Steven Carr

In Matthew 18, Jesus compares God to a wicked king who acts in anger, and has people handed over to be tortured, even after he claimed to have forgiven them everything.

Here is the story, proving once more that the Bible was written by savage barbarians who saw nothing wrong with people being tortured.

Matthew 18

Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

"The servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.' The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.

"But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded.

His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.'

"But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.

"Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

"This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart."

Vincent Guilbaud

Yet, there are still today 2.5 billions people on earth who consider these writings so enlightening that they could only come from non human mind.

We live in a crazy & scary World!

spamandham

Well, nothing...if you happen to be a stone age goat herder.

Toto

Please! This parable comes well after the stone age. This gospel was written at a time when the Roman Empire had advanced metallurgy, roads, running water, public baths, mathematics and philosophy. You can't blame these primitive, savage morals on goatherders.

spamandham

Sure the parable does, but do the ideas behind it? That same influence reaches all the way to today, where even modern Christians don't bat an eye. Should we expect more of those who lived ~2000 years ago?

mountainman

Good point Steve, the summary of which might be stated
by the phrase "the mastermind behind certain parts of the
NT gospels was a slave-trading, primitive and unphilosophical
mind, perhaps mercenary and/or militaristic."

BC&H traditionally does not follow the evolution of the christian
religion into the domain and chronology of Constantine, seeing
that those interested in its origins are examining with great care
and perspicacity, the ground of the fist two centuries.

However it is in the fourth century, in Ammianus, that the reality
of the torture of the upper classes, in relation to taxation,
but also in relation to the "lese majeste" trials - these
literally against the majesty of the "christian" emperor. Precedent
in this sort of stuff is found 314 CE in the Codex Theodosianus,
in the actions of Constantine.

Kings have traditionally always had people tortured.
Barbarism was not restricted to the common people.
The question is the "reason provided by the king" for the torture.
Modern politics is no different. Planes and bombs are now
part of the torture regimes used by "kings" for their
"political reasons".

I applaud the effort to explicate these savagely inept
parables embedded in the Constantine Bible. Render
unto the King the things that are the Kings. And as
for the rest, in second and third place, dont worry.
Be happy. Pay tax, and vote for the next "king".



Best wishes,


Pete Brown

Smohg

Well, in all honesty, the King in the parable is more lenient than Jesus. At least the King in the story only tortures the guy for a finite amount of time. Apparently, there is no limit to Jesus's vengence.

andrewcriddle

It may be my bias; but I find it a bit regrettable that a story with the point that we should try to be forgiving of each other, because of our own need for forgiveness, is being read as advocating torture.

Andrew Criddle

spin

Yours does seem to be a case of selective reading, Andrew. It is about forgiveness, but the mechanism clearly supports the use of torture, but you read past it, probably saying, "well, he deserved it", and concentrated on the text and not the subtext.


spin

andrewcriddle

It assumes the world of Late Antiquity in which the use of torture was an everyday fact of life. I don't think it is explicitly approving or disapproving of this fact of life.

One could maybe argue that to refer to such an ugly practice without explicit disapproval is itself problematical, but if so it is a general problem about the parables. which frequently refer to the harsh side of life in the world at that time (exploitative absentee landlords, harsh employers etc), to make their (IMO generally edifying) points.

Andrew Criddle