The Hamlet of West Orange, That Is, Making My Mind Up on Iraq

[Michael Tee]

<<If you think Christ was a wmp, thnr you and I read a different Bible. :-)>>

Yeah, but I think the question was about YOUR Bible.  What part of it says that you can strike back at your enemies and even kill their families too if they strike at you first?  Inquiring minds need to know.

[Lanya]

Yes, I'd like to know too.   
Does forgiving 70 times 70 still apply, or not?  Does one still walk that extra mile and so on? 
Has someone changed the words in the Bible? 

[The_Professor]

<<If you think Christ was a wmp, thnr you and I read a different Bible. :-)>>

Yeah, but I think the question was about YOUR Bible.  What part of it says that you can strike back at your enemies and even kill their families too if they strike at you first?  Inquiring minds need to know.

Well, I do not advocate seeking out families and killing them. Seems too barbaric for my tastes, even though, logically, I can see why it is/was done. I do not condone; I only see how some people might rationalize the necessity of this.

[Michael Tee]

<<Well, I do not advocate seeking out families and killing them. Seems too barbaric for my tastes, even though, logically, I can see why it is/was done. I do not condone; I only see how some people might rationalize the necessity of this.>>

There ya go, Professor.  I knew you weren't ALL bad. 

[Xavier_Onassis]

If you think Christ was a wimp, then you and I read a different Bible. :-)

===================================

Is turning the other cheek an act of courage?
How about bitching at a fig tree that it has no figs when it is out of season?

Constant circumlocutions of  a clear answer to whether he was the Son of God?

It was, I admit, rather brave to not skip town right after the Last Supper, but face it: Jesus was not the sort of guy to advocate decimating the opponents, or skinning them alive, like the Unspeakable Turk.

It is true that barbarous acts a la Turk are often effective like no other, but still, they are barbarous, and violence still breeds violence. Observe that there is a lot more inhumane treatment today in the remnents of the Ottoman Empire than outside its perimeters. I don't think that this is a coincidence at all.

[_JS]

If you think Christ was a wmp, thnr you and I read a different Bible. :-)

The question is not whether or not Christ was a "wimp."

The Jews of the time expected their Messiah to be a military and political leader, someone to restore the Davidic Kingdom and throw out the Romans as the Maccabees had thrown out the Greek Selucid occupiers.

I am sure that some of them considered Christ a "wimp."

After all, he did not even allow Peter to kill a single Roman soldier as they led him away. He even healed the ear of the Roman soldier whom Peter had sliced.

So, I'm not sure what standards of "manliness" you place upon the Son of God, but no I don't consider him a "wimp." It took supernatural humility and strength to survive the scourging and suffering on the cross. Especially considering that he could have surely given in to temptation and become the great political and military leader that Israel and Judea needed and fought the Romans. He could have said, "to hell with their sins, Father, they are unforgivable and unreedemable - this creation you've made."

If that makes him a "wimp" in your eyes, more's the pity for you.


I'm always wary of those who make Christ into a Warrior King. There was a relatively obscure German political prisoner who wrote about Christ's throwing out of the moneychangers in a book called Mein Kampf.

Despite a lot of modern historical revisionism that allows Christians to breathe easier at night and claim that Nazism was directly spawned from paganism and occultism, the truth is that Hitler himself used Christianity quite often to formulate the earliest philosophies of his party. I suggest that if Christ isn't "manly" enough for you then the problem is with you and not Him.

[gipper]

A quick take on Jesus: whether Jesus, in the face of a mortal threat to all and everyone He holds dear, would turn the other cheek or fight to preserve the good about Him is predominantly speculation based on the Gospel texts. It is safe to say, however, that His pacific stance was a product both of the history which He culminated and the peculiar details of life in Palestine at that particular time. As much as anything, perhaps, Jesus's stance was simply very effective politics: matching a style and a philosophy to the needs of the times and the dictates of its power structure. Even so, there is the celebrated incident of anger at the moneychangers; it is hard for me to imagine that Jesus's righteous indignation and impulse to protect was limited to instances of descration of the temple to the exclusion of instances of desecration of human beings. But as with any transformative historical figure, Jesus was concerned with the overall message He would impart, the dominant theme, and He chose for all the incidentals alluded to for His ministry to emphasize peace and love -- surpassing goods, I suggest, but not absolutes -- because that was the most effective way to create, establish and maintain the message that was the mandate of His life.

[Plane]

A quick take on Jesus: whether Jesus, in the face of a mortal threat to all and everyone He holds dear, would turn the other cheek or fight to preserve the good about Him is predominantly speculation based on the Gospel texts. It is safe to say, however, that His pacific stance was a product both of the history which He culminated and the peculiar details of life in Palestine at that particular time. As much as anything, perhaps, Jesus's stance was simply very effective politics: matching a style and a philosophy to the needs of the times and the dictates of its power structure. Even so, there is the celebrated incident of anger at the moneychangers; it is hard for me to imagine that Jesus's righteous indignation and impulse to protect was limited to instances of descration of the temple to the exclusion of instances of desecration of human beings. But as with any transformative historical figure, Jesus was concerned with the overall message He would impart, the dominant theme, and He chose for all the incidentals alluded to for His ministry to emphasize peace and love -- surpassing goods, I suggest, but not absolutes -- because that was the most effective way to create, establish and maintain the message that was the mandate of His life.

I think that Jesus understood the power of nonviolent protest , but I would not have guessed it to be a central tenant of his teaching. More like it was the method he reccomended for getting his theme of salvation known.

He told his Apostles to recruit energeticly , to be harmless but sly , to leave a community that rejected the message alone , but what in your mind was the message?