Jesus and the NT: the sequel is always worse than the original

[ionelv]

In a few seconds, Madalyn Murray O’Hair delivers the one-two punch to knock down both JC and the NT off their high horse. AMV expands on the wickedness of JC’s message:

Jesus says plainly:
“I have not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10:34).
Luke explains exactly what that means: division within families, father against son, mother against daughter (Luke 12:51–53). This is not atheists reading violence into the text. The text itself says his message will fracture households.

And it goes further. Jesus explicitly says:
“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26).

Matthew softens the phrasing, but not the meaning: loving family more than Jesus disqualifies you (Matthew 10:37). That is absolute loyalty language, not Hallmark theology.

So to the first question: no, “the sword” is not about Jesus swinging weapons, but it is very much about social and familial rupture caused by devotion to him. Jesus says so himself.

To Jesse: this is not “misotheism” or ignorance of context. It is the opposite. It is reading the verses honestly. What is happening instead is theological damage control. When the text sounds harsh, believers rush to reinterpret, soften, or spiritualize it to protect Jesus from criticism and, by extension, protect their own identity.

Calling atheists hateful while insisting Jesus was only love requires ignoring Jesus’ own words about division, exclusion, and hating family. That is not context. That is apologetics.

You do not need to take the Bible literally to notice when it says something uncomfortable. You only need to read it.

If Jesus says something hateful, you try to soften it and accuse atheists of misinterpreting the Bible; while accusing the atheists of bad faith when we just point out what is there. Seems hypocritical and your double standards show.
-AMV

Comments

[thewayne]

The Atheists section on Quora is rather amusing. Overall, the atheists are much better versed in the Bible than the people posing questions to them are. For a lot of people, atheism isn't an idle decision, they make it after a lot of study, experience, and introspection.

[ionelv]

What I find even more amusing is the believers vacillation between the literal interpretation and the parabolic interpretations of the Bible stories and that's even before getting into the nitty gritty Bible/sausage making business and its copious plagiarism. In my opinion, there is no better exposer of that hypocrisy than Hitchens :)

[thewayne]

Absolutely agree.

[jsburbidge]

The "difficult" texts of the NT, for someone genuinely engaged in exegesis, require serious engagement, in part because they have a higher probability of authenticity. Note, though, that in general Luke is probably later and further from the source than Matthew; in any comparison between Matthew and Luke I would be inclined to see a development away from an original version of the pericopes in question.)

On the other hand, circumstances may have made them feel less difficult.

In both cases, they reflect a sitz im leben from about the late 60s to the 90s and that period is that of the final split between the synagogue and the church, the period of the development of the birkat ha-minim. In that context the inclusion of texts which display Jesus anticipating division over his teachings or his general following are more easily explicable. (The text does not in itself imply any pleasure in the expectation of "not peace, but a sword", but a realistic appreciation of its probability.)

[ionelv]

You do realize that the more you and many others try to explain away the extreme parts of the Bible, the less any rational mind would find the Bible believable or authentic, right?

[jsburbidge]

The way the Bible is read by any reasonably modern critic, after a couple of centuries of the "higher criticism" involves very little in the way of explaining away, if any. It does, however, involve not holding it to a model of consistency which is not merely unlikely but effectively impossible of any multi-authored and variously transmitted text. The asserted aim of modern criticism is to read and understand the texts in the context in which they were created, and not as something detached from that context.

(Even the NT writings, which are far closer to source than the OT ones, are not direct reportage; whence the large amounts of form and redaction criticism which have accumulated over the 20th Century.)

Looking for or trying to defend that kind of consistency would be a mark of the literal inerrancy types over in the extreme conservative camp - effectively a straw man.

[ionelv]

There is a tiny problem with your "reasonably modern critic": it is and has always been a negligible quantity in the modern world and oceans away from the typical Bible critic/fan that has been whispering in the ears of power or using the Bible as a cudgel or straitjacket for 1700+ years. That we're still devoting inordinate amounts of brain power to dissect shepherd stories embellished and edited at will by a priestly caste for self-promotion over hundreds of years, is mind boggling to me when we know better and should do better.

Yes, I agree that, in context, with the right amount of scholarship and evenhandedness, one can paint a more nuanced and fair picture about the Bible and its place in history, but the Bible is not merely a historical artifact to be analyzed by eggheads, but a myriad of other things, many of them horrendous, today and for the foreseeable future as well. My quibble is with this living Bible and how it's interpreted at face value by way too many humans.