Bible talk

[Gori the Grey]

ThaaaaaaaANK you, Farm Boy!

I'll count that as 13 of the "duh"s that I was dreaming I'd receive.

By the way @Samson, after you logged off, others took up the attempt to answer the question I was putting to you. @Farm Boy eventually gave it in the form I was looking for (with an assist from @Kyriakos).

After I get enough people in the audience to shout "duh," it'll be back to you and me.

And I'm about ready to answer your question.

 

[Samson]

Duh

 

[Gori the Grey]

Thanks, @Samson. On the assumption that you're really saying that, and I'm not putting words in your mouth (my rigorous rule for this undertaking), you allow us to progress.

duh

Duh

Duh!

Duh!

DuUUuuuh.

Duh-duh-DUH-duh-duh-DUH-duh-duh-DUH-DUH-DUH

Exactly!

There's the trick!

(the rhetorical trick, that is, that assists Jesus in transforming the lawyer's thinking.)

By the end of the parable, he has not only redefined "neighbor" (because that wasn't our starting definition); he has made his new definition unassailable (as tautologies are), and he has made it the obvious definition of "neighbor."

Which we know, because Jesus now puts the lawyer's own question back to him--"Which one of these three was neighbor to the injured man?"--and the lawyer instantly gives the right answer: "The one who went up to him to help him, duh"

Ok, that last part's not actually in the Bible

Now you can all

;

applaud how

Brilliant!

this is; remark,

Damn the Bible is good.

 

[Birdjaguar]

"If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with."
Be kind.

Duh!

 

[Gori the Grey]

"If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with."

Not quite, but close.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Not quite, but close.

It is the rock n roll version of the parable by Stephen Stills even if he had a different spin on it.

 

[Angst]

(late duh!)

 

[Gori the Grey]

It is the rock n roll version of the parable by Stephen Stills even if he had a different spin on it.

Yes, I know. The riff has gone through my mind many times as I've been meditating this analysis. But it's not quiiiiiiiiite the message here.

We have to start layering back into the parable the religious meanings that I temporarily suspended in order to isolate the rhetorical trickery . . . ahem . . . effectiveness.

And then that lyric (lovely as it is in its own right) won't quite fit.

(late duh!)

I'll work it in

 

[Birdjaguar]

And then that lyric (lovely as it is in its own right) won't quite fit.

That is why I added "Be kind." Kindness is love manifested.

 

[Farm Boy]

Kindness is love manifested.

Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn minutes to hours?

 

[Moff Jerjerrod]

So could I get a "duh" from you

Duh! & Doh!

 

[Gori the Grey]

Thanks, Moff. I added it. Now I really do have my chorus of "duh"s.

Don't know if I'll be able to do anything with D'oh, but I'll keep it on hand. Who knows?

Now let's take a little look at this new definition of "neighbor," and how radical a transformation of the concept it represents. Do you remember, @Samson, when we characterized the lawyer's thinking by using a sort of Venn diagram, where he was in the center; the circle included everyone; and he was trying to figure out where to put a smaller circle around himself, inside of which were his neighbors and outside of which were people he wasn't required to regard (and love) as neighbors?

 

[Samson]

Thanks, Moff. I added it. Now I really do have my chorus of "duh"s.

Don't know if I'll be able to do anything with D'oh, but I'll keep it on hand. Who knows?

Now let's take a little look at this new definition of "neighbor," and how radical a transformation of the concept it represents. Do you remember, @Samson, when we characterized the lawyer's thinking by using a sort of Venn diagram, where he was in the center; the circle included everyone; and he was trying to figure out where to put a smaller circle around himself, inside of which were his neighbors and outside of which were people he wasn't required to regard (and love) as neighbors?

I recall that now you mention it.

 

[Gori the Grey]

The only point I want to make is that that is a very static way of thinking about who might be your neighbor, and Jesus' ultimate conception replaces that with a more dynamic way. He takes a state (these people are this close to me) and turns it into an action (I can go make a neighbor of that person over there--by going over there where that person is!). It basically has the effect of turning neighbor into a verb: you can choose to "neighbor" somebody.

Does that sound right?

 

[Birdjaguar]

Be neighborly.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Yes, he turns "neighbor" from something you are to something you (can choose to) do.

This was the other good part of Farm Boy's answer, when he gave the right answer to the big question:

It always in your power, isn't it?

Jesus makes "neighboring" a matter of volition (not just (one's starting) position.)

Notice how the overall shift in thinking that he effects through this exchange involves a change from the lawyer's concern with the the verb "is," which just designates existence in a certain state, to the active verbs "go" and "do."

But that's also why I had my little quibble with Hyrgo, Stills and Bird:

it's the literal loving whoever you are physically with.

"If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with."

Because the "with" formulations there still do imagine the matter statically rather than dynamically, as though there is simply one set of people that we "are with," rather than that we can draw near to any particular person (whom we see to be in need of our care).

Though Hygro had another important piece of the puzzle in this:

So instead of abstract loving everyone

Jesus' answer is not actually the "Sunday school lesson," "Love everybody." Because that's abstract and diffuse almost to the point of meaninglessness. (The old joke: "I love humanity; it's people I can't stand.") But rather you should hold yourself ready to draw near to anybody whose needs you might be able to help meet. Anybody will always manifest him or herself as a particular individual that you can either choose to move toward or move away from.

 

[Gori the Grey]

I don't think I can help meet Trump's needs. They are psychological (spiritual, maybe) more than financial, in my estimation, and I don't feel I can plumb the abyss.

If I met him, I would try. I feel almost certain I would fail. I don't know where one would even begin to get purchase. He's got barriers up against everything healthy.

In my life, I've met two people a little bit like him: narcissists, I mean. They are, in my experience, impenetrable.

He scoffed at the thought that Nancy Pelosi prayed/prays for him. Couldn't process it, except to say "she prays for the opposite, maybe." Whatever that means. He lacks rudimentary language for describing spiritual matters.

 

[Samson]

The only point I want to make is that that is a very static way of thinking about who might be your neighbor, and Jesus' ultimate conception replaces that with a more dynamic way. He takes a state (these people are this close to me) and turns it into an action (I can go make a neighbor of that person over there--by going over there where that person is!). It basically has the effect of turning neighbor into a verb: you can choose to "neighbor" somebody.

Does that sound right?

The story as presented has no choosing. The question "who do I have to be nice to to go to heaven?" does not leave any room for the lawyer to make a choice. Of course we all get a choice as to whether to do it.

 

[Gori the Grey]

The story as presented has no choosing.

You don't think the Samaritan is presented as having made a choice to help the injured man?

And the priest and Levite as having chosen not to?

 

[Samson]

You don't think the Samaritan is presented as having made a choice to help the injured man?

He had a choice to help, not as to whether he should help or not if he wants to go to heaven. The law defines "neighbour" as "those you should love as yourself", the story is defining "neighbour". When the Samaritan made a choice to help the injured man he was making the choice to love is neighbour as himself, as we all do. The standard interpretation is that that is the choice you make as to whether you go to heaven or not.

I suppose you could say he is making a choice as to whether he is a neighbour if one accepts the proviso that to have eternal life you only need to be nice to those who are nice to you, but I think that is not the usual interpretation.