I think it’s actually a really good passage to show the Christian faith currently on display because of the next 2 verses
2 It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.
3 So watch yourselves. “If your brother or sistersins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them.
4 Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying ‘I repent,’ you must forgive them.”
So it’s a verse about mercy and forgiveness but this person took home -checks notes- waterboarding. Sounds legit.
Why does that feel like a non sequitur? The whole thing seems to be about forgiving an asshole for being a dick seven times a day as long as he says sorry (especially since being a dick is a given), but where does the little ones even come in?
It’s because this is coming from Mark 9:42, where in Mark 9:36-37 he takes a small child and says whoever welcomes the child welcomes him.
Which follows Mark 9:35 where in answer to “who is the greatest apostle” he replies the one who becomes “servant to all” almost verbatim from 1 Cor 9:19 where Paul described himself as a slave to all.
Paul was only a small child at the time Jesus was doing his thing, and described himself as the last apostle as well as being slave to all.
So the passage was about backdating the legitimacy for Paul’s being welcomed as “slave to all” and the “last of all” who was one such child being welcomed in his name.
This passage then connected the presence of this hypothetical child to the sayings about better to die/cut off hand/etc than sin. That original part with the child is located elsewhere in Luke 9:46-48, separated from this other part here, so in Luke it is literally missing its context.
(The only thing I still really miss from Reddit is /r/AcademicBiblical…)
Ah, that makes sense. I mean, at least more sense at least. Thanks for the context!
I probably won’t ever get around to reading those old books (which as an atheist makes sense, although I always find it funny athiests know the Bible more than religious people do lol).
I was just angry about this the other day while I was driving home and listening to the Data over Dogma podcast (theist but very open minded Bible scholar chats with an atheist about the history of the bible) I am getting kinda annoyed at this lifestyle.
Maybe I just don’t want to believe in sky-daddy. Is that so much to ask? Maybe I don’t want to have a pile of books on Bible text analysis and spend my free time studying that fuck awful book anymore. Maybe I don’t want to try to be an expert on philosophy, logic, evolutionary biology, Big Bang cosmology, what random really means in QM theory, Pali Canon, the Vedas, the Korean, and human+animal psychology.
I feel like every time I am on some site or talking to someone about this subject like I have to dwarf their knowledge on every single avenue of attack when the burden of proof shouldn’t be on me. It is their fucking claim, fucking defend it!
Oh, I heard about that podcast-- I think a host was a guest on Scathing Athiest.
What I learned from dating a preachers daughter a long time ago is that at least all that prep in evolution, psychology, etc, made me a much better, more knowledge person (which helped a lot in going to college, grad school, etc). I appreciate that aspect, even if it sucked at the time and involved a lot of heated debate and temporary blocked AIM accounts.
A good push for a bad reason, especially since they inevitably could not see reason. Some people aren’t worth the effort, but I would hate to have to put on that fight for family members or other loved ones.
I miss that sub as well. I wish they had a once a week open mic kinda deal.
Chatgpt works wonders for this btw. I noticed something in Mark I didn’t get a few months ago. No one responded to my question in that sub but chatgpt was there ready to engage. It is loaded with biblical scholarship and can even do a bit of speculation.
ChatGPT is very susceptible to poor source selection when it comes to biblical scholarship because of the preponderance of apologetics online, just be aware.
And I have been copying the open discussion threads into !AcademicBiblical@lemmy.world (created by one of the mods from the sub) in the hopes that there’s eventually a bit of activity over there in turn. Feel free to repost the question in one of those and given the relative silence so far, it might stand out a bit more in terms of getting an answer?
Yeah I appreciate the warning and I have noticed it has a slant. Still for nitty gritty stuff it is amazing. Mark for example is a fairly terse. So I had it do a unique word count on it and compared it to unique word counts in other Greek Documents and confirmed it. That would have been a fairly painful project only a few months ago.
I think Mathew’s interpretation of events to be kind of more straightforward…
Mathew 18:6
6 “If anyone causes one of these little ones to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. 7 Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to stumble! Such things must come, but woe to the person through whom they come! 8 If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire. 9 And if your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.
There’s also 1 Timothy 2:12
“But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.”
So these women are in direct violation of the New Testament. Women cannot teach men, per GOD. If you’re gonna tell me God himself is wrong in his own handwriting, I have a bridge to sell you. /s
Which itself has a very interesting backstory, as around 80% of academics recognize 1 Timothy as a second century forgery, and around half think the part in 1 Cor about women teaching is a later interpolation.
There was a sect of early Christianity which was my main research interest who claimed their sect came from a woman teacher. This group had a fair bit of overlap with the things Paul rejects in Corinth, who he says “recieved a different gospel/version of Jesus.”
In the late first century, Corinth deposes the elders sent by the Roman church and the bishop of Rome writes them another letter (1 Clement) where he repeatedly emphasizes that youth should defer to their elders and that women should obey their husbands and be silent.
