If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.
What's this all about?
Subscription Note:
Choosing to subscribe to this topic will automatically register you for email notifications for comments and updates on this thread.
Email notifications will be sent out daily by default unless specified otherwise on your account which you can edit by going to your userpage here and clicking on the subscriptions tab.
The apple never falls far from the tree.
He's a mad jealous psycho like his dad..
Each denomination will give its own interpretation on this version. The understanding from one church I attended was that you must put Jesus on top priority above your family. The edge case would be abandoning relationships (family and friends) if those prevent you from following Jesus.
Some examples:
- if you are invited to a birthday party that happens to be on the same day/time of some church meeting (small groups, prayer meetings or Sunday service), you should skip this party and go to church.
- between buying a new toy to your children and "investing" in some urgent church demand for money, you should invest on church.
SeniorCitizen007,
"What's this all about?"
When the Jesus character returns he will kill all life and destroy the Earth. He will need a lot of minions to help him kill all of the people. It's like the scene in Exodus 32:19-28 when Moses got pissed at the people for exercising freedom of religion and he had his Levite thugs kill 3,000 people. It is a lot easier to kill people if you demonize them first.
Could this be evidence that Luke had access to an Aramaic/Hebrew text that he was not able to accurately translate into Greek?
Probably, SC007, I don't know what Luke was supposed to have understood or not, you might be right. I don't think there really was a Luke anyway. As for the verse it could be like where the gospel writers' lack of Hebrew expressions has Jesus riding into Jerusalem on two asses instead of one. The Jews apparently liked to .use two descriptions. It was a sort of idiomatic expression that went over the heads of the Greek and KJV translators.
I went looking over christian web sites about this verse.
As I understand it, its one of those messy translation situations, like the 'virgin', 'maiden', 'young woman' muck up over Jesus's mum purity..
But here in 14.26, it all hinges on the word 'hate'. Christian apologists explain that 'hate' here really means 'love less', so its a context thing or something.
An angry letter to the original editors of the KJV is probably in order, but God has, once again, allowed the wrong word to be used in his inerrant book, that he wrote, through the agency of inspired writers, who had limited piss-poor literary skills in languages other than their own.
It all harks back to the Tower of Babel. If he had just left things alone we would all still be speaking the same language and couldn't possibly be having these issues with context and meaning with the millions of terrabytes of information wasting internet broadband with the thousands of "what does god mean in Luke 14.26?" questions and answers...and this is just for this verse alone. Its depressing that so many spend so much time on so unimportant, ignorant trivial issues like this despite never really questioning whether either god or Jesus ever really existed in the first place. And I feel sullied for having contributed to the continuing dialogue on 14.26 myself.
I must go to the headland this week end and watch the tide come in, to feel better.
Grinseed,
Grinseed
"An angry letter to the original editors of the KJV is probably in order, but God has, once again, allowed the wrong word to be used in his inerrant book, that he wrote, through the agency of inspired writers, who had limited piss-poor literary skills in languages other than their own."
Your anger is misdirected since the original editors of the KJV are in total agreement with the passage from the earlier 1535 Cloverdale Bible. http://bibles-online.net/1535/NewTestament/3-Luke/
Can't copy and paste the paragraph. It is in the 2nd column from the right (3rd from the left) and the 3rd paragraph from the top of the page by the note Deut.13.
BTW, the KJV that we read now is not the original 1611 KJV but a revision of it written based on the 1769 edition, Blaney's 1769 Revised Oxford Edition. https://greatsite.com/facsimile-reproductions/1769.html
The problem I have always wondered about is why are the Greek versions (circa 600 to 800 BCE) of the OT older than the Hebrew versions (circa 450 BCE)? Then a bunch of English idiots try translating and botch the job.
Yes. People can simply say older versions did not survive. Bollocks. Hell, even the Babylonian versions are older than the Hebrew versions.
Then there are even older stories eerily similar to the Bible stories, some of those thousands of years older.
Religion is just pure bullshit and bollocks.
rmfr
arakish,
"The problem I have always wondered about is why are the Greek versions (circa 600 to 800 BCE) of the OT older than the Hebrew versions (circa 450 BCE)?"
Who has such versions from those centuries?
Greek Museums.
rmfr
I've heard that Greek was the language of the well educated at the time (although I can't swear to the accuracy of that, just something I've heard). But maybe that has something to do with what you mentioned.
Alexander the Great. Before the Romans rose to power, his armies spread Greek as the langua franca of that time all the way to the Indus (at least I think he got to the Indus) Valley.
rmfr
EDIT: Of course he was during circa 350 to 330 BCE. But the Greeks were considered well educated even well before then and were all over those places studying what other cultures had learned.
@ Dio, no anger here, mate. I consider the Bible as a rollicking fantasy saga, like the Lord of the Rings, but not as well written. And besides, who would reply, regardless of who the 'angry letter' was addressed?
(added later) Yep quite right about Cloverdale, thanks for the ref, nice graphics.
The Hellenization of the Eastern Mediterranean only began after Alexander the Great (356-323 BCE).
There doesn't seem to be any Greek versions of the OT that I have read about, before 250 BCE, after which time Greek education in the academies and gymnasiums of the Ptolemy and Selucid governments, before the rebellion of the Maccabees, vied with, and dominated, the synagogues as places of learning, in Jewish communities. Greek became the lingua franca of the time and a valuable language for trade and politics.
But if you can guide me to those Greek versions of 600-800 BCE, I'm up for learning something new.
Grinseed,
" I consider the Bible as a rollicking fantasy saga, like the Lord of the Rings, but not as well written."
It can be interesting to read materials that were supposedly written in ancient times. Every once in a while you might discover an odd word that was not in use at the time the material was supposedly written. Then you will know that you are reading a hoax. That is quiet common with the Greek stuff because it is written in the modern Greek alphabet.
Damn, guess that means I have to get my "search-fu" going again.
rmfr
Christians typically understand this verse in one of two ways:
One, Jesus is using hyperbole, which he likes to use very often.
Two, the word used in the Greek can translate to "hate" but is actually much closer in meaning to, "like less"
JoC
Nope. Word you maybe referring to actually does mean "to hate, to detest, an abomination".
Are you practicing your diving skills to pick God's Nastiest Turd? You know I did. It is now your turn.
rmfr
That would be believable though curious how Christians historically don't take it to mean to hate or detest their own families.
It actually falls in line with my one explanation that Jesus was simply using hyperbolic language. You can see it in the succeeding verses. See verse 33 which basically just says that one must renounce all he possesses to be Jesus' disciple. Even verses 27 to 32 talk about how to follow Christ, one must know the cost to do so.
@ JoC
But do you honestly think those goat herders were intelligent enough to use "hyperbolic" language?
Even if, do you honestly think I am think more highly of him than mine own family? KMA.
rmfr