Something Bad Jesus Did

[Ben Masada]

Something Bad Jesus Did


Once, I was asked if there was anything bad Jesus did in his life. I thought for
a while and the following came to my mind:

Yes, there was something Jesus did, which I wish he had not done, because it
does not represent well the People he belonged to.

Once a Gentile Canaanite mother was crying after him, asking for her daughter to
be cured, and Jesus would not give a damn about her. His disciples told him to do
something for that woman or discard her, because she was making them go crazy
with her non-stop crying.

What did Jesus say? I haven't come for Gentiles but ONLY for the House of
Israel. Then, kept on going and the woman kept on crying and following him.

When he could not take any longer, he stopped and told her something like: Hey,
listen, what do you want from me? To cure my daughter Master. No way, I cannot
take of the food of the children and throw it unto the dogs.

He meant the Jews for the children, and the Gentiles for the dogs. But only
after the woman understood and recognized her condition of dog, by saying that
the dogs also feed from the crumbles that fall from the table of the children,
Jesus saw that he would never get rid of that woman. So, he changed his mind and
cured her daughter. Then, to erase a little the impression left on her for being
forced to recognize her doggy condition, he mentioned something about her strong
faith and left.

That was terrible, if we can imagine what that poor woman went through till she
got what she wanted. The text is in Matthew 15:21-28.

Ben

[kayky]

Most of what you say on this site seems to be based on a Christian fundamentalist point of view. Understood correctly, Christianity is not a distortion of Judaism. Why wouldn't a gentile religion contain Helenistic ideas? As Christianity spread across Europe, it adopted many ideas from the pagan religions it encountered there as well. So Christianity is nothing like Judaism. It is unreasonable for you to expect it to be.

[Artheos]

Greetings,



She appeared to take no offense, have you considered the implications of that in your thoughts about this passage?

Mark 7:24-30 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se ... version=47;

And from there he arose and went away to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And he entered a house and did not want anyone to know, yet he could not be hidden.
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 Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth. And she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter.
And he said to her, “Let the children be fed first, 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 this statement 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.

How could that poor mother show that she was offended? As long as there was a drop of hope for her daughter to get cured, anything was fair game. The issue, therefore, is not the feelings of the woman but Jesus' attitude. Besides, it was unnecessary. Jesus had no interest in Gentiles to test the faith of that woman.

Yet, the demon was gone when she went home.

You take offense at the analogy, are you claiming that using it was a sin?

What does the analogy mean to you?

[Jonah]

I don't know if this contribution will help, but I'll try. In my own emotional personal view, I feel the tragedy in the first century divorce between gentile Christians and the Jewish Christians under James. The tragedy, to me, is that the Jewish Christian movment lived for quite awhile in an increasingly declining state until it was, for all practical purposes, snuffed out....although the monophysite Christians of the Middle East claim descedency from the Jewish Christians. So, while yes, gentile Christianity did become something quite different from Judaism, it didn't have to go that way. But, it did. I guess it is for the modern Christian to evaluate that history as to whether any changes are called for in the present.

[Ben Masada]

Most of what you say on this site seems to be based on a Christian fundamentalist point of view. Understood correctly, Christianity is not a distortion of Judaism. Why wouldn't a gentile religion contain Helenistic ideas? As Christianity spread across Europe, it adopted many ideas from the pagan religions it encountered there as well. So Christianity is nothing like Judaism. It is unreasonable for you to expect it to be.

The opposite is true. Rather than to expect that Christianity be like Judaism, I fight the idea. My point is that by painting a religious Jew, which Jesus was, with the brushes of Greek Mythology, the image of Judaism is marred before those who are unaware of what being Jewish is.

[Ben Masada]

Greetings,





How could that poor mother show that she was offended? As long as there was a drop of hope for her daughter to get cured, anything was fair game. The issue, therefore, is not the feelings of the woman but Jesus' attitude. Besides, it was unnecessary. Jesus had no interest in Gentiles to test the faith of that woman.

Yet, the demon was gone when she went home.

You take offense at the analogy, are you claiming that using it was a sin?

What does the analogy mean to you?

Jews don't believe in demons. This is another evidence that the Jesus you are talking about was not Jewish. I take offense at employing a member of Judaism to bring the idea of demons into it.

The analogy to me, means an attempt of the NT or the Church to charge Israel with being a people of no faith vis-a-vis Gentiles. Hence, Replacement Theology.

[Artheos]

Greetings,





How could that poor mother show that she was offended? As long as there was a drop of hope for her daughter to get cured, anything was fair game. The issue, therefore, is not the feelings of the woman but Jesus' attitude. Besides, it was unnecessary. Jesus had no interest in Gentiles to test the faith of that woman.

