An Atheist Explores the Bible Part 200: Jesus is a rude guest, still hates fig trees and wants you to leave your family. Plus, the Prodigal Son – you still get rewarded even f you doss about (Luke 11-15)

Wow! Two hundred posts and counting! I didn't keep track of how many of these there were when I was writing them, but no wonder it took me a long time to get through. It looks like it'll probably take about a year in total to finish publishing them at my current rate.

In the works for future parts: I'll be continuing the Appendix N series as and when, plus hopefully some musings on TV shows as well, and the Atheist Explores Sacred Texts series will continue with the Qur’an next, then probably a return to Christianity with the Apocrypha, before moving Eastwards, maybe the Bhagavad Gita.

Luke 11-15

Jesus is a rude guest, still hates fig trees and wants you to leave your family. Plus, the Prodigal Son – you still get rewarded even f you doss about.

Welcome to another instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Bible version).

In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the King James Bible, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology.

For more detail, see the introductory post http://bit.ly/2F8f9JT

For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP

And now:

Luke 11

“And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.”

This chapter starts with Jesus teaching His followers the Lord’s Prayer, which although closer to the version I’m familiar with from school still lacks some lines at the end, so I wonder who added those.

As with most chapters of Luke, it then describes various interludes in the life of Jesus, but here we seem to have moved onto the section where Jesus becomes more argumentative and less patient with those who argue against Him.

The first couple of examples are reasonable enough; the concept of “ask and it shall be given”, one presumes of God’s blessing, since if a human won’t give something stupid to his son or neighbour -“Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?” – then an infallible and all-loving God cannot fail but to give what is needed. Jesus then argues with people who accuse him of getting His ability to exorcise devils from the arch-devil Beelzebub, to which He argues that this would be stupid because it pits devil against devil, and how would evil be served by doing that?

Both fair points to illustrate Jesus’ theological ideas, even though sometimes the language He uses shows signs of exasperation – “This is an evil generation: they seek a sign; and there shall no sign be given it, but the sign of Jonas the prophet”. Perhaps if you know that your death is immanent it makes you a bit less patient with arguments. I’m assuming “Jonas” is Jonah, and that’s an interesting choice, because Jonah was the one prophet where people listened and thus Nineveh wasn’t destroyed. Is that the “sign” – that the message will get through to people?

I also quite like the idea of the eye being the light of the body – “The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light; but when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness”. It’s a little difficult to get the meaning from this section, but I think, after some pondering, that “light” is used in its sense as “window”, and the idea is not a window allowing anyone to look in, but rather the filter through which externalities are perceived by the viewer. So if you go around looking for bad things (your “eye is evil”), then you will see them, whereas a good light, a good “window” to the outside world doesn’t colour things in shades of darkness. This is very similar to concepts in cognitive behaviour therapy, particularly in the case of phobias – the phobic is always alert for danger signs of their phobia, and so is more likely to see scary things than if they were not looking so hard for them, for example; another alternative is taking whatever anyone else says as a slight on oneself, and so on.

It’s in the last part where Jesus starts to annoy the Pharisees and the scribes, and there’s a long tirade against lawyers should you ever need one. I take exception to the argument with the Pharisee, though. This man invites Jesus to dinner, so he’s prepared to hear what this strange charismatic son of a carpenter has to say, but then wonders why Jesus doesn’t wash before eating.

Jesus says “Now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter; but your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness. Ye fools, did not he that made that which is without make that which is within also? But rather give alms of such things as ye have; and, behold, all things are clean unto you. But woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass over judgment and the love of God: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. Woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye love the uppermost seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the markets. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are as graves which appear not, and the men that walk over them are not aware of them.”

To which the Pharisee replies, “Chill, I just thought you might not want to eat with dirt all over your hands.” Well, he doesn’t. But he ought to, because – sheesh, what a rude guest.

Luke 12

“And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven.”

The bulk of this chapter forms a lengthy sermon from Jesus that expounds upon His philosophy, largely along the theme that God will provide all that a person needs (food, clothing, even words to express one’s self) and that to pursue these to the exclusion of seeking the “kingdom of God” is folly at best. Jesus drops a hint that God is far more to be feared than mortals, since He can not only kill, as can a mortal man, but also condemn a person to Hell. Which doesn’t seem like the basis of a loving God, but it’s a minor aspect to the entire chapter. The bulk of this is more about Jesus exhorting His followers to abjure material things (including some passing numb-nuts who asks Jesus to mediate in an inheritance dispute. I can only assume he’s not been paying attention).

