tompicard said
yes I am trying to challenge this conceptKingdom’s arrival . . . transformational change that takes place in the Kingdom dissolves familial relations.
Yep – I didn’t mean to suggest that my (bald) assertion of my intuition somehow meant it was right, only that it was, like your view, also coherent at the aesthetic level. And also that it gets there without using divorce as its mechanism.
tompicard said
thanks to Robert for bringing up this earlier, I think it speaks against that idea
Robert said
Mark 10,28-31
Peter began to say to him, “Look, we have left everything and followed you.” Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”
of course this introduces some complications I cant explain
a)’this age’ where we have given up familial relations
b) later time but i guess still ‘this age’ when we receive back 100fold the same familial relations
c) ‘age to come’ when we gain eternal life
This passage can be read in several ways, and one of those ways is what I was hand-waving at earlier: namely, that in the ‘age to come’ one no longer has those things one has ‘in this age’. The contrast language does that work – it’s not dispositive, but it is the first order reading of the English (and I understand of the Greek, per Robert). It remains possible to read it otherwise – hence the richness of thought on display in this thread.
tompicard said
yes that’s correct he doesn’t demand all or many to make the immediate but temporary renunciation
but the familial blessing they receive are to be 100 fold,
Peter and others apparently didn’t renounce (at least later, backed up by Paul). I’ve always been intrigued by whether this changed post-Jesus ministry. The mention of Peter’s mother-in-law cuts against the later change theory a bit (or maybe not, if she was only future mother-in-law at the time of occurrence but actual by the time of the gospel retelling).
It is possible to interpret the widening of the aperture in the relational terms to be doing the multiplying. Everyone (amongst the believers) is your father/mother/sister/brother/son/daughter. Thereby erasing the old relation. Just an abstract thought that occurred to me.
tompicard said
godspell said
This is all begging the question . . He is well aware that while both husband and wife may claim the ri . . . seeming equity always favors the more financially secure partner,So he is preaching the imminent end of marriage, . . . He’s making an exception to that rule. . .. it reveals a certain earthy pragmatism to Jesus. He knows that in this world, people need helpmates,
it seems to me
you’re trying hard to rationalize something that isn’t meant to be rational.
[you remember that?]
No, I am not against your rationalizing an opposing view,
I’m glad to see you remember what I’ve said in past (I vaguely recall saying that), but I don’t think it’s quite the same thing. It’s not rationalizing to assume that other people–even visionaries–can have moments of rationality. And compassion.
Jesus, in my opinion, was a deeply compassionate person. His vision was not about imposing his will on others–since he believed it was God’s will he was serving–but rather about ending the pain and injustice he saw all around him, most of which was self-inflicted–humans hurting other humans, for no good reason. People not living up to their potential.
He understands human nature very well. (Far better than Plato ever did.) He knows that in the world we live in now, human behavior is going to remain pretty much the same. And he knows that people are not angels. So while it’s good in general for people to live as if the Kingdom has come, there may be circumstances where it leads to more abuses.
Bernard Shaw, much later, would preach free love and the end of marriage. But when young women came to him, asking his advice, enraptured by his feminist ideals (he believed women were better suited to govern than men), he’d tell them to watch out for lechers who just wanted to use this new morality to sleep with them without accepting the consequences. He told them to make damn sure they got that ring first, because they were not living in the glorious socialist future yet, and might indeed not live to see it.
There is a pragmatist at the core of every solid idealist, and I believe Jesus was one of those. Anyway, we’re just guessing here, but when you have a seeming contradiction, good idea to address it, no?
godspell, as usual your view of Jesus and his “psychology” is completely anachronistic. Your Jesus is as much a Jesus of faith as any pious believer. I suspect that if you really could access the psychology of the historical Jesus you would find it bizarre and repulsive. After all he believed that afflictions of the mind and body were caused by demonic possession. That he and his disciples, illiterate day laborers all, would rule the coming kingdom. When you hear people today make these sorts of claims do you feel the urge to seek out their wisdom? Historical critical analysis, as limited a tool as it is, gives us a glimpse of the world in which the real Jesus lived. If we’re not going to use it to eliminate these anachronistic fantasies then what’s the point?
—— tangent
practical or rational ?
godspell said
. but marriage is an established and necessary state in the world that exists now, . . .
. . . .it reveals a certain earthy pragmatism to Jesus.
Lukes version of sending out disciples
Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. Carry no purse or bag or sandals. Do not greet anyone along the road.
That Jesus realizes that his disciple are gonna meet wolves indicates he is rational
That he sends them out anyway with no purse or sandals indicates he is impractical
see also,
Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear.
as an indication that he is impractical
[ but this is prophetic tradition see Jeremiah (naked?), Hosea, etc]
I’d be fine with practical, but is practicality not rationality put to a good use? (I mean, as opposed to the rather limited and conditional use we put it to here.)
Very nice observations. Wish I’d thought of that wolf quote back when we were arguing about whether the disciples got mugged often. Probably not twice by the same people. What would be the point?
Robert said
Is divorce the opposite of marriage? Or is not getting married the opposite of marriage? Paul recommends the latter course, not the former.
