really understanding the meaning of the text.
If he rejects Pearls' commentary on the meaning of that verse, then we'll know that's true.
So if Hype doesn't accept this David who? as the infallible opinion of what Jesus mean't as opposed to what Jesus said...then he's arguing a "pseudo-problem"? Nah...I don't think so...Davids opinion and $4 will get you a cup of coffee and I think Hypes comprehensive reading skills aren't lacking to such a degree that he can't read english.
I know that Davids opinion is more comfortable than the reality of what Jesus said...but when has Jesus been know to make people comfortable regarding their attempts to do the Will of God? Quite the opposite in fact.
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Merlin
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Posted: Tue Jan 13th, 2009 10:34 am |
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I believe it was Jesus who told a disciple that he couldn't even go home to bury his father because if a follower put his hand to the plow and even looked back, he wasn't fit for the Kingdom of God.
Jesus also said that he didn't come to bring peace, but a sword.
He also said that Nobody who didn't hate his own family was fit for the Kingdom of god.
Another one he popped out with is that god is like an evil judge that will only give you what you want if you beg and plead forever till he gets so tired of hearing you that he gives you your request just to shut you up.
yeeeeeeee-ah, ya can't get more compassionate than any of that.
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yoki
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Posted: Tue Jan 13th, 2009 02:58 pm |
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Merlin wrote: I believe it was Jesus who told a disciple that he couldn't even go home to bury his father because if a follower put his hand to the plow and even looked back, he wasn't fit for the Kingdom of God.
Jesus also said that he didn't come to bring peace, but a sword.
He also said that Nobody who didn't hate his own family was fit for the Kingdom of god.
Another one he popped out with is that god is like an evil judge that will only give you what you want if you beg and plead forever till he gets so tired of hearing you that he gives you your request just to shut you up.
yeeeeeeee-ah, ya can't get more compassionate than any of that.
That was an interesting collection of allusions to Jesus' teachings. It almost makes Jesus appear like a first century founder of a mind-bending cult. Scratch the "almost", it does make him look as such.
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Ronson
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Posted: Tue Jan 13th, 2009 04:58 pm |
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AyHyperbole wrote: Hypothetical situation.
You're walking along, when a guy with a crazy look in his eye jumps out of the bushes and demands that you hand him the shirt on your back.
Despite the fact that the guy is trying to steal from you, he's really small and scrawny. Also, you happen to be armed.
What's your call, here?
I'd keep my shirt and call the police. He sounds mental and probably dangerous (especially if the next person to come along is a child).
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AyHyperbole
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Posted: Tue Jan 13th, 2009 05:36 pm |
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PearlsSand2 wrote: My pleasure, ToniLoryn.
So many things were spoken in parables and metaphors, yet His target audience at the time, more or less understood what those 'stories' represented, in their time & days & sayings.
So much is puzzling to us now as we read it all in English translations, ....but I do believe the more we look into the cultural use of words/phrases then, and the 'literal' Greek usage then, the more we approach the truth of each matter.
But Jesus isn't making a metaphor here. He isn't telling a parable. He says in plain, declarative language, "But I tell you: do not resist an evil person."
He goes on to say, basically, "Do not resist a slap in the face; do not resist a lawsuit; do not resist a demand that you walk a mile."
Do you really believe that he meant that resisting any form of evil other than the three he enumerated is fine? That if a kidnapper insist you walk a mile, you must walk two, but if the kidnapper insists you swim a mile, you can just say "Oh, Jesus never said anything about swimming"?
I don't see even the slightest implication here that Jesus prohibits us from resisting an evil person unless the evil person was being violent, and then it would be okay to resist. He says "Do not resist an evil person." Full stop.
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stiggywiggy
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Posted: Tue Jan 13th, 2009 05:48 pm |
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AyHyperbole wrote: stiggywiggy wrote:No. My house is not mine alone. My shirt is. Clothing and shelter are necessities, not luxuries. My house is mine and my family's. If someone asks me for shelter in my house, yeah, I would feel it my moral obligation to provide it. If they ask for corrupt mammon, like equity in a home, nah. They can take a hike.
Your family are Christians too, right? And even if they weren't, didn't Jesus specifically say "He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me"?
Seems to me that Jesus would prefer you follow his teachings rather than violate them on your family's behalf.
Seems to me that you're now stiggying, given your new Definition# 2385 of stiggying: "to delete stuff so as not to include context. "
Here's what you deleted, which if you had read, you could have avoided your comment above:
No. My house is not mine alone. My shirt is. Clothing and shelter are necessities, not luxuries. My house is mine and my family's. If someone asks me for shelter in my house, yeah, I would feel it my moral obligation to provide it.
