Bible talk

[Moff Jerjerrod]

^ Touché

 

[Kyriakos]

I think that some people - or the same person, in different times of his/her life - can be helped by religion.
In the end, everyone deals with their own problems.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Now that is worth waiting for.

I hope it doesn't prove to be a disappointment. But I'm being a bit of a showman here, and I think that even while I'm waiting for Samson to answer the last question, I can set out the terms of that showmanship.

I've used the language that it's a pretty impressive bit of verbal "trickery" that Christ managed to redefine the word "neighbor," and I even used the word "legerdemain," another word from stage magic, to get at this. I'm shifting out of my Socrates role. Or rather, adding a new role to it. Here in the US, there's a TV show called "Magic's Greatest Mysteries Unmasked," where a masked magician (masked out of fear of reprisal from his fellow magicians) reveals how famous bits of stage illusion are done. That's the vibe I want to produce:

Come one. Come all. If you think it's a pretty cool trick that Christ manages to redefine "neighbor" to the one thing it can't possibly mean, let me show you how (I think) he did it. How he gets that new, counter-intuitive meaning to click in the lawyer's mind and in our mind. (It's what clicked in my mind when I reexamined the parable in the light of Samson's initial questions). I'm going to count you among my audience Moff. I think Samson and Angst are on board.

Gather 'round. The show is about to start. Because, after all, the baseline answer as to how Christ does it is through the parable, duh. And we're mostly done with the set-up and about to start examining the parable.

 

[Kyriakos]

It's the same "magic" that Alexander used to turn 'barbarian' from 'specifically not Greek' to 'one who doesn't act like a Greek'.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Give me that reference, Kyr,. Just enough more about what you're referencing so that I can Google.

 

[Kyriakos]

It's the transformation that counts, surely. Is it in your view different from turning "near" to "what acts like near in x way"?

You can google for Alexander and inclusiveness of Persians etc. But we don't need Alexander for the specific transformation to be understandable After all, look at how "barbarian" is used today, despite its very obvious etymology - it turned to something it was not, due to qualified definition.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Is it in your view different from turning "near" to "what acts like near in x way"?

This is what I mean when I say that various posters, you not least, have already given the key elements of the interpretation I'm setting up. Something like that (and something you said earlier) is what I will show when I start treating the parable.

In the broad picture here are precisely those two-fold verbal formulations that divide the world into us-them: Greek-barbarian is a famous one; Jew-Gentile is another. Murcans and s***-hole nations. I suspect that pretty much every culture has some equivalent. Jesus here wants to subvert that kind of thinking.

I thought you were referencing some story about Alexander where he said (of some non-Greek nation) "well, no, they're not Greeks, but they act enough like Greeks that we won't call them barbarians, either." A quick Google with your three terms doesn't turn anything like that up. I don't know the figure of Alexander--history or legend--as well as I should.

 

[Kyriakos]

(I will now step back to the amphitheatre row and wait for the finale )

 

[Gori the Grey]

Ah, so I got you in the audience as well! A showman likes a packed theater.

 

[Gori the Grey]

And Bird also! Hopefully it hasn't gotten lost in the shuffle for @Samson that I'm waiting for an answer to this:

Thanks. Here's the point I forgot to make before. It was a follow-up to my asking you if it was a pretty impressive rhetorical feat to get near-one to mean the one thing that it can't mean: every-one.

I had intended to establish that we don't think it's just a bit of verbal trickery, but that it's also impressive at the level of its substance, too. What I mean builds on something you agreed to early on: that "love your neighbor as yourself (and everyone is your neighbor)" is a lovely ethical ideal. Christianity can be proud that that is one of its guiding principles. It's not that no other religion has that view, or that atheists can't act according to that ideal. But just the sheer fact of Christ encouraging first the lawyer, and then everyone else who takes this parable seriously, to not try to restrict who they care for—that that is a good thing.

So, when Christ manages, through the parable, to get the lawyer to redefine “neighbor,” that’s a morally positive advance for that lawyer, as well as for any reader of the gospel who takes the message to heart and tries to live by it. It works to counter the human tendency to think and act in terms of in-groups and out-groups. Would you agree? I almost feel as though I could presume to answer for you on this one, based on your answer to the earlier question, but still I'll let you have your say.

I'm getting pretty close to treating my answer to one of the questions you raised about the parable, by the way. I know you've had to be very patient.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

But just a general answer back to the non-believing community. You really have to come to the end of yourself in order to truly see Jesus. The points and counterpoints are merely the reluctance to admit we're all sinners. Trying to reason it out with human logic ultimately won't really work. Remember, God's ways are not our ways.