Yet, the demon was gone when she went home.

You take offense at the analogy, are you claiming that using it was a sin?

What does the analogy mean to you?

Jews don't believe in demons. This is another evidence that the Jesus you are talking about was not Jewish. I take offense at employing a member of Judaism to bring the idea of demons into it.

The analogy to me, means an attempt of the NT or the Church to charge Israel with being a people of no faith vis-a-vis Gentiles. Hence, Replacement Theology.

This article indicates that Jews believed in demons: http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view. ... 5&letter=D

"Demons (Greek, δαίμονες or δαιμόνια; Hebrew, [Deut. xxxii. 17; Ps. cvi. 37] and [Lev. xvii. 7; II Chron. xi. 15; A. V. "devils"; Luther, "Feldgeister" and "Feldteufel"]; Aramaic, or rabbinical, and as spirits animating all elements of life and inhabiting all parts of the world, have their place in the primitive belief of all tribes and races."

If the Tanakh indicates demons, would you accept that Jews did indeed believe in demons?

[Jonah]

I haven't read the whole thread. But I hope somewhere, there is consideration given to the difference between Jesus of the NT and the historical Jesus, and the Christianity of the NT and the historical plurality of Christianity in the first century.

My own take is yes, Christianity and Judaism are different, and that's a mild thing to say in view of the anti-Judaism in the NT and other founding Church Fathers and their documents/teachings. But, for me, there is a certain "what could have been"...and "what should have been"...and "what could be".

My own creation is an assertion is that Christianity doesn't even exist...that it is yet to be real. It might become real if Christians someday decide that Jesus is not the Christ, but they are. This is not to be really insulting to Christians, but to say that one non-Christian's view is that things can get better in the future. Judaism evolved. Christianity could evolve.

The early Jewish Christian movement which was snuffed out by the Gentile Church has been described jocularly by some scholars as first century Lubivitcher Christianity. It was more Jewish than "Christian", and Jesus was more Schneerson than the Pantocrator of a church dome icon.

Demons. Demons was one of those things that arose in the intertestimental period generally out of mix of cultural influences. Stuff like that happens. And demon or goblin belief in early to mid centuries ce among Jews would be cultural bleeding from Christian culture. Stuff happens. And it unhappens. So. Ben Massada is right that today, you would be hard pressed to find Jews who believe in demons.

[kayky]

Most of what you say on this site seems to be based on a Christian fundamentalist point of view. Understood correctly, Christianity is not a distortion of Judaism. Why wouldn't a gentile religion contain Helenistic ideas? As Christianity spread across Europe, it adopted many ideas from the pagan religions it encountered there as well. So Christianity is nothing like Judaism. It is unreasonable for you to expect it to be.

The opposite is true. Rather than to expect that Christianity be like Judaism, I fight the idea. My point is that by painting a religious Jew, which Jesus was, with the brushes of Greek Mythology, the image of Judaism is marred before those who are unaware of what being Jewish is.

That's really a far stretch, Ben. Do you really fear that the Christian view of Jesus is a threat to Judaism? Are you really being honest about your motives?

[Ben Masada]

Greetings,





How could that poor mother show that she was offended? As long as there was a drop of hope for her daughter to get cured, anything was fair game. The issue, therefore, is not the feelings of the woman but Jesus' attitude. Besides, it was unnecessary. Jesus had no interest in Gentiles to test the faith of that woman.

Yet, the demon was gone when she went home.

You take offense at the analogy, are you claiming that using it was a sin?

What does the analogy mean to you?

Jews don't believe in demons. This is another evidence that the Jesus you are talking about was not Jewish. I take offense at employing a member of Judaism to bring the idea of demons into it.

The analogy to me, means an attempt of the NT or the Church to charge Israel with being a people of no faith vis-a-vis Gentiles. Hence, Replacement Theology.

This article indicates that Jews believed in demons: http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view. ... 5&letter=D

"Demons (Greek, δαίμονες or δαιμόνια; Hebrew, [Deut. xxxii. 17; Ps. cvi. 37] and [Lev. xvii. 7; II Chron. xi. 15; A. V. "devils"; Luther, "Feldgeister" and "Feldteufel"]; Aramaic, or rabbinical, and as spirits animating all elements of life and inhabiting all parts of the world, have their place in the primitive belief of all tribes and races."

If the Tanakh indicates demons, would you accept that Jews did indeed believe in demons?

Any mention of demons, devil or satan in the Tanach is metaphorical. Unless the Jews who believe in these things are as superstitious as Christians are.[/b]

[Ben Masada]

Double post deleted.