So do me a favor. Next time you decide to reply, read the entire post so you'll know what you're talking about, regardless of whether it's the usual criticism of how other's behavior does not live up to the standard you think it should.
Last edited on Tue Jan 13th, 2009 05:50 pm by stiggywiggy
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AyHyperbole
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Posted: Tue Jan 13th, 2009 05:59 pm |
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stiggywiggy wrote: AyHyperbole wrote:
stiggywiggy wrote:No. My house is not mine alone. My shirt is. Clothing and shelter are necessities, not luxuries. My house is mine and my family's. If someone asks me for shelter in my house, yeah, I would feel it my moral obligation to provide it. If they ask for corrupt mammon, like equity in a home, nah. They can take a hike.
Your family are Christians too, right? And even if they weren't, didn't Jesus specifically say "He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me"?
Seems to me that Jesus would prefer you follow his teachings rather than violate them on your family's behalf.
Seems to me that you're now stiggying, given your new Definition# 2385 of stiggying: "to delete stuff so as not to include context. "
Here's what you deleted, which if you had read, you could have avoided your comment above:
No. My house is not mine alone. My shirt is. Clothing and shelter are necessities, not luxuries. My house is mine and my family's. If someone asks me for shelter in my house, yeah, I would feel it my moral obligation to provide it.
So do me a favor. Next time you decide to reply, read the entire post so you'll know what you're talking about, regardless of whether it's the usual criticism of how other's behavior does not live up to the standard you think it should.
I have no idea what you're talking about. I clearly quoted everything you claim I deleted.
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rvhill
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Posted: Tue Jan 13th, 2009 06:29 pm |
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AyHyperbole wrote: PearlsSand2 wrote: My pleasure, ToniLoryn.
So many things were spoken in parables and metaphors, yet His target audience at the time, more or less understood what those 'stories' represented, in their time & days & sayings.
So much is puzzling to us now as we read it all in English translations, ....but I do believe the more we look into the cultural use of words/phrases then, and the 'literal' Greek usage then, the more we approach the truth of each matter.
But Jesus isn't making a metaphor here. He isn't telling a parable. He says in plain, declarative language, "But I tell you: do not resist an evil person."
He goes on to say, basically, "Do not resist a slap in the face; do not resist a lawsuit; do not resist a demand that you walk a mile."
Do you really believe that he meant that resisting any form of evil other than the three he enumerated is fine? That if a kidnapper insist you walk a mile, you must walk two, but if the kidnapper insists you swim a mile, you can just say "Oh, Jesus never said anything about swimming"?
I don't see even the slightest implication here that Jesus prohibits us from resisting an evil person unless the evil person was being violent, and then it would be okay to resist. He says "Do not resist an evil person." Full stop.
You are wrong the bible clearly states that Jesus is talking in parable, and only talking in parables when in public.
Matthew 13:34 [ Prophecy and Parables] [Matthew 13:3; Mark 4:33, 34; John 16:25, 29] All these things Jesus said to the crowds in parables; indeed, he said nothing to them without a parable.
Matthew 13:35prophet: [Some manuscripts Isaiah the prophet] [ Psalm 78:2] "I will open my mouth in parables; [Matthew 13:11; Rom 16:25, 26; 1 Cor 2:7] I will utter what has been hidden [Matthew 25:34; Luke 11:50; John 17:24; Eph 1:4; 1 Pet 1:20] since the foundation of the world."
Mark 4:11 And he said to them, [Matt 19:11; Col 1:27; 1 Cor 2:6-10; 1 John 2:20, 27; Matt 11:25] "To you has been given [ Rom 16:25] the secret of the kingdom of God, but for [1 Cor 5:12, 13; Col 4:5; 1 Thess 4:12; 1 Tim 3:7] those outside everything is in parables,
Mark 4:34 He did not speak to them [John 16:25] without a parable, but [Mark 4:10; Mark 13:3] privately to his own disciples he [2 Pet 1:20] explained everything.
also the point of sermon on the Mount is that God love us, and we should love ourselves and others, but we humans as a whole have no or very little love or compassion. The truth is that we as a species are evil, selfish, greedy, hateful, and lack both love and forgiveness. We have no redeemable qualities what so ever, especially, Stiggy. Were Stiggy has a small advantage over you is that he understand this fact better then you do.
