jesus was more concerned with structural and institutional misdeeds than individual flaws

[sophiaserpentia]

While Jesus had many words of condemnation for different types of people, it occurred to me today that Jesus is rarely critical or harsh to anyone who is actually in his presence. For example, he is critical of "scribes and Pharisees," the rich, the Sadducees, and so on, when speaking of them abstractly. But it is truly unusual for him to be shown having a harsh word for someone in his presence. Often the people in his presence include those who would have been shunned by most.

Even when he addresses aloud the sins of people around him, his tone is matter-of-fact, as if he is not very concerned with their imperfections or transgressions. The only people who see his wrath directly are the moneychangers in the temple. Next to that, the sharpest rebuke was directed at "the Jews" in John 8, accusing them of being the children of the Devil (a passage which some scholars believe was added later). (Edit. But even then, it was not a criticism leveled at specific people for doing a specific thing.) To the adulteress he says merely, "Now go, and don't do it anymore." A Pharisee who asks him about paying taxes to Caesar is asked, "Why do you test me?"

Many people who grew up as Christians can tell you about fear and guilt which was instilled in them regarding their least transgressions. But it seems to me that Jesus was far less concerned with the transgressions of ordinary people than he was with oppression and exploitation. By far his strongest criticisms were saved for people who were rich, or those who were espousing certain religious codes which contributed to social stratification.

For example, the parable of the Good Samaritan was meant as a dig at the priests and Levites, who would walk past a man left for dead by robbers in a ditch in order to preserve their precious ritual cleanliness.

If we read the words of Jesus as if he were focused primarily on social or cultural evils, and less on individual transgressions, the meaning of his ministry looks very different. If he truly meant for people to walk around in a cloud of fear about their transgressions, he would have spoken directly to people in a much more critical way. Instead, he 'suffered' the presence of people who would have been shunned by most (tax collectors and prostitutes and so on), and was not shown being critical of them. It is sometimes implied that these people were accepted by Jesus because they had "reformed" and changed their sinful ways, but this is nowhere stated, and if it were important to the Christian message, I think it would have been.

Comments

[ubiquity.livejournal.com]

Perhaps this is Jesus' equivalent of the monkeysphere?

[sable-twilight.livejournal.com]

Well at the time of Constantine, when he told the bishops to get together and give him one bible (we was big on this whole one empire, one religion, one holy document for that religion – and it was really was a toss up over who would win, the Christians or the followers of Mithra, who were really popular in the Roman Legions) there was the big council and a big debate over all sort of things and what should be included in the bible. Things like the trinity (if they were separate, if they were one, if there was a trinity all together), the miracles, the testaments, even the immaculate conception were up for grabs. Mind you, I'm really simplify here, [Unknown site tag] can probably give a lot better detail of the why and wherefore. Anyway, wither to include the Torah, a.k.a. the Old Testament, was even included in this debate, for very similar questions you raise. Not sure why it was kept either, but it was. Lots of politics must have gone on for that one.

[badsede.livejournal.com]

Not only oversimplifying, also misrepresenting. The council that Constantine had called was the Council of Nicaea and the members were all Christian bishops, Mithraism was not a topic .. if I'm reading your assertion right. At Nicaea, everything was not "up for grabs," the bishops were beholden to Holy Tradition and you can see the theological continuity before and after the council.

While Nicaea addressed scripture, the canon was not completely solidified for more than another 75 years. The scripture canon was not completely solidified at that point, but nearly so, the Old Testament in place as well as the tetraform Gospel and most of the epistles.

Normative belief was also fairly well established. The main topic was Christology and the Arian controversy, the Immaculate Conception was not a topic. But in the end, the Nicene symbol and canons that excluded Arian theology and asserted the Trinity were voted for 322-3.

And though many people on the internet like to say so, Constantine did not make the Roman Empire Christian. It remained largely pagan - though certainly increasingly Christian - throughout his rule. It wasn't until Theodosius in 380 that Christianity became the state religion. His personaly adoption of Christianity was not a means to unify his empire, it was actually a threat to the unity of his empire.

[anosognosia.livejournal.com]

"the Old Testament [was] in place"

Was the Old Testament, and specifically some form thereof, explicitly affirmed as scripture at Nicaea? I had the impression that scriptural debate principally concerned the New Testament, and the Old Testament was inhereted implicitly insofar as at was the texts Jesus and the Apostles studied and quoted from themselves.

[badsede.livejournal.com]

The scripture canon isn't actually mentioned in the canons of Nicaea. The early Church primarily used the Septuagint for the OT. 300 of the 350 quotations of the Old Testament aren't independent translations but taken from the Septuagint, the collection Catholics and Orthodox still use. All the early lists of the books of scripture include the same list.

The controversy *was* mostly over the NT .. well, except for whether or not to include the OT at all for a little bit early on. The only real controversy we see over the contents of the OT is with Jerome.

[anosognosia.livejournal.com]

Right; that was my impression.

My feeling was that the Old Testament was understood explicitly as a distinct body of scripture from the New Testament, and so was approached in a distinct manner -- in a sense which made editting its contents generally inappropriate as a principle. Such that even the disputes between Protestants and non-Protestants regarding the Old Testament are not matters of such editting but rather disagreement over what version of the Tanakh should be used.

[badsede.livejournal.com]

Certainly, it was a matter of which compilation. I think one of the more odd results is that Luther set on a Jewish compilation that did not exist until after Christians were expelled from the synagogues.

[anosognosia.livejournal.com]

There are a wide spectrum of beliefs on this matter -- from early-common-era Gnostics who understood much of the Old Testament as descriptions of an adversarial spirit rather than God, to present-day fundamentalists who deny any significant difference between the theologies of the Old and New Testaments.

Mainstream Christian theology for most of the religion's history had understood the Old and New Testaments as describing two different, but related, religious traditions -- the Old and New Covenants, respectively. Such a Christian theology understands itself as working within the New Covenant, but suggests that the Old Covenant established a necessary foundation for this religious tradition to exist.

[anosognosia.livejournal.com]

"it was really was a toss up over who would win, the Christians or the followers of Mithra"

I've heard this suggested, but also disputed -- a more likely candidate for closest competitor of civic endorsement in the post-3rd-century Empire is Iamblichian Neoplatonism, which was actually made state religion under Julian after Constantine's rule.

[wildgarden.livejournal.com]

this makes sense.

beautiful icon, too.

[aerope.livejournal.com]

Or maybe he's the one example of hating sins and loving sinners. (I find this concept kind of a cop-out, or oxymoronic, or something, but I wonder if it can be done thoroughly.)

[alobar.livejournal.com]

> Jesus is rarely critical or harsh
> to anyone who is actually in his presence.

You ever wonder if he just wasn't a wimp who could talk about people behind their backs, but not to their faces?

> people who see his wrath directly are the moneychangers in the temple.

And possibly a bit bi-polar?

[brontosproximo.livejournal.com]

This is the first time this topic has been presented to me.

I thank you for giving me something to meditate on.

[stacymckenna.livejournal.com]

Thank you for articulating so well something I have always felt and understood on a level so deep that I couldn't really see it well enough to articualte it myself.