Although the concept of what it meant by the “kingdom of God” is as vague here as ever, the ideas at least proceed logically from a concept that it is a thing, or state of mind, to be aimed for. I’m not even sure that sentence makes sense. Be that as it may, there are two main aspects discussed here – that a searcher for the kingdom of God should give up material things, and that a searcher for the kingdom of God should be prepared for this to come about at any time.

Luke 13

“Nevertheless I must walk to day, and to morrow, and the day following: for it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem.”

There are several parables and aphorisms related in this chapter that I really do not understand. Jesus attempts to describe the kingdom of God, likening it to a mustard seed growing into a tree that shelters birds, or to some yeast causing dough to rise. Which, okay, I get the idea that it is a small simple thing that can grow or sustain, which definitely makes it sound more like an internal change rather than an external place or state of being.

The rest, though, I can’t fathom. Jesus has another go here at fig trees with no fruit. In this case, it’s told as part of a parable, and the gardener eventually persuades his master not to cut down the fig tree but to give it another chance with some more nurturing. Which means what? That people (sinners?) should be given another chance? And what about the strait gate to the kingdom of God and who can pass through? More first shall come last/last shall come first linguistic hijinks.

Laced through these there are couple of other incidents – in one the Pharisees try to condemn Jesus for healing on a Sabbath; He likens the freeing of a crippled woman from her infliction to leading an ass or ox to feed and water. In the second, at the end of the chapter and quoted above, Jesus determines that He must head to Jerusalem to meet His end since it’s the place for prophets to go to die.

Luke 14

“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.”

“Hate” seems like a very strong term, and whatever happened to honouring thy mother and father? The general theme of this chapter, however, seems to be about casting off attachments much as the previous chapter was about eschewing material possessions. And given the vaguely impenetrable metaphors about salt at the end, which remind me of a zen koan, I have to wonder if there is any Buddhist influence on Jesus’ philosophy, adapted through the lens of Jewish monotheism. Is it likely that a carpenter’s son in 0^th century Galilee would hear of concepts from the Far East? Possible, perhaps. If Persian Medes came to His birth, there’s evidently scope for ideas to have been traded from east of Persia into the Middle East as well. Because the emphasis on removing earthly attachment as a route to Enlightenment, aka the Kingdom of God, is a compelling connection. Or possibly it’s a case of convergent evolution in theological thought. After all, the separation and tension between the earthly and the divine is common across a lot of religions.

Charity is also emphasised in this chapter, with a parable about a man giving a dinner party to which his guests give a series of spurious excuses. In a fit of pique he invites the poor and needy, and is a better person for it. Also of note is that the food, evidently a metaphor for spiritual blessing, is able to sustain far more of the poor than expected, perhaps tying back to the seed/yeast metaphors of last chapter, and also echoing Jesus’ own miracles involving loaves and fish(es).

Luke 15

“What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?”

This chapter opens with the Pharisees complaining about Jesus consorting with publicans and sinners, to which Jesus replies that it’s better to save one sinner than to only be with those who are already righteous. And then we get the parable of the Prodigal Son (although those words aren’t actually used here). The term “prodigal” is surely one of the most often misunderstood quoted phrases (perhaps second only to “Wherefore art thou Romeo”), as people always seem to use it in the sense of somebody returning, when it means wasteful.

Anyway, the father in the parable divides his fortune between two sons. One goes away and wastes the money on drink and loose women. When he’s reduced to eating the leftovers of pigs he realises that he should go home and seek forgiveness from his father. His father, however, forgives him as soon as he sees him return and holds a lavish feast. The other son, who stayed at home and worked carefully, is obviously annoyed at all the attention his brother is getting considering he’s a wastrel. The point here, is obviously that God has enough forgiveness for sinners who return to Him, but like the vineyard owner who paid everyone the same regardless of when they get paid, to me this parable also says that you may as well go out and enjoy yourself because you’ll get little thanks for doing the right thing and being boring.

Which probably isn’t the message I’m supposed to be taking away.

I went and checked, by the way, and this parable isn’t in Matthew or Mark.