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Henry Sidgwick
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Posted: Tue Jan 13th, 2009 06:33 pm |
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AyHyperbole wrote: PearlsSand2 wrote: My pleasure, ToniLoryn.
So many things were spoken in parables and metaphors, yet His target audience at the time, more or less understood what those 'stories' represented, in their time & days & sayings.
So much is puzzling to us now as we read it all in English translations, ....but I do believe the more we look into the cultural use of words/phrases then, and the 'literal' Greek usage then, the more we approach the truth of each matter.
But Jesus isn't making a metaphor here. He isn't telling a parable. He says in plain, declarative language, "But I tell you: do not resist an evil person."
A more accurate translation of the passage would read, "do not react violently against the one who is evil", (Scholars Bible).
I would defer to Walter Wink's commentary on this point. According to Wink, the word antistenai literally means to "stand against", but most translators ignore the fact that it is also a technical term for "warfare". Jesus is not merely saying "don't resist", he's saying, don't resist violently. In other words, he's saying don't mirror the evil you are attacking.
He goes on to say, basically, "Do not resist a slap in the face; do not resist a lawsuit; do not resist a demand that you walk a mile."
No. He's providing various means for nonviolent resistance. In the ancient world, for example, striking the right cheek with the back of one's hand was a symbolic blow intended to humiliate the victim. It was always done to one who was lower in the social system. Turning the other cheek would be a symbolic act of resistance. It would force the aggressor to confront the victim as an equal, not as a subordinate.
Last edited on Tue Jan 13th, 2009 06:37 pm by Henry Sidgwick
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AyHyperbole
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Posted: Tue Jan 13th, 2009 07:43 pm |
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rvhill wrote: AyHyperbole wrote: PearlsSand2 wrote: My pleasure, ToniLoryn.
So many things were spoken in parables and metaphors, yet His target audience at the time, more or less understood what those 'stories' represented, in their time & days & sayings.
So much is puzzling to us now as we read it all in English translations, ....but I do believe the more we look into the cultural use of words/phrases then, and the 'literal' Greek usage then, the more we approach the truth of each matter.
But Jesus isn't making a metaphor here. He isn't telling a parable. He says in plain, declarative language, "But I tell you: do not resist an evil person."
You are wrong the bible clearly states that Jesus is talking in parable, and only talking in parables when in public.
A parable is a short story that illustrates a point. While Jesus told many parables, "Do not resist an evil person" cannot be a parable any more than "I have two cows" can be a question.
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AyHyperbole
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Posted: Tue Jan 13th, 2009 07:45 pm |
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Henry Sidgwick wrote: AyHyperbole wrote: PearlsSand2 wrote: My pleasure, ToniLoryn.
So many things were spoken in parables and metaphors, yet His target audience at the time, more or less understood what those 'stories' represented, in their time & days & sayings.
So much is puzzling to us now as we read it all in English translations, ....but I do believe the more we look into the cultural use of words/phrases then, and the 'literal' Greek usage then, the more we approach the truth of each matter.
But Jesus isn't making a metaphor here. He isn't telling a parable. He says in plain, declarative language, "But I tell you: do not resist an evil person."
A more accurate translation of the passage would read, "do not react violently against the one who is evil", (Scholars Bible).
I would defer to Walter Wink's commentary on this point. According to Wink, the word antistenai literally means to "stand against", but most translators ignore the fact that it is also a technical term for "warfare". Jesus is not merely saying "don't resist", he's saying, don't resist violently. In other words, he's saying don't mirror the evil you are attacking.
Then explain why Jesus says that if a man takes you to court for your shirt, you should give him your cloak, too.
Defending yourself in a lawsuit doesn't seem like violence, but Jesus specifically says not to do that, either.
Also, if a man demands you walk a mile, Jesus doesn't say "just stand there and refuse." Instead, he says, walk the mile, and then walk another one. Not only does he want you to accede to the demand, he wants you to double it.
This passage from the Sermon on the Mount is clearly not about non-violent resistance.
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Henry Sidgwick
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Posted: Tue Jan 13th, 2009 08:20 pm |
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AyHyperbole wrote: Henry Sidgwick wrote: AyHyperbole wrote: PearlsSand2 wrote: My pleasure, ToniLoryn.
So many things were spoken in parables and metaphors, yet His target audience at the time, more or less understood what those 'stories' represented, in their time & days & sayings.
So much is puzzling to us now as we read it all in English translations, ....but I do believe the more we look into the cultural use of words/phrases then, and the 'literal' Greek usage then, the more we approach the truth of each matter.
