D'ja even read my post above, the one about Jesus bein' God? About God being the strict disciplinarian? The one with Matt 34:10? All that up there, or is it just too harshfully truthful to deal with right now?
I didn't read it, sorry. You hadn't posted it when I started to write my reply, and after I posted it I didn't check if you had posted another reply in between. I have read it now.
I think what a lot of liberals forget when they try to make this comparision is that Jesus is... God.
This is an interesting and valid point, but it is also one that I don't agree with. I realize that it has to do with faith. I know that Jesus says this in John 10:30:
I and [my] Father are one.
That would seem to clinch it. However, it is only in the Gospel of John that Jesus actually claims to be God. He doesn't say that in any of the other three gospels. If that had been an important part of Jesus' actual teachings, I think it would have been mentioned in Matthew, Mark and Luke as well. Since it isn't, I believe that this is the interpretation of John the Evangelist rather than any actual words of Jesus himself.
The same God who took out Sodom and Gamorrah in a rain of fire because it was full of deviants who'd rather screw the new guys in town than Lot's daughters.
Well, if Jesus is indeed the same person as God, then it was
Jesus who rained fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah. It was Jesus who drowned almost the whole world under the Flood. It was Jesus who tortured and killed little children in Egypt because Pharaoh wouldn't release the Israelites. It was Jesus who accepted that the warrior Jephthah killed his own daughter and sacrificed her to God - that is, to Jesus - as a burnt offering. It was Jesus who stood by and watched how the Israelites slaughtered all the women and children of the the city of Gibeah because men in Gibeah had raped a Levite's concubine. And it was Jesus who spoke through the Prophet Samuel and ordered King Saul to kill every last living being of the Amalekites in 1 Samuel 15:3:
Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.'"
Yes, we can choose to believe that Jesus is identical with God, so that whatever God did, Jesus did in equal measure. But I think there is scarce Biblical evidence for this idea, apart from John 10:30. Nevertheless, it certainly
is possible to interpret that passage as proof that Jesus is a deity who kills women and children and who is very warlike. (As for that passage from Matthew, Matthew 10:34, I have always believed that Jesus talked about the role he thought he would play as the Messiah, the King of the Jews, who was certainly supposed to attack the Roman occupiers. Another interpretation, equally probable, is that Jesus meant that his own teachings would bring strife to humanity, as some people would believe in him, and others would not.)
As far as Ann's question about what Jesus would think of rich folks, let me point out that one of Jesus's most famous parables is of a master who gives money to his servants and the servant who uses that money to make MORE is the one the master rewards the MOST, which to me seems that Jesus is comparing the spread of the word of Salvation with *HELLO* Prosperity!
This is one of parables of Jesus' that I myself find the most troubling, because here we really see Jesus' lack of compassion with the slaves. This is how the parable goes (Matthew 25:13-30):
13 “Therefore stay alert, because you do not know the day or the hour. 14 For it is like a man going on a journey, who summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them. 15 To one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. 16 The one who had received five talents went off right away and put his money to work270 and gained five more. 17 In the same way, the one who had two gained two more. 18 But the one who had received one talent went out and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money in it. 19 After a long time, the master of those slaves came and settled his accounts with them. 20 The one who had received the five talents came and brought five more, saying, "Sir, you entrusted me with five talents. See, I have gained five more.' 21 His master answered, "Well done, good and faithful slave! You have been faithful in a few things. I will put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your master.' 22 The one with the two talents also came and said, "Sir, you entrusted two talents to me. See, I have gained two more.' 23 His master answered, "Well done, good and faithful slave! You have been faithful with a few things. I will put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your master.' 24 Then the one who had received the one talent came and said, "Sir, I knew that you were a hard man, harvesting where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed, 25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. See, you have what is yours.' 26 But his master answered, "Evil and lazy slave! So you knew that I harvest where I didn't sow and gather where I didn't scatter? 27 Then you should have deposited my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received my money back with interest! 28 Therefore take the talent from him and give it to the one who has ten. 29 For the one who has will be given more, and he will have more than enough. But the one who does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. 30 And throw that worthless slave into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth'”
Jesus talks here of the punishing of an "evil and lazy slave". It is, of course, a parable meant to describe how God will deal with sinners at the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven.
It is interesting that some prophets in the Old Testament describe how men punish sinful women, and the prophets turn this woman-beating into a parable of how God's righteous wrath will strike all sinners. In other words, some of the Old Testament prophets turn men's punishment of women into a metaphor for God's punishment of sinners, and this comparison actually justifies men's punishment and ill-treatment of women. Jesus never talks about God's wrath as something that is directed at women (with the
possible exception of the parable of the wise and the foolish bridesmaids in Matthew 25:1-12). Therefore Jesus never justifies men's punishment of women in any way. Instead, Jesus uses the slave-owner's punishment of his slaves as a methaphor for God's punishment of sinners, and thereby Jesus sort of justifies the slave-owners' bad treatment of their slaves. I wish that Jesus hadn't done that, even though I am extremely grateful to him for not putting women in the position as "whipping-boys" or "whipping-girls".
But indeed, TEEEJ, you have located one of the passages from the Gospels that trouble me most, and which can be seen as showing Jesus as a man who approves of the oppression of slaves, and who is a supporter of the idea of giving ever more riches to those who are already rich, while making the poor ones ever poorer.
One very definite possibility is that the rich man in Jesus' parable should not be regarded as any rich person here on Earth, but rather as God himself, who will punish those of his servants that he is dissatisfied with. In that case, this parable wouldn't be a general defence of prosperity. But it might be just that, of course.
Anyway, while I won't try to argue that Jesus absolutely did not hold the views that seems to be inherent in this parable, I still maintain that most of the time, he spoke out sharply against the rich and defended the poor.
I get your point about Him hanging with the prostitutes and sinners too. Do you remember why He said He was hanging out with them? Because He wanted to HEAL them, FIX them, MAKE them stop sinning, by His example.
Jesus is rarely seen lecturing the fallen women. He usually defends them instead, like in this passage (Matthew 21:31-32):
Verily I say unto you, That the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you.
For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not: but the publicans and the harlots believed him: and ye, when ye had seen [it], repented not afterward, that ye might believe him.
When I talk about what Jesus did and said, all I read is the Gospels. I realize that you may choose to regard everything that God did as Jesus' handiwork, too. But if you read the Bible that way, then it seems to me that you very much play down what Jesus actually said and did while he lived and walked on this Earth. Nothing about Jesus becomes more uninteresting than the (compassionate) human being that he actually was. The focal point of Christianity becomes so "diluted" that the opinions of Paul, King David, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Malachi etcetera all matter more than the words of Jesus himself. But what would Jesus have been if he
hadn't come to the Earth as a human being? If he had stayed up in Heaven forever and only spoken through the Prophets? And what would Christianity have been without Jesus, the man who came from Nazareth and who lived here on Earth?
Ann
