Though she would be turned into some sort of mother goddess by the Christian Church in centuries to come, she herself gets little mention in the Bible, and her most famous offspring did not seem to care much for her.

At that wedding feast at Cana, where he turned water into wine for the participants, he says at one point, "Woman, what do I have to do with you?", brushing her off.

Biblical family values are fun, don't you think?

Hate to be a troll but,

etemology/culture/etc fallacy. Would a first century Jewish mother have heard these words the same as our culture would?

What's your point, Josephus? If the Bible is supposed to be relevant for us, we are entitled to judge it by our standards. This sort of cultural-relativism defense seems to me to be a way of taking what one likes and leaving what one doesn't like.

This looks like a genuine translational difficulty. First, I will quote from the less reliable King James Version Bible:

John 2:3-5 (KJV) And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come. His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.

The flavour of the idiom being used here is not captured for us in our modern language. I offer two additional translations that help to clarify the point better.

John 2:3-5 (NIV) When the wine was gone, Jesus' mother said to him, "They have no more wine." "Dear woman, why do you involve me?" Jesus replied. "My time has not yet come." His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you."

And from the NET Bible
2:3 When the wine ran out, Jesus' mother said to him, "They have no wine left."4 2:4 Jesus replied, "Woman, why are you saying this to me?7 My time has not yet come." 2:5 His mother told the servants, "Whatever he tells you, do it."

Note (7) from this passage in the NET may help though:

7tn Grk "Woman, what to me and to you?" (an idiom). The phrase tiv ejmoiVV kaiV soiv, guvnai (ti emoi kai soi, gunai) is Semitic in origin. The equivalent Hebrew expression in the Old Testament had two basic meanings: (1) When one person was unjustly bothering another, the injured party could say "What to me and to you?" meaning, "What have I done to you that you should do this to me?" (Judg 11:12, 2 Chr 35:21, 1 Kgs 17:18). (2) When someone was asked to get involved in a matter he felt was no business of his, he could say to the one asking him, "What to me and to you?" meaning, "That is your business, how am I involved?" (2 Kgs 3:13, Hos 14:8). Option (1) implies hostility, while option (2) implies merely disengagement. Mere disengagement is almost certainly to be understood here as better fitting the context (although some of the Greek Fathers took the remark as a rebuke to Mary, such a rebuke is unlikely).

I hope that this helps to clear up your concern lpetrich.

Nomad

[This message has been edited by Nomad (edited February 03, 2001).]

Double post, bugger it!

[This message has been edited by Auntie Bill (edited February 04, 2001).]

Notice that Mary doesn't bat an eyelid? Notice that she doesn't take umbrage and rebuke him as she would absolutely have the right to do according to their (the Jewish) scriptures?

Show me a kid who's really good at the piano and I'll show you a kid whose mother embarasses him/her every time the rellies or friends come to visit.

Maternal rivalry.

I suspect that Mary was saying to somebody, "Oh yeah? Your kid might be Herod's personal physician but look what my kid can do!

And Jesus was saying, "Come on Ma! Give it a rest! You're embarassing me!"

If the Bible or any other scripture is to be relevant at any time at all, we need to understand what was really going on and what is really being said about it.

Stuff like that really is culturally relative.

Perhaps you know how a Judean mother would have taken these words. Present some evidence indicating how Jesus' mother would have taken his words differently from how they are taken today.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Nomad:
{Snip, baseless assertion}

First, I will quote from the less reliable King James Version Bible:

John 2:3-5[/b] (KJV) And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come. His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.

Nomad: The flavour of the idiom being used here is not captured for us in our modern language. I offer two additional translations that help to clarify the point better.

John 2:3-5 (NIV) When the wine was gone, Jesus' mother said to him, "They have no more wine." "Dear woman, why do you involve me?" Jesus replied. "My time has not yet come." His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you."

{Snip, redundancy}


Why would anyone believe the NIV is a better translation than any other? Could it be because it reflects Christian bias more so than others?


The Scholar's Version translates the incident as follows: "When the wine had run out, Jesus' mother says to him, 'They're out of wine.' Jesus replies to her, 'Woman, what is it with you and me? It's not my time yet.' His mother says to the servants, 'Whatever he tells you, do it.'"

This version captures the essence of the meaning of Jesus' words.

Nomad: Note (7) from this passage in the NET may help though:

7tn Grk "Woman, what to me and to you?" (an idiom). The phrase tiv ejmoiVV kaiV soiv, guvnai (ti emoi kai soi, gunai) is Semitic in origin. The equivalent Hebrew expression in the Old Testament had two basic meanings: (1) When one person was unjustly bothering another, the injured party could say "What to me and to you?" meaning, "What have I done to you that you should do this to me?" (Judg 11:12, 2 Chr 35:21, 1 Kgs 17:18). (2) When someone was asked to get involved in a matter he felt was no business of his, he could say to the one asking him, "What to me and to you?" meaning, "That is your business, how am I involved?" (2 Kgs 3:13, Hos 14:8). Option (1) implies hostility, while option (2) implies merely disengagement. Mere disengagement is almost certainly to be understood here as better fitting the context (although some of the Greek Fathers took the remark as a rebuke to Mary, such a rebuke is unlikely).


The Greek Fathers had reason to take the remark as a hostile rebuke. Let's look as Jesus' words in the anonymous gospels:

"And a crowd was sitting about him; and they said to him, 'Your mother and your brothers are outside, asking for you.' And he replied, 'Who are my mother and brothers?' And looking around on those who sat about him, he said, 'Here are my mother and brothers!' Mk 3:32-34

Clearly, Jesus had a problem with his family, including his own mother. His hostility is obvious.

In another incident, Jesus had gone back to his hometown:

The people said, "'Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?' And they took offense at him. And Jesus said to them, 'A prophet is not without honor, except in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.'" Mk 6:3-4

The above incident indicates a rift between Jesus and his family.


Jesus also said:

"And every one who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life..." Mt 19:29

Jesus not only asked that people give up their material belongings for him, but their family as well. (What arrogance!) Again, Jesus shows disdain for family.

More evidence:

Jesus said: "Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division; for henceforth in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against her mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daugher-in-law against her mother-in-law." Lk 12:51-53

Jesus said: "If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple." Lk 14:26

Nowhere in the NT does Jesus indicate any love or compassion for any family member, including his own mother. Quite the contrary, most often when his family members make an appearance in the narratives, Jesus is openly hostile. When he mentions family, in general, he places no value on it and, as a matter of fact, suggests that he has come to various towns to break up families.

When Jesus addressed his mother as "woman" at a wedding at Cana in Galilee, he was openly hostile because he and his family did not get along.





[This message has been edited by penatis (edited February 04, 2001).]

Nomad: And from the NET Bible...

The "NET Bible" has a clearly stated objective: To win people over to Christianity.

In other words, the NET Bible is not a website dedicated to objective scholarly analysis of the JC Bible; it is a Christian-oriented website dedicated to promulgating one point of view, i.e., Christianity.

Any person who wishes to find out precisely what happened in history should use the NET Bible website with caution.

Hello again penatis

I see that your desire to read into the Bible, and try to discover things that just aren't there is alive and well.

Let's look at it this way. As Auntie Bill noted, if we are going to assume that Mary was being insulted, we should see something in her reaction to show that she has taken offence. She didn't so she wasn't is a perfectly reasonable explanation.

As for the rest of your non-sequitors, try not to divert the discussion of the thread please. The quotes you have offered have nothing to do with the incident in Cana (which doesn't even make it into the Synoptics BTW), and you constant need to throw out such red herrings is annoying.

Stay on topic please.

Nomad