But Jesus isn't making a metaphor here. He isn't telling a parable. He says in plain, declarative language, "But I tell you: do not resist an evil person."
A more accurate translation of the passage would read, "do not react violently against the one who is evil", (Scholars Bible).
I would defer to Walter Wink's commentary on this point. According to Wink, the word antistenai literally means to "stand against", but most translators ignore the fact that it is also a technical term for "warfare". Jesus is not merely saying "don't resist", he's saying, don't resist violently. In other words, he's saying don't mirror the evil you are attacking.
Then explain why Jesus says that if a man takes you to court for your shirt, you should give him your cloak, too.Defending yourself in a lawsuit doesn't seem like violence, but Jesus specifically says not to do that, either.
It is crucial to understand the passage in light of historical context. In Jesus' time, the poor could not literally beat the corrupt legal system. Many believed that violent revolt was the only solution to the injustices of the system. Walter Wink gives an excellent commentary on the subject. I hope you don't mind me cutting and pasting a large portion of it:
http://www.cres.org/star/_wink.htm
The second example Jesus gives is set in a court of law. Someone is being sued for his outer garment. Who would do that, and under what circumstances? The Hebrew Scriptures provide the clues. When you make your neighbor a loan of any sort, you shall not go into his house to fetch his pledge. You shall stand outside, and the man to whom you make the loan shall bring the pledge out to you. And if he is a poor man, you shall not sleep in his pledge; when the sun goes down, you shall restore to him the pledge that he may sleep in his cloak (himatio) and bless you....You shall not...take a widow's garment (himation) in pledge. (Deut. 24:10-13, 17; see also Exod. 22:25-27; Amos 2:7-8; Ezek.18:5-9.) Only the poorest of the poor would have nothing but a garment to give as collateral for a loan. Jewish law strictly required its return every evening at sunset.
Matthew and Luke disagree whether it is the outer garment (Luke) or the undergarment (Matthew) that is being seized. But the Jewish practice of giving the outer garment as a pledge (it alone would be useful as a blanket for sleeping) makes it clear that Luke's order is correct, even though he does not preserve the legal setting. In all Greek usage, according to Liddell-Scott, himation is "always an outer garment...worn above the chiton," whereas the chiton is a "garment worn next to the skin." Consistent with this usage, the Greek translation of the Old Testament (LXX) reads himation in the passages just cited. S. Safrai and M. Stern describe normal Jewish dress: an outer garment or cloak of wool and an undergarment or tunic of linen. To avoid confusion I will simply refer to the "outer garment" and the "undergarment."
The situation Jesus speaks to is all too familiar to his hearers: the debtor has sunk ever deeper into poverty, the debt cannot be repaid, and his creditor has summoned him to court (krithenai) to exact repayment by legal means.
Indebtedness was endemic in first century Palestine. Jesus' parables are full of debtors struggling to salvage their lives. Heavy debt was not, however, a natural calamity that had overtaken the incompetent. It was the direct consequence of Roman imperial policy. Emperors had taxed the wealthy so stringently to fund their wars that the rich began seeking non?liquid investments to secure their wealth. Land was best, but it was ancestrally owned and passed down over generations, and no peasant would voluntarily relinquish it. Exorbitant interest, however, could be used to drive landowners ever deeper into debt. And debt, coupled with the high taxation required by Herod Antipas to pay Rome tribute, created the economic leverage to pry Galilean peasants loose from their land. By the time of Jesus we see this process already far advanced: large estates owned by absentee landlords, managed by stewards, and
worked by tenant farmers, day laborers, and slaves. It is no accident that the first act of the Jewish revolutionaries in 66 C.E. was to burn the Temple treasury, where the record of debts was kept.
It is to this situation that Jesus speaks. His hearers are the poor ("if any one would sue you"). They share a rankling hatred for a system that subjects them to humiliation by stripping them of their lands, their goods, finally even their outer garments.
Why then does Jesus counsel them to give over their undergarments as well? This would mean stripping off all their clothing and marching out of court stark naked! Imagine the guffaws this saying must have evoked. There stands the creditor, covered with shame, the poor debtor's outer garment in the one hand, his undergarment in the other. The tables have suddenly been turned on the creditor. The debtor had no hope of winning the case; the law was entirely in the creditor's favor. But the poor man has transcended this attempt to humiliate him. He has risen above shame. At the same time he has registered a stunning protest against the system that created his debt. He has said in effect, "You want my robe? Here, take everything! Now you've got all I have except my body. Is that what you'll take next?"
