We are at Mark 10:10, still in the divorce passage. Back at the house, the disciples ask Jesus to clarify his position on divorce. He says, "Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery." I just got this thought: what if all the in private explanations were not in the original story. What if they were added later by someone who wanted to provide more details to supplement anything Jesus said that was cryptic or unclear. There is no way to know but it would make sense. This part of the passage is used by christians to say that god is not only against divorce, but remarriage as well. According to my bible's commentary, the whole passage may have been a reference to the marriage of Herod Antipas and Herodias. Remember, John the baptist was beheaded for expressing his opinion on their divorce/remarriage situation.
Next, people are bringing children to Jesus to touch, presumably because they believed he had magic powers. The disciples tried to stop it, but Jesus told them to let the children come. Again, he says "the kingdom of god belongs to such as these....anyone who will not receive the kingdom of god like a little child will never enter it." He blessed them, which means he said magical words that have no power but probably sounded good.
As Jesus was travelling, a rich young man ran up to Jesus fell on his knees, called Jesus "good teacher", and asked how to inherit eternal life. Then Jesus told the man not to call him good because only god is good. This is fascinating. Isn't Jesus supposed to be god in the flesh? Is Jesus actually saying he himself was not good? Is he a separate being from god? If Jesus was not good, then he couldn't have been a perfect sacrifice, could he?
Jesus tells the young man he needs to keep the commandments. The young man already does that. Then Jesus told him to sell everything he had and give to the poor, then follow him (I'm guessing that meant literally follow him around like the disciples.) The young man was sad, he didn't want eternal life bad enough to give up his earthly security. Jesus astonished the disciples by telling them it was practically impossible for the rich to enter the kingdom of god, which was probably against everything they had grown up believing. They wondered who could be saved if the rich couldn't. Jesus then tells them all things are possible with god.
Peter reminds Jesus that the disciples left everything to follow Jesus. (They have become itinerant religious beggars. What became of their families and their homes?)Jesus tells them that everyone who has left home and family for the gospel will receive a hundred times what they left, plus persecutions,(oh goody) "and in the age to come, eternal life." Their poor neglected families. Shame on Jesus. Funny thing, in the relatives-to-leave list, wives are not included. I guess that would be kind of odd since he just got through saying what God has joined, let not man separate. Didn't god also join families together? Why is Jesus separating them? But, someone says, it must be a figurative leaving, not literal. Oh, yeah? Read it again.
Jesus and the disciples are now on their way to Jerusalem. Jesus tells them, "The son of man will be betrayed to the chief priests and teachers of the law. They will hand him over to the gentiles who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later, he will rise." Jesus has a plan.
Next James and John, the sons of Zebedee ask Jesus a favor. They want to sit on his right and left hand in his glory. So, after being told multiple times that the least and last will be first and greatest, they are still jockeying for position. They want to be Jesus's top men. Jesus tells them they don't know what they are asking. "Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?" He has just told them what will happen to "the son of man" maybe they don't understand that he was talking about himself. They think they can take on whatever comes his way.
Jesus tells them they will,(a prophecy?) but he can't give James and John the positions they want. Those spots have been prepared for others. Who?
Showing posts with label divorce. Show all posts
Showing posts with label divorce. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 5, 2019
Thursday, January 31, 2019
Mark part seventeen
We are at Mark 9:38. John tells Jesus that the disciples saw someone casting out demon's in Jesus's name and they told that person to stop. Remember Jesus's name was the same as Joshua of the old Testament. He surely wasn't the only person in first century Israel with that name either. Could people have been trying to cast out demons in the name of Joshua without realizing there was a specific living person with that name who might claim a monopoly on exorcisms? Jesus told John not to stop the people who were doing that, because if they could do a miracle in Jesus's name, they had to be on his side. "Whoever is not against us is for us." Tell that to all the "true christians" who think that just being for Jesus is not enough.
The next part is weird. Jesus starts talking about children again, giving a curse to anyone who would cause one to sin. That last dialog with John had to have been inserted later. Next, Jesus talks about body parts that cause one to sin, saying it would be better to remove the offending body part than to end up in hell. Expendable parts include eyes, hands, and feet. It's a good thing most versions of christianity never took this seriously. Then there is a bit about salt losing its saltiness, which makes no sense.