Robert I don’t not know whether you are exactly disagreeing with above or not but I do think the argument 1) holds
Bart summed what the examples he gave expressed, in the same post, I repeat below as premise A)
A) Jesus taught an apocalyptic ethics. People should behave now in ways that reveal what life will be like then, in the kingdom.
B) In the Kingdom marriage will be obsolete
Therefore
C) People who are single should remain single and people who are married should get divorced (or at least live as if they are)
If you accept A) and B) the C) must be true, or if C) is false then either A) or B) is false.
I think that is what we learned in Logic courses.
There is basically no possibility Jesus was telling people to get divorced. Nor do I think it likely he thought people would get married or even remain married, in the Kingdom.
Socrates, in Plato’s Apology, says that he will not obey orders to stop teaching his philosophy, even if imprisoned.
But when offered the chance to escape, he says he must obey the law and accept his penalty.
How is this any less of a contradiction? It’s actually worse (and there are multiple possible explanations, one of which is that he preferred to die, given his age, and available range of options).
It’s really impossible to have a vision, a system of ethics, that never contradicts itself, when faced with material reality. Life is too complicated, too full of contradictory elements, and so are we. It isn’t just Jesus. It’s everybody. It’s every system ever contrived, every system that ever will be contrived.
So why hold him to a higher standard? You know what Emerson said about a foolish consistency.
A) Jesus mandates that people behave in (some or all) ways that adhere to the way one will ultimately live in the Kingdom.
For the logic to carry from A to C, one must choose ‘all’ for the range of ‘ways’ in A. But, it is not physically (or ethically) possible for one to live a full-tilt Kingdom eternal life, not in this age. So, the range of ‘ways’ in A must be narrowed.
The tricky part would be if two people mutually wanted to separate, but of course they’d do that anyway. They wouldn’t need Jesus to tell them what to do. I’m not sure how common no-fault divorces were in 1st century Palestine, but that’s neither here nor there.
Jesus wanted to convince people. Okay, so let’s say he did tell people they should just walk away from their marriages. Never mind divorce. What’s the point, since the Kingdom will give everyone who makes it an automatic annulment–and obviously a lot of marriages will be composed of one person who will be in the Kingdom, and another who won’t. Just give everything you have to the poor, follow Jesus, leave your family behind. Which as Robert says, is not behaving in a manner befitting of the Kingdom, since you’d decidedly not be doing unto others as you’d have them do unto you.
But the point is, if Jesus gets one particular man or woman to say “I’m not married anymore” and behave accordingly, that’s going to create a lot of ill feeling–in that person’s family, and in the surrounding community. As tompicard has pointed out, Jesus does show a pragmatic side in many of his directions to his disciples. He’s not all “Trust in God and all will be well.” God isn’t calling on us to be feckless idiots. (If that were the case, we’d all be saints.)
😉
Hngerhman said
A) Jesus mandates that people behave in (some or all) ways that adhere to the way one will ultimately live in the Kingdom.For the logic to carry from A to C, one must choose ‘all’ for the range of ‘ways’ in A. But, it is not physically (or ethically) possible for one to live a full-tilt Kingdom eternal life, not in this age. So, the range of ‘ways’ in A must be narrowed.
Perfection isn’t possible in the world we live in. Jesus doesn’t think he’s perfect–he doesn’t even call himself good! The least in the Kingdom is greater than him or John the Baptist. Therefore, he understands there must be some compromising of ideals in this world. Do the best you can.
I have been presenting alternative view than Bart, I am not claiming (using word that i recently needed to look up) what I have presented is fully dispositive .
you all are capable of deciding which is more likely, or just say there isn’t enough info.
I personally think the strongest argument is Jesus’ quotes/thinking regarding man and woman from Genesis prior to introduction sin.
godspell said
Stephen, as ever, I am awed by your exquisite manners and calm non-emotive presentation.As to anachronisms, you would know, since you are one.
😉
Well if you don’t think Jesus was an apocalypticist then we have something to discuss. If you think Jesus thought just like you there’s something else to discuss. But if all you can do is criticize what you think I’m feeling when I’m writing then we have nothing to discuss. In any sort of debate resorting to ad hominem is simply an admission that you can’t answer the critique being offered. But this is all we get from you it seems. Unfounded assumptions and personal attacks. But this is all well-trodden turf. As tedious to read no doubt as it is to write.
If you agree that Jesus was an apocalypticist then try to think through the implications of that. What that would have meant in Jesus’ own time and in his own place. The first thing you’ll realize is that he didn’t think like us at all. He thought he was the king of the world. All his opponents were demonically possessed. For me the whole purpose of studying ancient history is to encounter minds different than my own. To spend all my time projecting my own complexes and prejudices onto them is a complete waste. Any window we build to see into the past must of necessity be as non-reflective as possible. Otherwise we simply fool ourselves.
But I’m wasting my time telling you all this, huh?
I suppose then we have nothing to discuss. (You are damned slow on the uptake.)
And I’d say the time-wasting has been about equally shared. (If not the excess verbiage.)
So can I inquire as to why you keep urging me to stay?
(Hmmm–never did get around to reading De Sade…….)
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