Nakedness was taboo in Judaism, and shame fell less on the naked party than on the person viewing or causing the nakedness (Gen 9:20-27). By stripping, the debtor has brought the creditor under the same prohibition that led to the curse of Canaan. And much as Isaiah had "walked naked and barefoot for three years" as a prophetic sign (Isa. 20:1-6), so the debtor parades his nakedness in prophetic protest against a system that has deliberately rendered him destitute. Imagine him leaving the court, naked: his friends and neighbors, aghast, inquire what happened. He explains. They join his growing procession, which now resembles a victory parade. The entire system by which debtors are oppressed has been publicly unmasked. The creditor is revealed to be not a legitimate moneylender but a party to the reduction of an entire social class to landlessness, destitution, and abasement. This unmasking is not simply
punitive, therefore; it offers the creditor a chance to see, perhaps for the first time in his
life, what his practices cause, and to repent.
The Powers That Be literally stand on their dignity. Nothing depotentiates them faster than deft lampooning. By refusing to be awed by their power, the powerless are emboldened to seize the initiative, even where structural change is not immediately possible. This message, far from being a counsel to perfection unattainable in this life, is a practical, strategic measure for empowering the oppressed, and it is being lived out all over the world today by powerless people ready to take their history into their own hands.
Jesus provides here a hint of how to take on the entire system by unmasking its essential cruelty and burlesquing its pretensions to justice. Here is a poor man who will no longer be treated as a sponge to be squeezed dry by the rich. He accepts the laws as they stand, pushes them to absurdity, and reveals them for what they have become. He strips naked, walks out before his fellows, and leaves this creditor, and the whole economic edifice which he represents, stark naked.
Also, if a man demands you walk a mile, Jesus doesn't say "just stand there and refuse." Instead, he says, walk the mile, and then walk another one. Not only does he want you to accede to the demand, he wants you to double it.
Again, historical cultural context is crucial. Here's anthoer cut and paste from Wink's commentary:
Jesus' third example, the one about going the second mile, is drawn from the relatively enlightened practice of limiting the amount of forced or impressed labor (angareia) that Roman soldiers could levy on subject peoples to a single mile. The term angareia is probably Persian, and became a loan?word in Aramaic, Greek and Latin. Josephus mentions it in reference to the Seleucid ruler, Demetrius who, in order to enlist Jewish support for his bid to be king, promised, among other things, that "the Jews' beasts of burden shall not be requisitioned (angareuesthai) for our army" (Ant. 13.52). We are more familiar with its use in the Passion Narrative, where the soldiers "compel" (angareuousin) Simon of Cyrene to carry Jesus' cross (Mark 15:21//Matt. 27:32). Such forced service was a constant feature in Palestine from Persian to late Roman times, and whoever was found on the street could be compelled into service. Most cases of impressment involved the need of the postal service for animals and the need of soldiers for civilians to help carry their packs. The situation in Matthew is clearly the latter. It is not a matter of equisitioning animals but people themselves.
This forced labor was a source of bitter resentment by all Roman subjects. "Angareia is like death," complains one source. The sheer frequency, even into the late empire, of legislation proscribing the misuse of the angareia shows how regularly the practice was used and its regulations violated. An inscription of 49 C.E. from Egypt orders that Roman "soldiers of any degree when passing through the several districts are not to make any requisitions or to employ forced transport (angareia) unless they have the prefect's written authority" --a rescript clearly made necessary by soldiers abusing their privileges. Another decree from Egypt from 133-137 C.E. documents this abuse: "Many soldiers without written requisition are travelling about in the country, demanding ships, beasts of burden, and men, beyond anything authorized, sometimes seizing things by force...to the point of showing abuse and threats to private citizens, the result is that the military is associated with arrogance and injustice." In order to minimize resentment in the conquered lands, at least some effort was made by Rome to punish violators of the laws regarding impressment.
The Theodosian Code devotes an entire section to angareia. Among its ordinances are these: If any person while making a journey should consider that he may abstract an ox that is not assigned to the public post but dedicated to the plow, he shall be arrested with due force by the rural police...and he shall be haled before the judge [normally the governor] (8.5.1, 315 C.E.). By this interdict We forbid that any person should deem that they may request packanimals and supplementary posthorses. But if any person should rashly act so presumptuously, he shall be punished very severely (8.5.6, 354 C.E., ital. added). When any legion is proceeding to its destination, it shall not hereafter attempt to appropriate more than two posthorses (angariae), and only for the sake of any who are sick (8.5.11, 360 C.E.).