We are now at chapter ten. The disciples are on the move again, into the region of Judea across the Jordan. Across the Jordan from what? The last place the text said they were was Capernaum. Look at this map and see if verse 10:1 makes sense.
Jesus attracts crowds of people, including pharisees. They ask him if it is lawful for a man to divorce his wife. Jesus asks, "What did Moses say?" (Notice it was not "What did god say?") Apparently the law of Moses said a man could write a certificate of divorce and send his wife away, if..."he finds something indecent about her." What was considered indecent is not specified. Also, a woman did not have the same privilege of divorcing her husband and sending him away. In fact, a woman who was on her second marriage was "defiled," but not the man. (Deut. 24:1-4)
Now Jesus qualifies the law of Moses. He says the only reason Moses let the people divorce was because their hearts were hard, which generally means they were stubborn. So divorce was let slide, even though it hurt women's social/economic/religious standing. But picking up sticks on the Sabbath was punishable by death, even though it hurt no one. Then Jesus says, "At the beginning of creation god made them male and female. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one. Therefore what god has joined together, let man not separate." This teaching of Jesus's was directly addressing men and divorce. He is telling the men they can't just get rid of their wives whenever they want. Yet many christian groups have a percentage of divorced members that is not far off that of the general population. In spite of Jesus's admonition, Christians have been getting divorced for centuries. Thankfully, today's christian women have just as much right as a man to divorce.
This passage of Jesus's is also used to define marriage in today's fundamentalist circles as one woman and one man. The polygamy of the patriarchs is never addressed in the new testament. Does that mean god has no problem with a man having many wives? Can a man be "one flesh" with more than one woman? The Deuteronomy passage makes it clear that a woman having more than one husband makes her defiled, but the only reason she would have had more than one husband is if her first husband divorced her. So, technically, it's not her fault, right?
We won't address the creation of men and women here. You all do know that the creation story of Adam and Eve is a myth, right? Male and female creatures existed long before humankind evolved. They had sexual union to procreate, yet they did not have a social institution called marriage and life went on. Marriage was invented by humans.
The next part is weird. Jesus starts talking about children again, giving a curse to anyone who would cause one to sin. That last dialog with John had to have been inserted later. Next, Jesus talks about body parts that cause one to sin, saying it would be better to remove the offending body part than to end up in hell. Expendable parts include eyes, hands, and feet. It's a good thing most versions of christianity never took this seriously. Then there is a bit about salt losing its saltiness, which makes no sense.
We are now at chapter ten. The disciples are on the move again, into the region of Judea across the Jordan. Across the Jordan from what? The last place the text said they were was Capernaum. Look at this map and see if verse 10:1 makes sense.
Jesus attracts crowds of people, including pharisees. They ask him if it is lawful for a man to divorce his wife. Jesus asks, "What did Moses say?" (Notice it was not "What did god say?") Apparently the law of Moses said a man could write a certificate of divorce and send his wife away, if..."he finds something indecent about her." What was considered indecent is not specified. Also, a woman did not have the same privilege of divorcing her husband and sending him away. In fact, a woman who was on her second marriage was "defiled," but not the man. (Deut. 24:1-4)
Now Jesus qualifies the law of Moses. He says the only reason Moses let the people divorce was because their hearts were hard, which generally means they were stubborn. So divorce was let slide, even though it hurt women's social/economic/religious standing. But picking up sticks on the Sabbath was punishable by death, even though it hurt no one. Then Jesus says, "At the beginning of creation god made them male and female. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one. Therefore what god has joined together, let man not separate." This teaching of Jesus's was directly addressing men and divorce. He is telling the men they can't just get rid of their wives whenever they want. Yet many christian groups have a percentage of divorced members that is not far off that of the general population. In spite of Jesus's admonition, Christians have been getting divorced for centuries. Thankfully, today's christian women have just as much right as a man to divorce.
This passage of Jesus's is also used to define marriage in today's fundamentalist circles as one woman and one man. The polygamy of the patriarchs is never addressed in the new testament. Does that mean god has no problem with a man having many wives? Can a man be "one flesh" with more than one woman? The Deuteronomy passage makes it clear that a woman having more than one husband makes her defiled, but the only reason she would have had more than one husband is if her first husband divorced her. So, technically, it's not her fault, right?
