Was Jesus such a great guy after all?

by Hellrider 37 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Hellrider

  Matthew

  15:21 After going out from there, Jesus went to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 15:22 A Canaanite woman from that area came and cried out, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is horribly demon-possessed!” 15:23 But he did not answer her a word. Then his disciples came and begged him, “Send her away, because she keeps on crying out after us.” 15:24 So he answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” 15:25 But she came and bowed down before him and said, “Lord, help me!” 15:26 “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs,” he said. 15:27 “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” 15:28 Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, your faith is great! Let what you want be done for you.” And her daughter was healed from that hour.

  So ok, he helped her. But not until he had refused it once, and called her a dog. That sucks, Jesus...
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  luna2

  Yeah, sometimes he didn't seem like such a great guy, did he?

  Being God's son and all, I'm sure he just knew that if he set it up right, he'd get a good parable out of it.
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  lily of the valley

  Hi all, I'm not great on dogma and diatribe and won't be quoting any scriptures because I don't "believe".

  But the internal logic of the book ( in its new testament version as in the old) is flawed. God is supposedly "love" but that love only extends to " the chosen". That is precisely the logic of the WTS and its adherents, or of the people of the Book etc.

  Jesus was not a Santa Claus type figure, God certainly was not. A patriarchal , nationalistic , exclusive religion could hardly give birth to a universal God of "love". These things only seem troubling if we look at them from a 21 Century hippy altruistic point of view whereby we tend to naively think everything should be "fair" and want the Jesus figure to morph into a good fairy sort of character.

  So no, he was not such a good guy - who said he was?

  And good night to all.
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  sir82

  Ha, you think that's bad?

  At Mark 1:41, in the account of the leper that Jesus cleansed ("I want to", etc.), one of the oldest surviving manuscripts reads that Jesus felt angry when the leper approached him, rather than "compassionate". Several later Latin manuscripts also include this wording.

  Per the author of "Misquoting Jesus", Bart Ehrman, there are several other compelling reasons to believe that this may be what the original writer of Mark put down, which in the interest of brevity I will omit.
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  drew sagan

  Was Jesus such a great guy? There are LOTS of opinions on this, let me add mine.
  Because of the image burned into many of our heads as to what Jesus was like we all have a view based much upon what we want to see. Many of our modern day images of Christ portray him in such a very mild and meek manner.
  On the other extreme is those who point to the Bible and say look! Jesus wasn't so nice after all. He was a rough and tough here, got pissed over here, cursed a tree over there, the list can go on and on.
  To me it seems like the gospel writers each put in the information they felt was important to THEIR AUDIENCE, not us! I think that many of the first followers of Jesus, even those who never met him had a very differant idea of who he was and what he was like. They wern't paraded with beatuiful renaissance paintings and plastic dashboard christs.
  I also would like to add that many of the stories about Christ as told in the Gospels seem to have been added by the writers in order not just to tell us how nice Jesus was, but to also make a larger point. The account you mentioned in your post is an example of such.
  Just my opinon.
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  Spectrum

  Interesting thread, I always saw him as portrayed by hollywood, a self-sacrificing Mr Nice guy.
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  lovelylil

  For any that are interested in knowing - The reason christ said he was to go to the lost sheep of Israel first is that they were the first ones invited to be kings and priests in God's coming kingdom. Because they were originally the chosen nation of God. However, later on when most did not accept the invitation, it went out to the gentiles (Matthew 28:19,20).

  In Romans chapter 11 though, Paul brings out that it was always God's plan to invite the gentiles into the kingdom. But, the Jews had first choice. God used the unbelief of the Jewish nation to open up the invitation to everyone.

  By going to the Jews first it may seem like Jesus was uncaring but it is just not the case. He was following the plan that God laid out knowing full well that the gentiles would be cared for also.
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  Hellrider

  Well, I`ve always liked the part where he went nuts in the temple and tipped the tables over and yelled and stuff...I sometimes want to do that myself...

  But I have just recently begun to see things I don`t like about him, in certain verses. I don`t like that passage where he lets that woman anoint him with oil either, because as Judas said, it could have been sold and the money given to the poor (it`s in either John or Luke, can`t remember). I know the writer has two points in that particular passage, to mention that Judas was a thief (come to think of it, it must be in John), and also to "anoint" Jesus, according to jewish tradition,but still, if Jesus was such a cool guy, he would have sold the jar of ...anointing-stuff (...) and given the money to the poor. And seriously, if I had done the thing he did in Matthew, refused to help a sick/hurt/needing person because of the persons ethnicity (lol, like "nope biatch, I`m gonna stick to my own kin, yessir, now get your ass back to whereever you came from"), then I would be labelled a biggot (and rightly so). What bugs me about that verse, is that this tribal behaviour (sticking to ones own kind) is common (and perhaps natural?) among humans, but Jesus, being the son of god and all, was supposed to be better than that, shouldn`t he...

