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I don't think Luke misunderstood what Mark reported Jesus as saying. I think he omitted 'right' because it wasn't central to the point. That seems the simplest

• georgespencer 6y ago
  > I don't think Luke misunderstood what Mark reported Jesus as saying. I think he omitted 'right' because it wasn't central to the point. That seems the simplest explanation, and I don't see anything in your comment that provides a more compelling alternative. Do you really believe that to be the simplest explanation considering the authorship of Luke, its position in the canon, the unusually heavily fragmented and interpolated nature of the papyri our translations come from, the additional 20 yrs of oral tradition it went through from Matthew, the fact that it frequently contains content which is not only uncorroborated in the other gospels (red flag) but also directly contradictory to them? I’m trying to think of a single secular scholar working today who would treat Luke — glossy, editorialised, written to persuade a later audience of different things to earlier gospels, still being revised well into the second century — as being accurate on the details in this regard. Do you know of any? > I don't particularly care if there are some Christians who erroneously think that the golden rule originated with Christ or that it's unique to Christianity. I can appreciate that you don’t like the answer to the questions, but when you ask “Who has suggested the golden rule is a novel aspect of Christ’s teachings” and “If people haven’t read the Bible are their views on its teachings worth paying attention to?” it seems really truculent to criticise the answering itself. Pick a lane dude. > If you reread the thread, you'll note that I never actually claimed that Christianity contains "novel ideas". (I think it probably does, but I'm no expert on the subject and will not try to defend that position here.) Maybe this misconception is what is leading to you introducing lots of irrelevant material. Ah I get it now! When I wrote my original comment to say that there’s nothing novel in Christ’s teachings and you replied to say that Christ’s morality is “much more radical” than I had outlined, and that "turn the other cheek" is different to the maxim of reciprocity, you were… agreeing with me? Got it ;)
  • foldr 6y ago
    To me, it seems like a very simple explanation that 'right' got omitted in Luke because it's not central to the point being made. One does not have to believe that Luke had no agenda of his own, or that Luke's sources were complete and fully accurate, to believe this explanation. Of course, it may not be literally 'Luke' who is responsible for the omission; the point is just that it seems to be a simple editorial change that occurred at some point in the history of the text(s) because it had no material effect on the sense of what Jesus is saying. You've not actually pointed to any evidence that casts doubt on this simple explanation. All this is a bit of a tangent though. Even without taking Luke into consideration, Wink's interpretation is outlandish when you read the passage in context. If we're going to talk about agendas and ulterior motives, it seems to me that Wink himself is the one who is most amply furnished with those. He was trying to paint Jesus as an advocate of his particular approach to nonviolent resistance. And in doing so, he arrived at an interpretation of the text that (to my very limited knowledge) has no precedent, even among theologians who lived in societies that were culturally much closer to 1st century Palestine than ours. >it seems really truculent to criticise the answering itself. The point of my question was to determine whether anyone had seriously made the claim that the golden rule originated with Christ. So much has been said about Christianity by so many people that you can attribute almost any wild claim about it to some random idiot or ignoramus. But it seems highly unlikely that anyone would make this claim who has even read the Bible passages where Jesus commends the golden rule. >Ah I get it now! When I wrote my original comment to say that there’s nothing novel in Christ’s teachings and you replied to say that Christ’s morality is “much more radical” than I had outlined, and that "turn the other cheek" is different to the maxim of reciprocity, you were… agreeing with me? Got it ;) No, I was saying that Christ's morality is more radical than just the golden rule (i.e. it is more extreme and more difficult to adhere to). I did not say that it was novel. I have no very strong opinion on the extent to which it is novel. As an aside, it's not clear to me that the novelty of Christ's ethical maxims is even a central tenet of Christianity. Focusing on the novelty of Christ's teachings makes more sense if you are a non-Christian who is evaluating his intellectual contribution as an ethical teacher, rather than a Christian who sees him as the saviour, the son of God, etc. etc.
    • georgespencer 6y ago