We won't address the creation of men and women here. You all do know that the creation story of Adam and Eve is a myth, right? Male and female creatures existed long before humankind evolved. They had sexual union to procreate, yet they did not have a social institution called marriage and life went on. Marriage was invented by humans.
Thursday, February 15, 2018
The sermon on the mount, part five
After telling his disciples to be more righteous than the pharisees, who make a point of obeying the law, Jesus explains how to do that by going one step further. He also covers some points of law that are not included in the ten commandments, but are found in the broader context of the many rules and regulations god supposedly gave to Moses, apart from the ones carved in stone. He starts with a point of law, then expands the requirements necessary to avoid hell/damnation.
*First (Matt. 5:21-22), is murder, found in the ten commandments. Not murdering anyone is not enough though. You also must not get angry with anyone (some manuscripts say without cause, a little loophole.) or face judgement. This is not found in Luke.
*Second, saying "raca" (Apparently a grievous insult that insinuates someone has nothing between their ears) to anyone can land you in front of the sanhedrin, the Jewish court. However, Jesus says even calling someone a fool, presumably a lesser offense, can land you in the fires of hell (gehenna). This is not found in Luke.
*Third, it's not enough to give a sacrificial gift to god, you must first go and make sure you correct any relationship issues first. Wise advice. After that, you won't even need to go make your sacrifice. Not found in Luke.
*Fourth is practical advice to settle monetary disputes out of court if you don't want to end up in jail. Not found in Luke.
*Fifth is adultery, found in the ten commandments. It is not enough to never commit adultery physically. A man must also never look at a woman (presumably one he is not married to) lustfully. This is deemed equivalent to the actual act of adultery. It occurs in the "heart" instead of the body. The body, however, seems to take the blame. A man would be better off without eyes than to look, lust, and land in hell. He would also be better off without his right hand, too. What's his hand got to do with it? Shall we read between the lines? Have you noticed yet that these these teachings are directed primarily at men? This is not found in Luke.
*Sixth is divorce. Jesus says "It has been said, anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce." The old testament law doesn't actually say that. It is what the Jews came up with from reading Deuteronomy 24:1-2. It says, "IF a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her (basically he thinks she was not a virgin Deut 22:12-14), let him write her a certificate of divorce, give it to her and sends her from his house, and after she leaves his house if she becomes the wife of another man, and her second husband....writes a certificate of divorce...the first husband is not allowed to marry her again....That would be detestable in the eyes of the lord." There is no command to give certificates of divorce, unless you want to quibble with semantics, but there is an inference that certificates of divorce are the standard procedure.
Anyway, Jesus says in Matt. 5:31-32 that anyone who divorces his wife , except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery. This is echoed in Luke 16:18, but is not part of the comparable sermon. There, it is more of an afterthought stuck in between two parables. Matthew reapeats himself in 19:7 and Mark also chimes in with similar words in Mark 10:4. Those last two references are in a context of Jesus having a discussion about divorce. We will not go into a broad discussion of divorce here. The basic idea is any man is an adulterer if he marries a divorced woman, and a divorced woman is an adulterer no matter who she marries. There are no guidelines for a woman who wants to divorce her husband.
More to come.
*First (Matt. 5:21-22), is murder, found in the ten commandments. Not murdering anyone is not enough though. You also must not get angry with anyone (some manuscripts say without cause, a little loophole.) or face judgement. This is not found in Luke.
*Second, saying "raca" (Apparently a grievous insult that insinuates someone has nothing between their ears) to anyone can land you in front of the sanhedrin, the Jewish court. However, Jesus says even calling someone a fool, presumably a lesser offense, can land you in the fires of hell (gehenna). This is not found in Luke.
*Third, it's not enough to give a sacrificial gift to god, you must first go and make sure you correct any relationship issues first. Wise advice. After that, you won't even need to go make your sacrifice. Not found in Luke.
*Fourth is practical advice to settle monetary disputes out of court if you don't want to end up in jail. Not found in Luke.
*Fifth is adultery, found in the ten commandments. It is not enough to never commit adultery physically. A man must also never look at a woman (presumably one he is not married to) lustfully. This is deemed equivalent to the actual act of adultery. It occurs in the "heart" instead of the body. The body, however, seems to take the blame. A man would be better off without eyes than to look, lust, and land in hell. He would also be better off without his right hand, too. What's his hand got to do with it? Shall we read between the lines? Have you noticed yet that these these teachings are directed primarily at men? This is not found in Luke.