  (oh, and of course, I know that we have no guarantee Jesus even did that in reality, it is just a story written by someone in Matthews name, but anyway...this is the way it is presented to us).

  
  
  
  Oh and Lovelylill: I have a problem with that whole "Gods chosen people"-idea. Am I not as much worth as a jew? There are no particular biological differences between jews, whites, blacks etc. Of course, contrary to popular opinion (and what is politically correct to say out loud), there might be small biological differences between the races, even in average IQ, and jews are considered to be very intelligent people. But I am a human being, and I am no less Gods child (if he exists, that is ) than a jew. So, what if I had been born as a non-jew before Jesus? Then I wouldn`t have had any chance of "entering the kingdom"? Or what?...Why would GOD himself even have a "chosen people"? Aren`t we all humans? It just doesn`t make any sense...
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  Leolaia

  The main problem of course is that the gospels portray Jesus in different ways and reflect different traditions and later elaborations of traditions, so to what extent does the representation reflect the concerns and ideas of later Christians and to what extent does the representation reflect the actual personality and deeds of a "historical" Jesus? There have been many attempts to sort these issues out (such as the efforts of the Jesus Seminar), but unfortunately, the endeavor is necessarily subjective and the "Jesus" that one comes up with (i.e. the apocalyptic Jesus of Schweitzer, the Cynic social critic Jesus of Crossan, etc.) depends greatly on the assumptions one brings to the plate. The best one can do imho is to explore the evidence and acknowledge its complexity, tho there are some probable findings not on the "historical" Jesus but on how certain gospel traditions developed subsequently.

  The story in question, for instance, survives in two main forms, the original version in Mark 7:24-30 and the elaborated version in Matthew 15:21-28:

  Mark 7:24-30: "And from there he arose and went away to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And he entered a house, and would not have any one know it; yet he could not be hid. But immediately a woman, whose little daughter was possessed by an unclean spirit, heard of him, and came and fell down at his feet. Now the woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenecian by birth. And she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. And he said to her, 'Let the children first be fed, for it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.' But she answered him, 'Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.' And he said to her, 'For his saying you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter.' And she went home, and found the child lying in bed, and the demon gone".

  Matthew 15:21-28: "And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and cried, 'Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely possessed by a demon.' But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and begged him, saying, 'Send her away, for she is crying after us.' He answered, 'I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.' But she came and knealt before him, saying, 'Lord, help me.' And he answered, 'It is not fair to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.' She said, 'Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table.' Then Jesus answered her, 'O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.' And her daughter was healed instantly".

  The Matthean version has intensified some of the elements of the Markan version for dramatic effect; for instance, the third person description of the woman's conversation with Jesus is turned into a first-person dialogue. The way Jesus treats the woman is also considerably different. In the Matthean version, Jesus ignores her at first and the disciples urge him to have her removed from their presence....none of this happens in the Markan version, which presents Jesus as giving a direct response to the woman's plea.

  And his response is also substantially different. In the Matthean version, he gives a more negative response; he says that "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" and "it is not fair to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs," implying that he would help only Jewish people. The statement that restricts Jesus' mission is found only in the Matthean version and resembles a similar statement in Matthew 10:6 which similarly is not paralleled in the Markan and Lukan versions of that passage. Also notice that it is the Matthean version which refers to her as a "Canaanite" who biblically were the enemies of the "house of Israel". Not only has the author of Matthew added the statement about the "lost sheep of the House of Israel," but he also has omitted the preface to Jesus' statement about the children's bread..."Let the children first (protón) be fed". The implication in the original Markan version is that Jesus will feed Gentiles as well, but he will do this after he has fed the Jewish people. The woman's reply to him similarly concerns the timing issue, she points out to him that the Gentiles can be fed at the same time as the Jews, just as dogs eating scraps from the table. The Matthean version turns Jesus' response into a denial that he was going to feed the Gentiles in the first place. Thus, Jesus comes across as harsher in Matthew than in Mark, at least as it concerns this single incident. This difference is usually attributed to the more Gentile orientation of Mark (i.e. written for a Gentile audience, with more clearly Pauline theology), while Matthew was written clearly for a Jewish audience (with some polemic against antinomian Christianity). Of course, in both versions Jesus does refer to Gentiles as "dogs", as was the common attitude at the time. But was this the attitude of Jesus himself or the author of Mark who was responsible for composing the story?
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  plmkrzy

  He was a pot smoker