Toto

hackingchristianity blogThere is a link to the video clip there.

So Jesus didn't say this, and Paul probably didn't write it.

And Jesus definitely didn't say anything about teaching a man to fish.

Question: does the Colbert Report have a bible exegete on staff?

ApostateAbe

Yeah, Jesus did not say it, and he probably would not have approved of it had he known about it, since he and his entourage mooched off of generous donors for a living like street preachers. The passage in 2 Thessalonians reflects a transition and division in Christianity between itinerant preaching and stationary religion. The Christians who make a productive living would be asked to support the itinerant evangelists, and they didn't like that. From a faithful Christian perspective, it may seem like only stretching the truth a little to claim that Jesus told people, "if you are lazy, you don't eat," since anything written in the canonical New Testament is as good as coming out of the mouth of Jesus himself. After all, maybe Jesus really did say it, but it isn't in the quotes of Jesus, like many other things he said.

andrewcriddle

I would read 2 Thessalonians a little differently. IMO the passage is directed against those who expected to be supported by the Christians in employment without them having to undertake the hard work of being an itinerant evangelist.

Andrew Criddle

Iznomneak

I wouldn't be surprized if the the writers of the Colbert Report read websites such as freeratio. I've seen Colbert use many of the same arguments and jokes that I've seen skeptics use here.

DCHindley

We're talking about Fox News, which probably employs numerous evangelical Christians on its staff, both in the news dept and among the engineers and technicians. Evangelicals tend to know their bible, especially the NT. Hell, without even knowing his religious affiliation (if any), I'm not surprised at all that Colbert knew enough bible to be aware that the first statement was not in the NT at all, and the second was in a letter of Paul, and that Paul does not quote Jesus directly. For example, many folks are aware that the saying "God helps those who help themselves" is not in the bible (it was Ben Franklin), without being a bible fanatic.

One of his staffers likely recognized the citation, instantly popped into action, pulled up the reference to eating & work in the NT (2 Thessalonians 3:10-13), and placed it on the screen to settle the matter, or at least show that Colbert was not spouting something he does not know about either.

The Fish saying is often attributed to Confucius or Lao-Tzu, but is really an Americanized version of an ancient Chinese proverb, probably based on the saying of Chuang Tzu (3rd century BCE, "The fish trap exists because of the fish. Once you've gotten the fish you can forget the trap") first articulated in English in the form we know it around 1886 and popularized in business circles starting in 1963 (see here). That took me a little while to find out, so I doubt that his staffers could dig that up in time for an on-air quote.

DCH

Toto

Colbert is on Comedy Central, not Fox News. He is a Catholic and allegedly teaches Sunday school.

gdeering

Also, as probably everyone knows, there are several hours between tape tine and air time. Plenty of time to do a little research and add a graphic. Mary quoting pagan sayings as scripture, for shame.....

DCHindley

I must have been thinking of Glen Beck, then. To be honest, I don't watch Fox News even a little bit any more, and the only shows I watch on Comedy Channel are the stand-up comics and the Country Comedy Tour.

Still, since Colbert plays the role of a somewhat clueless news commentator, the message with the scripture passage at the end of the program may have just been there to indicate he had stated an actual fact, and was not part of his "dumb" act. In a way, it would score points with bible-thumpers, who would also know that it was Paul, not Jesus, who said "if they don't work, let them not eat" as well, perhaps to satire the fact that Republican politicos have little real understanding of Evangelical Christianity.

The fish thingy would still take a bit of time to document, and is murky enough to have remained untraceable by broadcast time. Try a Google search on "Give a man a fish" and "quote", and see it is generally attributed to Confucious (as are almost all Chinese proverbs) or Lao-Tzu. Not one will give an actual source document, because there is nothing even close to it in the Analects or the Tao-te Ching. Finally, hundreds of hits later, I found one cited source (from 1886) had itself cited "Chuang Ztu (sic), and I found the actual form of the quote by Googling "Chuang Tzu" (the more correct form of the name) and "fish". Chuang Tzu? Gesundheit! He was a Taoist who followed Lao Tzu, and is often lumped together with Lao Tzu. The saying derived from his saying is, for what it is worth, a misinterpretation of what Chuang Tzu was getting at (which was that "Words exist because of meaning. Once you've gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can talk with him?").

DCH

ApostateAbe

If you are not familiar with Stephen Colbert, then it is time to acquaint yourself. This last episode was especially funny. All the episodes are freely available online.

http://www.colbertnation.com/full-ep...0-mary-matalin

Zeluvia

The Didache specifically warns against supporting lazy preachers that don't do productive work also.