"Sins" is a relative term. When it comes to the Ten Commandments, let's see... I've never killed anyone (other than a bazillion insects). The animal-related death I've felt guilty for during the many years since high school isn't because I killed the frog. I did dissect it, though, and if there had been a way to opt out without failing, I'd have taken it. To me, it's morally wrong to dissect any animal unless it's medically necessary or you're doing it for a veterinary course. Just casual school assignments like that? Morally wrong. I know other people think I'm overreacting, but to me, unnecessary dissection is something I would consider a sin.

Adultery? Also never participated in that. My observations of married and committed couples tells me that if you're going to cheat on your spouse/partner, have the decency to get a divorce/separate from that spouse/partner before going off with the new individual. That way it won't be cheating. It will still hurt the spouse/partner, but at least the lies won't be there. One of my life rules for myself has been to never knowingly interfere in a committed couple's relationship.

Your god's ways include genocide, slavery, domestic abuse, coercion, and many other uses of force where they aren't necessary. The notion of "forbidden knowledge" bothers me. Humans, to use Carl Sagan's phrase, are a curious species. We want to explore and learn and understand. For anything to be "forbidden" to learn means to stifle our species' curiosity.

And that's only a mere scratch of the surface as to why I wouldn't want a society that runs strictly on those lines.

Hi Moff.

This is just a specific answer to a believing individual:
You are vague. Coming to the end of yourself, or truly seeing Jesus don't mean anything.
You are wrong. The points and counterpoints are not the reluctance to admit we're all sinners. I'm very happy to admit I am a sinner with regard to a religion I do not believe in or subscribe to. (You believers always assume non-believers secretly do believe, which is really quite rediculous)
You are wrong. Trying to reason it out with human logic is the best resource we have to progress. If instead we were to take pointers from the Bible we would still be having slaves and treating women horribly.
You are right. God's ways are not our ways. God's ways as described in the Bible are an abysmal way to run society. Lets be grateful for not living in a Theocracy.

Cheerio!

look at how "barbarian" is used today, despite its very obvious etymology - it turned to something it was not, due to qualified definition.

People have their own definition of what's "barbaric." Not even 10 years ago the then-federal government here announced a "barbaric cultural practices" snitch line, meaning that we were to observe our neighbors for committing cultural practices we considered barbaric and then report them.

The ones pushing this insisted it was meant to help the people caught up in things like "honour killings", FGM, people becoming radicalized to commit terrorist activities, etc. but the fact is that there are already ways to report those things. And yes, at that time there had been some notorious cases in the news. But the federal government essentially saying, "Go forth and watch your Middle Eastern/Indian neighbors like a hawk in case they do anything culturally barbaric and report them for it" didn't sit well with most Canadians. The term "barbaric" was never actually explained. And the idea of watching and reporting each other isn't something we tend to be comfortable with.

 

[Samson]

So, when Christ manages, through the parable, to get the lawyer to redefine “neighbor,” that’s a morally positive advance for that lawyer, as well as for any reader of the gospel who takes the message to heart and tries to live by it. It works to counter the human tendency to think and act in terms of in-groups and out-groups. Would you agree?

Yes

 

[Moff Jerjerrod]

The notion of "forbidden knowledge" bothers me

Can you reference what you mean by forbidden knowledge according to the bible?

Gather 'round. The show is about to start

Totally unrelated but that reminds me of that old Emerson, Lake, and Palmer song "Welcome back my friends".

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Can you reference what you mean by forbidden knowledge according to the bible?

I'm sure you've heard of the tree whose fruit Adam and Eve ate?

I'm not talking about literal fruit here, but of the concept that there is knowledge that humans are not allowed to have. Yes, we've poked our noses into some things that ended up causing great harm. But there are other things that people poked their noses into that ended up with positive benefits. I'm alive and can still see because of that.

 

[Moff Jerjerrod]

I'm sure you've heard of the tree whose fruit Adam and Eve ate?

I'm not talking about literal fruit here, but of the concept that there is knowledge that humans are not allowed to have. Yes, we've poked our noses into some things that ended up causing great harm. But there are other things that people poked their noses into that ended up with positive benefits. I'm alive and can still see because of that.