Late as these regulations are, they reflect a situation that had changed little since the time of the Persians. Armies had to be moved through countries with dispatch. Some legionnaires bought their own slaves to help carry their packs of sixty to eighty?five pounds (not including weapons). The majority of the rank and file, however, had to depend on impressed civilians. There are vivid accounts of whole villages fleeing to avoid being forced to carry soldiers' baggage, and of richer towns prepared to pay large sums to escape having Roman soldiers billeted on them for winter.
With few exceptions, the commanding general of a legion personally administered justice in serious cases, and all other cases were left to the disciplinary control of his subordinates. Centurions had almost limitless authority in dealing with routine cases of discipline. This accounts for the curious fact that there is very little codified military law, and that late. Roman military historians are agreed, however, that military law changed very little in its essential character throughout the imperial period. No account survives to us today of the penalties to be meted out to soldiers for forcing a civilian to carry his pack more than the permitted mile, but there are at least hints. "If in winter quarters, in camp, or on the march, either an officer
or a soldier does injury to a civilian, and does not fully repair the same, he shall pay the damage twofold." This is about as mild a penalty, however, as one can find. Josephus' comment is surely exaggerated, even if it states the popular impression: Roman military forces "have laws which punish with death not merely desertion of the ranks, but even a slight neglect of duty" (J.W. 3.102-8). Between these extremes there was deprivation of pay, a ration of barley instead of wheat, reduction in rank, dishonorable discharge, being forced to camp outside the fortifications, or to stand all day before the general's tent holding a clod in one's hands, or to stand barefoot in public places. But the most frequent punishment by far was flogging.
The frequency with which decrees were issued to curb misuse of the angareia indicates how lax discipline on this point was. Perhaps the soldier might receive only a rebuke. But the point is that the soldier does not know what will happen.
It is in this context of Roman military occupation that Jesus speaks. He does not counsel revolt. One does not "befriend" the soldier, draw him aside and drive a knife into his ribs. Jesus was surely aware of the futility of armed insurrection against Roman imperial might; he certainly did nothing to encourage those whose hatred of Rome was near to flaming into violence.
But why carry his pack a second mile? Is this not to rebound to the opposite extreme of aiding and abetting the enemy? Not at all. The question here, as in the two previous instances, is how the oppressed can recover the initiative and assert their human dignity in a situation that cannot for the time being be changed. The rules are Caesar's, but how one responds to the rules is God's, and Caesar has no power over that.
Imagine then the soldier's surprise when, at the next mile marker, he reluctantly reaches to assume his pack, and the civilian says, "Oh no, let me carry it another mile." Why would he want to do that? What is he up to? Normally, soldiers have to coerce people to carry their packs, but this Jew does so cheerfully, and will not stop! Is this a provocation? Is he insulting the legionnaire's strength? Being kind? Trying to get him disciplined for seeming to violate the rules of impressment? Will this civilian file a complaint? Create trouble?
From a situation of servile impressment, the oppressed have once more seized the initiative. They have taken back the power of choice. The soldier is thrown off balance by being deprived of the predictability of his victim's response. He has never dealt with such a problem before. Now he has been forced into making a decision for which nothing in his previous experience has prepared him. If he has enjoyed feeling superior to the vanquished, he will not enjoy it today. Imagine the situation of a Roman infantryman pleading with a Jew to give back his pack! The humor of this scene may have escaped us, but it could scarcely have been lost on Jesus' hearers, who must have been regaled at the prospect of thus discomfiting their oppressors. Jesus does not encourage Jews to walk a second mile in order to build up merit in heaven, or to exercise a supererogatory piety, or to kill the soldier with kindness. He is helping an oppressed people find a way to protest and neutralize an onerous practice despised throughout the empire. He is not giving a non-political message of spiritual world-transcendence. He is formulating a worldly spirituality in which the people at the bottom of society or under the thumb of imperial power learn to recover their humanity.
One could easily misuse Jesus' advice vindictively; that is why it must not be separated from the command to love enemies integrally connected with it in both Matthew and Luke. But love is not averse to taking the law and using its oppressive momentum to throw the soldier into a region of uncertainty and anxiety where he has never been before. Such tactics can seldom be repeated. One can imagine that within days after the incidents that Jesus sought to provoke, the Powers That Be would pass new laws: penalties for nakedness in court, flogging for carrying a pack more than a mile! One must be creative, improvising new tactics to keep the opponent off balance.