*Sixth is divorce. Jesus says "It has been said, anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce." The old testament law doesn't actually say that. It is what the Jews came up with from reading Deuteronomy 24:1-2. It says, "IF a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her (basically he thinks she was not a virgin Deut 22:12-14), let him write her a certificate of divorce, give it to her and sends her from his house, and after she leaves his house if she becomes the wife of another man, and her second husband....writes a certificate of divorce...the first husband is not allowed to marry her again....That would be detestable in the eyes of the lord." There is no command to give certificates of divorce, unless you want to quibble with semantics, but there is an inference that certificates of divorce are the standard procedure.
Anyway, Jesus says in Matt. 5:31-32 that anyone who divorces his wife , except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery. This is echoed in Luke 16:18, but is not part of the comparable sermon. There, it is more of an afterthought stuck in between two parables. Matthew reapeats himself in 19:7 and Mark also chimes in with similar words in Mark 10:4. Those last two references are in a context of Jesus having a discussion about divorce. We will not go into a broad discussion of divorce here. The basic idea is any man is an adulterer if he marries a divorced woman, and a divorced woman is an adulterer no matter who she marries. There are no guidelines for a woman who wants to divorce her husband.
More to come.
Sunday, February 21, 2016
Deuteronomy chapter 24
After reading chapter 24:
*More miscellaneous rules and laws:
-A man can give his wife a certificate of divorce and make her leave his house, if he finds something indecent about her. No definition of indecent. There is also no mention of a woman being able to do this, of course. The man owns the house. Anyway, if she gets married again, she becomes "defiled." Then, if the second man divorces her, the first guy is not allowed to remarry her. That would be detestable. However, there appears to be no reason a third guy couldn't have his turn.
-A newlywed man doesn't have to go to war for a year, so he can make his wife happy. (In other words, impregnate her.)
-Millstones cannot be taken as security for a debt because it would deprive the owner of a way to make a living. What do you know, a good rule!
-No kidnapping, enslaving, or selling fellow Israelites on penalty of death. Nothing is said about non-Israelites.
-Obey the Priest's rules about leprous diseases.
-Be considerate to the poor when they are offering a pledge.
-Do not take advantage of hired hands, Israelites or foreigners. Pay their wages on time.
-Children and parents cannot be put to death for each other's sins. Each is to die for his own sin. (If your child works on the sabbath, they die, not you. So, no worries, right?)
-Orphans, widows, and foreigners are to be treated justly.
-When harvesting, don't go back over the fields and vinyards a second time. Leave what was missed for the orphans widows and foreigners to glean.
*Well, some of today's laws weren't as strange or disturbing as usual. In fact many were downright compassionate.
*More miscellaneous rules and laws:
-A man can give his wife a certificate of divorce and make her leave his house, if he finds something indecent about her. No definition of indecent. There is also no mention of a woman being able to do this, of course. The man owns the house. Anyway, if she gets married again, she becomes "defiled." Then, if the second man divorces her, the first guy is not allowed to remarry her. That would be detestable. However, there appears to be no reason a third guy couldn't have his turn.
-A newlywed man doesn't have to go to war for a year, so he can make his wife happy. (In other words, impregnate her.)
-Millstones cannot be taken as security for a debt because it would deprive the owner of a way to make a living. What do you know, a good rule!
-No kidnapping, enslaving, or selling fellow Israelites on penalty of death. Nothing is said about non-Israelites.
-Obey the Priest's rules about leprous diseases.
-Be considerate to the poor when they are offering a pledge.
-Do not take advantage of hired hands, Israelites or foreigners. Pay their wages on time.
-Children and parents cannot be put to death for each other's sins. Each is to die for his own sin. (If your child works on the sabbath, they die, not you. So, no worries, right?)
-Orphans, widows, and foreigners are to be treated justly.
-When harvesting, don't go back over the fields and vinyards a second time. Leave what was missed for the orphans widows and foreigners to glean.
*Well, some of today's laws weren't as strange or disturbing as usual. In fact many were downright compassionate.
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