So you probably had a competing sect of early Christianity with an emphasis on youth and women (as this later ‘heretical’ sect did) which was causing trouble for the group who had better financing and institutional support, which later forges and possibly alters letters to denounce their competition by attacking their practices, one of which happened to be empowered women.
And then we got two millennia of misogyny that persists until today.
It’s a real shame too. That other later sect is the only religious group in Western antiquity I’m familiar with that was centrally incorporating Greek atomism, which was the context in which they interpreted the mustard seed and sower parables - likely coming from Lucretius using the term for ‘seed’ in place of atomos in his widely celebrated poem on naturalism 50 years before Jesus was born, where he even described failed biological reproduction as “seed falling by the wayside of the path”. (The sower parable is much more interesting with this perspective in mind, and might explain why in Mark it’s the only one given a secret explanation in private which clumsily interpolates the scene where it takes place.)
While Christianity became unambiguously misogynistic, it’s doubted whether or not this sentiment actually reflects the historical Paul and the early churches he moved amongst. Faced with having to choose which of his writings are more genuine: the inclusive writings or heavily patriarchal writings, it really does seem his more radical opinions were watered down by the later church which caved in to the pressure of the existing misogyny.
Paul regarded that men and women had equal access to Christ’s grace (Gal 3:28) within a discourse in which he explains the point of law is a temporary restraint to limit sin but ultimately it ought to fall away. He names and thanks dozens of women in helping to run and support the house church networks. He names “Junia” as the only names female apostle (Romans 16:7). Calls others “co workers” and “fellow servants” in the gospel.
It all falls in line with the traditions that are least likely to have been invented given the prevailing sentiment : that women were the financial support of Christ’s ministry (Luke 8:3), the first portrayed as gathering others to Christ (John 4:27-30), the first witnesses of the resurrection, the first commissioned by Christ to the take the news to others etc
How is Jesus on war profiteers, drug lobbyists pressuring doctors to overprescribe fentanyl and industralists who dump enough PFOA in the water supply to cause a noticeable increase of cancer rates?
The way we know scripture is human-sourced is because sins are about how people have sex rather than how people cause death, cost, destruction and disease affecting people by the millions.
Even our fictional supervillains nor The Devil, Himself can compare to IRL capitalist plutocrats.
Removed by mod
I think it’s actually a really good passage to show the Christian faith currently on display because of the next 2 verses
2 It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble. 3 So watch yourselves. “If your brother or sistersins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them. 4 Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying ‘I repent,’ you must forgive them.”
So it’s a verse about mercy and forgiveness but this person took home -checks notes- waterboarding. Sounds legit.
Removed by mod
And with the context around it, makes even less sense.
Luke 17: 1 Then said he unto the disciples, It is impossible but that offences will come: but woe unto him, through whom they come!
2 It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.
3 Take heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him.
4 And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him.
5 And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith.
Why does that feel like a non sequitur? The whole thing seems to be about forgiving an asshole for being a dick seven times a day as long as he says sorry (especially since being a dick is a given), but where does the little ones even come in?
Kind of bad advice, either way.
It’s because this is coming from Mark 9:42, where in Mark 9:36-37 he takes a small child and says whoever welcomes the child welcomes him.
Which follows Mark 9:35 where in answer to “who is the greatest apostle” he replies the one who becomes “servant to all” almost verbatim from 1 Cor 9:19 where Paul described himself as a slave to all.
Paul was only a small child at the time Jesus was doing his thing, and described himself as the last apostle as well as being slave to all.
So the passage was about backdating the legitimacy for Paul’s being welcomed as “slave to all” and the “last of all” who was one such child being welcomed in his name.
This passage then connected the presence of this hypothetical child to the sayings about better to die/cut off hand/etc than sin. That original part with the child is located elsewhere in Luke 9:46-48, separated from this other part here, so in Luke it is literally missing its context.
(The only thing I still really miss from Reddit is /r/AcademicBiblical…)
Ah, that makes sense. I mean, at least more sense at least. Thanks for the context!
I probably won’t ever get around to reading those old books (which as an atheist makes sense, although I always find it funny athiests know the Bible more than religious people do lol).
I was just angry about this the other day while I was driving home and listening to the Data over Dogma podcast (theist but very open minded Bible scholar chats with an atheist about the history of the bible) I am getting kinda annoyed at this lifestyle.
Maybe I just don’t want to believe in sky-daddy. Is that so much to ask? Maybe I don’t want to have a pile of books on Bible text analysis and spend my free time studying that fuck awful book anymore. Maybe I don’t want to try to be an expert on philosophy, logic, evolutionary biology, Big Bang cosmology, what random really means in QM theory, Pali Canon, the Vedas, the Korean, and human+animal psychology.
I feel like every time I am on some site or talking to someone about this subject like I have to dwarf their knowledge on every single avenue of attack when the burden of proof shouldn’t be on me. It is their fucking claim, fucking defend it!
Oh, I heard about that podcast-- I think a host was a guest on Scathing Athiest.