To those whose lifelong pattern has been to cringe before their masters, Jesus offers a way to liberate themselves from servile actions and a servile mentality. And he asserts that they can do this before there is a revolution. There is no need to wait until Rome has been defeated, or peasants are landed and slaves freed. They can begin to behave with dignity and recovered humanity now, even under the unchanged conditions of the old order. Jesus' sense of divine immediacy has social implications. The reign of God is already breaking into the world, and it comes, not as an imposition from on high, but as the leaven slowly causing the dough to rise (Matt.13:33//Luke 13:20-21). Jesus' teaching on nonviolence is thus of a piece with his proclamation of the dawning of the reign of God.
In the conditions of first-century Palestine, a political revolution against the Romans could only be catastrophic, as the events of 66-73 C.E. would prove. Jesus does not propose armed revolution. But he does lay the foundations for a social revolution, as Richard A. Horsley has pointed out. And a social revolution becomes political when it reaches a critical threshold of acceptance; this in fact did happen to the Roman empire as the Christian church overcame it from below.
Nor were peasants and slaves in a position to transform the economic system by frontal assault. But they could begin to act from an already recovered dignity and freedom, and the ultimate consequences of such acts could only be revolutionary. To that end, Jesus spoke repeatedly of a voluntary remission of debts.
It is entirely appropriate, then, that the saying on debts in Matt. 5:42//Luke 6:30//Gos. Thom. 95 has been added to this saying-block. Jesus counsels his hearers not just to practice alms and to lend money, even to bad-risks, but to lend without expecting interest or even the return of the principal. Such radical egalitarian sharing would be necessary to rescue impoverished Palestinian peasants from their plight; one need not posit an imminent end of history as the cause for such astonishing generosity. And yet none of this is new; Jesus is merely issuing a prophetic summons to Israel to observe the commandments pertaining to the sabbatical year
enshrined in Torah, adapted to a new situation.
Such radical sharing would be necessary in order to restore true community. For the risky defiance of the Powers that Jesus advocates would inevitably issue in punitive economic sanctions and physical punishment against individuals. They would need economic support; Matthew's "Give to everyone who asks (aitounti--not necessarily begs) of you" may simply refer to this need for mutual sustenance. Staggering interest and taxes isolated peasants, who went under one by one. This was a standard tactic of imperial "divide and rule" strategy. Jesus' solution was neither utopian nor apocalyptic. It was simple realism. Nothing less could halt or reverse the economic decline of Jewish peasants than a complete suspension of usury and debt and a restoration of economic equality through outright grants, a pattern actually mplemented in the earliest Christian community, according to the Book of Acts.
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AyHyperbole
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Posted: Tue Jan 13th, 2009 09:40 pm |
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Henry Sidgwick wrote: It is crucial to understand the passage in light of historical context. In Jesus' time, the poor could not literally beat the corrupt legal system. Many believed that violent revolt was the only solution to the injustices of the system. Walter Wink gives an excellent commentary on the subject. I hope you don't mind me cutting and pasting a large portion of it:
http://www.cres.org/star/_wink.htm
I think that's absolutely fascinating, and I thank you for posting it.
So the examples that Jesus gave of not resisting an evil person were actually quite reasonable - which makes sense, given that people would not listen long to an unreasonable sermon.
But still, Jesus certainly doesn't provide any examples where one should resist an evil person, and in fact explicitly says not to.
So if a thief demands your wallet, do you resist? Or was Jesus talking only of not resisting institutionalized evil? He doesn't draw the distinction on the Mount, that's for sure.
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stiggywiggy
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Posted: Tue Jan 13th, 2009 11:14 pm |
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AyHyperbole wrote: stiggywiggy wrote: AyHyperbole wrote:
stiggywiggy wrote:No. My house is not mine alone. My shirt is. Clothing and shelter are necessities, not luxuries. My house is mine and my family's. If someone asks me for shelter in my house, yeah, I would feel it my moral obligation to provide it. If they ask for corrupt mammon, like equity in a home, nah. They can take a hike.
Your family are Christians too, right? And even if they weren't, didn't Jesus specifically say "He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me"?
Seems to me that Jesus would prefer you follow his teachings rather than violate them on your family's behalf.
Seems to me that you're now stiggying, given your new Definition# 2385 of stiggying: "to delete stuff so as not to include context. "
Here's what you deleted, which if you had read, you could have avoided your comment above:
No. My house is not mine alone. My shirt is. Clothing and shelter are necessities, not luxuries. My house is mine and my family's. If someone asks me for shelter in my house, yeah, I would feel it my moral obligation to provide it.
