11 ms·

I think the primary reason Jesus never argued for divorce is that he didn't reach middle age.

by LNSY 5y ago

dang 5y ago
Please don't post unsubstantive comments like this. It leads to worse discussion. In this case we got a religious flamewar—the dumbest and most avoidable kind of flamewar. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- gwd 5y ago
  It's unfortunate that just bringing up Jesus can cause the discussion to go off into the weeds like this, but FWIW I don't think GP can be blamed for that. I think their comment was relevant (the main reason Milton would have even had to argue for divorce was because of the way Jesus' words were interpreted by the powers that be at the time) and respectful (lots of people are unrealistically idealistic when younger, and develop more complex views after being exposed to more life experience). I think it would be a shame to prune off relevant points just because other people are prone to start flamewars in response.
  - dang 5y ago
    The comment was a shallow one-liner which doesn't come close to supporting your interpretation. The Jesus bait just made it more flammable. Commenters can, and should, do better than that here.
kstenerud 5y ago
- jfk13 5y ago
  > a fictional character Harry Potter is a fictional character. Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character. Bilbo Baggins is a fictional character. They never existed outside of their authors' (and then readers') imaginations, although in some aspects they may have been modelled on real people. Jesus of Nazareth, in contrast, is a real person who lived in Galilee and Judea, a couple of thousand years ago. It's hard to find a serious historian who would dispute this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Jesus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Jesus You may not believe every aspect of the "official narrative" (or other stories about him), or agree with their view of his significance. But to call him "fictional" is ridiculous.
  - trasz 5y ago
  - kstenerud 5y ago
    Yes, much along the same lines as Gilgamesh. There may have been a historical seed, but the fruit of his deification and the descriptions of his exploits and character are most definitely fictional, to the point that any actual person has been lost to the sands of time. We can say this because the major miracles attributed to him are verifiably borrowed from existing legends in other kingdoms.
    - interpenetrate 5y ago
      We can much more easily deny the attribution of the major miracles to the real Jesus by saying miracles don't happen. The much more interesting question for historians for hundreds of years, which you are avoiding, is what real things can be attributed to Jesus?
      - kstenerud 5y ago
        Saying "miracles don't happen" isn't going to help at all in the study of historical accounts. Rather, historians look at parallels and similarities + timelines to draw lineages between legends of different cultures, and find common patterns that have a tendency to spring forth as emergent phenomena in oral traditions. This helps tease out original content from borrowed or common themes. And even though originality doesn't imply truthfulness or accuracy, it does narrow the field significantly, separating the possibly-accurate from the definitely-not-accurate.
        interpenetrate 5y ago
        Unlike the Hebrew Bible, which came centuries after Enuma Elish and other inherited traditions (that are universally acknowledged by biblical and historical critics!), the Gospels were written merely 30 years after Jesus preached. This means that the traditions in the narratives of Jesus's life are the same traditions that Jesus himself was part of. Your criteria is thus completely backwards. That Jesus is attributed with apocalyptic sayings can only serve to prove his historical existence by the historical critical criteria of "social coherence," because Jesus lived in a time where the apocalyptic tradition was at its peak.
- dang 5y ago
  Please do not take HN threads into religious flamewar. Last thing we need here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
q-base 5y ago
Haha this made me laugh :)
watwut 5y ago
Jesus never married in the first place. Nor had sexual/romantic relationships.
- efdee 5y ago
  Maria Magdalena would like to have a word with you.
  - jfk13 5y ago
    Dan Brown and Nikos Kazantzakis are novelists, not historians.
    - efdee 5y ago
      Neither did they invent Maria Magdalena.
    - netcan 5y ago
      ...joining a long tradition of storytelling about this person.
      - wiredone 5y ago
        Have HN Gold my friend.
      - unknown_apostle 5y ago
        ...some of which claim to be eye witness accounts, being weirdly restrained in describing the highly miraculous, placing these miracles against a backdrop of great received wisdom and mundane details, all the while sounding as if they actually have the personal backgrounds, sources and motives they claim to have.
      - refurb 5y ago
        Sure but some stories are a little more reliable than others.
gwd 5y ago
Actually the primary reason he never argued for divorce was that in his day, divorce was actually super easy. During his day there were two schools of thought on divorce; one required specific grounds for divorce (which included adultery, abuse, and abandonment); the other allowed it for "any cause". There's a case to be made that Jesus' teaching on divorce (most fully represented in Matthew 19[1]) was aimed exclusively at the unfair use of this "any cause" divorce [2]. [1] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+19%3A1-12&version=NIV https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+19%3A1-... [2] http://www.instonebrewer.com/DivorceRemarriage/Articles/WhitefieldBriefing.htm http://www.instonebrewer.com/DivorceRemarriage/Articles/Whit...