Ah yes, I see now. The only thing I can say in response, is that at least God did not put some sort of physical restraint on Adam and Eve. He let them choose if they wanted to eat the fruit or not. (i.e. gain knowledge or not)

 

[Gori the Grey]

Ok, @Samson. Would you be comfortable summarizing what we’ve said so far as follows? An expert in Jewish law gets an opportunity to ask Jesus a question. He’s either trying to trip Jesus up or he really wants to know: what do I have to do to inherit eternal life? Jesus puts the question back to him. He answers by providing two quotes form the Torah: Love God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself. Jesus gives him an A on that assignment, endorses the answer (and we know that in the other gospels, it’s the same answer he gives when asked to say what the most important commandments are). But now the lawyer asks “Who is my neighbor?” Again, maybe this is a hostile question, but there are also potentially legitimate reasons for wanting to get an answer to such a question. It’s the commonest thing that lawyers do: insist on a definition of terms. He wants to clarify what group of people this Biblical injunction obligates him to care for (and maybe, at least by extension, some other group of people he is not obligated to love as he loves himself). But even if it’s not a hostile question, there’s a hint that his intention is to get the meaning of the word “neighbor” whittled down to some manageable community. And I’ve proposed that, in our era, we would describe that as in-group/out-group thinking. He kind of wants Jesus to say “oh, it means your village” or “it means everyone whose house is with a thousand paces of your own” or “it means your tribe” or “it means your fellow Israelites.”

As a kind of image for this, we might (since we know where things are going) image a big circle representing all of mankind. The lawyer is in the center, and he’s imagining a circle of some size drawn between him and the big circle, with the people inside the smaller circle being the ones defined as neighbors and the ones outside of that smaller circle, as non-neighbors, whom he is not expected to love as he loves himself.

Does that represent a fair characterization of what we’ve established so far about the set-up for the parable? Or are there any parts of it with which you don’t feel comfortable?

 

[Samson]

Ok, @Samson. Would you be comfortable summarizing what we’ve said so far as follows? An expert in Jewish law gets an opportunity to ask Jesus a question. He’s either trying to trip Jesus up or he really wants to know: what do I have to do to inherit eternal life? Jesus puts the question back to him. He answers by providing two quotes form the Torah: Love God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself. Jesus gives him an A on that assignment, endorses the answer (and we know that in the other gospels, it’s the same answer he gives when asked to say what the most important commandments are). But now the lawyer asks “Who is my neighbor?” Again, maybe this is a hostile question, but there are also potentially legitimate reasons for wanting to get an answer to such a question. It’s the commonest thing that lawyers do: insist on a definition of terms. He wants to clarify what group of people this Biblical injunction obligates him to care for (and maybe, at least by extension, some other group of people he is not obligated to love as he loves himself). But even if it’s not a hostile question, there’s a hint that his intention is to get the meaning of the word “neighbor” whittled down to some manageable community. And I’ve proposed that, in our era, we would describe that as in-group/out-group thinking. He kind of wants Jesus to say “oh, it means your village” or “it means everyone whose house is with a thousand paces of your own” or “it means your tribe” or “it means your fellow Israelites.”

As a kind of image for this, we might (since we know where things are going) image a big circle representing all of mankind. The lawyer is in the center, and he’s imagining a circle of some size drawn between him and the big circle, with the people inside the smaller circle being the ones defined as neighbors and the ones outside of that smaller circle, as non-neighbors, whom he is not expected to love as he loves himself.

Does that represent a fair characterization of what we’ve established so far about the set-up for the parable? Or are there any parts of it with which you don’t feel comfortable?

That all sounds right.

 

[Gori the Grey]

When one is trying to draw boundaries like this, the most crucial cases are the ones that fall just in and just out of the circle, right? That's where the hard decisions are made. Let's say Jesus' answer was "it means your village," well, then the people we'd suddenly become interested in are the people who live between our village and the next village. Maybe we take a measurement and say, "you're closer to us, so you belong in the boundaries" or maybe we say "you have most of your dealings with that next village over, so you belong out of the boundaries." But in any case, the tough calls are the ones that fall right near the spot where we're trying to draw the line, because there's where we need a really precise discrimination of whether they fall on one side or the other. Does that sound right?

 

[Samson]

But in any case, the tough calls are the ones that fall right near the spot where we're trying to draw the line, because there's where we need a really precise discrimination of whether they fall on one side or the other. Does that sound right?

Yes.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Ah yes, I see now. The only thing I can say in response, is that at least God did not put some sort of physical restraint on Adam and Eve. He let them choose if they wanted to eat the fruit or not. (i.e. gain knowledge or not)

The point is that they were forbidden to gain knowledge. Whether or not they chose to is beside the point. Being punished for gaining knowledge is not moral, in my view.