So do me a favor. Next time you decide to reply, read the entire post so you'll know what you're talking about, regardless of whether it's the usual criticism of how other's behavior does not live up to the standard you think it should.
I have no idea what you're talking about. I clearly quoted everything you claim I deleted.
I'll take you at your word that you really don't know what I'm talking about, and once again go over this. We'll work our way backward this time. Your last comment was that you had quoted everything I claimed you deleted.
I mentioned Definition# 2385 of stiggying: "to delete stuff so as not to include context. " This was a referefnce to another thread between yourself and me, where you began the "you're stiggying" chant again, in reference to my having deleted some of Button's words in my reply to him.
OK. So what did I claim you had deleted? Words. Words of mine. We do it all the time. All of us here, and it hasn't got one damn thing to do with any stiggying. We read a lengthy post, some particular points that someone makes strikes us, and we reply to that point. We use the quote feature and retain that which is relevant to the point we are making, and delete that which is completely irrelevant.
And that is precisely what happened in this case before your "stiggying, stiggying" cyber-Touretes started acting up. (notice the sissy smiley; I'm trying to keep Wayne's words about the civility of this thread true, though I gotta admit, this stiggying default position is about as old and useless as a 33 1/3 RPM.)
Anyway, in the other thread you may see for yourself how the point I was making was in direct reply to the Buttons' quote that I put up in quotes, and you may also see how those words of Buttons which I deleted in no way altered either his point or mine.
And that point? That Buttons and I were in agreement in our disagreement with Merlin that Jews are racists based on objectionable passages from the Talmud. If anything, the clause that I deleted bolstered that point, as Buttons is also saying that Muslims should not be called racists just based on any racism found within ancient writings of their religion.
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Torquemada
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Posted: Tue Jan 13th, 2009 11:19 pm |
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| Easy. I would do her and then go to reconciliation so that I could be forgiven through the sacrament of penance. One hundred Ave Marias and a few Patre Nostres are a small price to pay for a little lovin', right?
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Merlin
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Posted: Tue Jan 13th, 2009 11:30 pm |
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| That Buttons and I were in agreement in our disagreement with Merlin that Jews are racists Except for that nagging little part where Buttons told you that was wrong and to stop trying to change what he posts.
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stiggywiggy
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Posted: Tue Jan 13th, 2009 11:54 pm |
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Merlin wrote: That Buttons and I were in agreement in our disagreement with Merlin that Jews are racists Except for that nagging little part where Buttons told you that was wrong and to stop trying to change what he posts.
So you're saying that Buttons agrees with you that "jews are racists?" Let's ask him. Do you, Buttons?
And I'd prefer not to hear anything along the lines of "yeah, all races or religions have elements of racism in them and the Jews are no exception." Merlin specified the Jews. Over and over.
We wouldn't think much of a preacher who went around proclaiming that "blacks are sinners, blacks are sinners," even though his religion might teach that blacks along with all of us are sinners. He would be speaking truth with racist lips.
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AyHyperbole
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Posted: Wed Jan 14th, 2009 12:04 am |
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stiggywiggy wrote: "I'll take you at your word that you really don't know what I'm talking about, and once again go over this. We'll work our way backward this time. Your last comment was that you had quoted everything I claimed you deleted. I mentioned Definition# 2385 of stiggying: "to delete stuff so as not to include context. " This was a referefnce to another thread between yourself and me, where you began the "you're stiggying" chant again, in reference to my having deleted some of Button's words in my reply to him. OK. So what did I claim you had deleted? Words. Words of mine. We do it all the time. All of us here, and it hasn't got one damn thing to do with any stiggying. We read a lengthy post, some particular points that someone makes strikes us, and we reply to that point. We use the quote feature and retain that which is relevant to the point we are making, and delete that which is completely irrelevant."
Yes, I fully expected a phony "you deleted some of my thread" complaint, wherein you pretend that you're too dense to understand the difference between responding to one or two paragraphs and changing the context of a sentence by cutting it in half.
What I didn't expect was for you to fuck up your pretend-whine and insist that I had deleted a portion of the post that I actually didn't delete. You even went so far as to italicize the portion you thought I had deleted, when I had clearly quoted it.
You're correct in that we frequently reply only to a single point in a post. What no one but Stiggy does is to alter the text such that the point is lost.
And just to pre-empt you a bit, I'm fully expecting this to be your next stiggy-style response:
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AyHyperbole wrote:
You're correct in that we frequently reply only to a single point in a post.
Thank you. Then I don't know what you're complaining about.
Last edited on Wed Jan 14th, 2009 12:08 am by AyHyperbole
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