What I learned from dating a preachers daughter a long time ago is that at least all that prep in evolution, psychology, etc, made me a much better, more knowledge person (which helped a lot in going to college, grad school, etc). I appreciate that aspect, even if it sucked at the time and involved a lot of heated debate and temporary blocked AIM accounts.
A good push for a bad reason, especially since they inevitably could not see reason. Some people aren’t worth the effort, but I would hate to have to put on that fight for family members or other loved ones.
I miss that sub as well. I wish they had a once a week open mic kinda deal.
Chatgpt works wonders for this btw. I noticed something in Mark I didn’t get a few months ago. No one responded to my question in that sub but chatgpt was there ready to engage. It is loaded with biblical scholarship and can even do a bit of speculation.
ChatGPT is very susceptible to poor source selection when it comes to biblical scholarship because of the preponderance of apologetics online, just be aware.
And I have been copying the open discussion threads into !AcademicBiblical@lemmy.world (created by one of the mods from the sub) in the hopes that there’s eventually a bit of activity over there in turn. Feel free to repost the question in one of those and given the relative silence so far, it might stand out a bit more in terms of getting an answer?
Yeah I appreciate the warning and I have noticed it has a slant. Still for nitty gritty stuff it is amazing. Mark for example is a fairly terse. So I had it do a unique word count on it and compared it to unique word counts in other Greek Documents and confirmed it. That would have been a fairly painful project only a few months ago.
I took your advice and posted. https://lemmy.world/post/2354097 I guess I have Mark on my mind today. Haha
True. Though “repent” doesn’t just mean saying sorry.
I think Mathew’s interpretation of events to be kind of more straightforward…
Both Matthew and Luke are pulling it from Mark 9.
It’s because it’s coming from Mark 9 where there’s a kid, but it was split up in Luke to the kid being in Luke 9 and the saying here in Luke 17.
There’s also 1 Timothy 2:12 “But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.”
So these women are in direct violation of the New Testament. Women cannot teach men, per GOD. If you’re gonna tell me God himself is wrong in his own handwriting, I have a bridge to sell you. /s
Disclaimer: I am a dirty, happy atheist.
Which itself has a very interesting backstory, as around 80% of academics recognize 1 Timothy as a second century forgery, and around half think the part in 1 Cor about women teaching is a later interpolation.
There was a sect of early Christianity which was my main research interest who claimed their sect came from a woman teacher. This group had a fair bit of overlap with the things Paul rejects in Corinth, who he says “recieved a different gospel/version of Jesus.”
In the late first century, Corinth deposes the elders sent by the Roman church and the bishop of Rome writes them another letter (1 Clement) where he repeatedly emphasizes that youth should defer to their elders and that women should obey their husbands and be silent.
So you probably had a competing sect of early Christianity with an emphasis on youth and women (as this later ‘heretical’ sect did) which was causing trouble for the group who had better financing and institutional support, which later forges and possibly alters letters to denounce their competition by attacking their practices, one of which happened to be empowered women.
And then we got two millennia of misogyny that persists until today.
It’s a real shame too. That other later sect is the only religious group in Western antiquity I’m familiar with that was centrally incorporating Greek atomism, which was the context in which they interpreted the mustard seed and sower parables - likely coming from Lucretius using the term for ‘seed’ in place of atomos in his widely celebrated poem on naturalism 50 years before Jesus was born, where he even described failed biological reproduction as “seed falling by the wayside of the path”. (The sower parable is much more interesting with this perspective in mind, and might explain why in Mark it’s the only one given a secret explanation in private which clumsily interpolates the scene where it takes place.)
While Christianity became unambiguously misogynistic, it’s doubted whether or not this sentiment actually reflects the historical Paul and the early churches he moved amongst. Faced with having to choose which of his writings are more genuine: the inclusive writings or heavily patriarchal writings, it really does seem his more radical opinions were watered down by the later church which caved in to the pressure of the existing misogyny.
Paul regarded that men and women had equal access to Christ’s grace (Gal 3:28) within a discourse in which he explains the point of law is a temporary restraint to limit sin but ultimately it ought to fall away. He names and thanks dozens of women in helping to run and support the house church networks. He names “Junia” as the only names female apostle (Romans 16:7). Calls others “co workers” and “fellow servants” in the gospel.
It all falls in line with the traditions that are least likely to have been invented given the prevailing sentiment : that women were the financial support of Christ’s ministry (Luke 8:3), the first portrayed as gathering others to Christ (John 4:27-30), the first witnesses of the resurrection, the first commissioned by Christ to the take the news to others etc
How is Jesus on war profiteers, drug lobbyists pressuring doctors to overprescribe fentanyl and industralists who dump enough PFOA in the water supply to cause a noticeable increase of cancer rates?
The way we know scripture is human-sourced is because sins are about how people have sex rather than how people cause death, cost, destruction and disease affecting people by the millions.
Even our fictional supervillains nor The Devil, Himself can compare to IRL capitalist plutocrats.
God can compare, though. He is a villain to many.
Th Galations one is also very loosely related to the sign.
Removed by mod
I mean, I see how he got there from here, but holy shit is it a big leap.