I think the primary reason Jesus never argued for divorce is that he didn't reach middle age.

by LNSY 5y ago

I think the primary reason Jesus never argued for divorce is that he didn't reach middle age.

dang 5y ago

Please don't post unsubstantive comments like this. It leads to worse discussion. In this case we got a religious flamewar—the dumbest and most avoidable kind of flamewar. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

gwd 5y ago
It's unfortunate that just bringing up Jesus can cause the discussion to go off into the weeds like this, but FWIW I don't think GP can be blamed for that. I think their comment was relevant (the main reason Milton would have even had to argue for divorce was because of the way Jesus' words were interpreted by the powers that be at the time) and respectful (lots of people are unrealistically idealistic when younger, and develop more complex views after being exposed to more life experience). I think it would be a shame to prune off relevant points just because other people are prone to start flamewars in response.
- dang 5y ago
  The comment was a shallow one-liner which doesn't come close to supporting your interpretation. The Jesus bait just made it more flammable. Commenters can, and should, do better than that here.

kstenerud 5y ago

jfk13 5y ago
> a fictional character Harry Potter is a fictional character. Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character. Bilbo Baggins is a fictional character. They never existed outside of their authors' (and then readers') imaginations, although in some aspects they may have been modelled on real people. Jesus of Nazareth, in contrast, is a real person who lived in Galilee and Judea, a couple of thousand years ago. It's hard to find a serious historian who would dispute this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Jesus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Jesus You may not believe every aspect of the "official narrative" (or other stories about him), or agree with their view of his significance. But to call him "fictional" is ridiculous.
- trasz 5y ago
- kstenerud 5y ago
  Yes, much along the same lines as Gilgamesh. There may have been a historical seed, but the fruit of his deification and the descriptions of his exploits and character are most definitely fictional, to the point that any actual person has been lost to the sands of time. We can say this because the major miracles attributed to him are verifiably borrowed from existing legends in other kingdoms.
  - interpenetrate 5y ago
    We can much more easily deny the attribution of the major miracles to the real Jesus by saying miracles don't happen. The much more interesting question for historians for hundreds of years, which you are avoiding, is what real things can be attributed to Jesus?
    - kstenerud 5y ago
      Saying "miracles don't happen" isn't going to help at all in the study of historical accounts. Rather, historians look at parallels and similarities + timelines to draw lineages between legends of different cultures, and find common patterns that have a tendency to spring forth as emergent phenomena in oral traditions. This helps tease out original content from borrowed or common themes. And even though originality doesn't imply truthfulness or accuracy, it does narrow the field significantly, separating the possibly-accurate from the definitely-not-accurate.
      - interpenetrate 5y ago
        Unlike the Hebrew Bible, which came centuries after Enuma Elish and other inherited traditions (that are universally acknowledged by biblical and historical critics!), the Gospels were written merely 30 years after Jesus preached. This means that the traditions in the narratives of Jesus's life are the same traditions that Jesus himself was part of. Your criteria is thus completely backwards. That Jesus is attributed with apocalyptic sayings can only serve to prove his historical existence by the historical critical criteria of "social coherence," because Jesus lived in a time where the apocalyptic tradition was at its peak.
dang 5y ago
Please do not take HN threads into religious flamewar. Last thing we need here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

q-base 5y ago

Haha this made me laugh :)

watwut 5y ago

Jesus never married in the first place. Nor had sexual/romantic relationships.

efdee 5y ago
Maria Magdalena would like to have a word with you.
- jfk13 5y ago
  Dan Brown and Nikos Kazantzakis are novelists, not historians.
  - efdee 5y ago
    Neither did they invent Maria Magdalena.
  - netcan 5y ago
    ...joining a long tradition of storytelling about this person.
    - wiredone 5y ago
      Have HN Gold my friend.
    - unknown_apostle 5y ago
      ...some of which claim to be eye witness accounts, being weirdly restrained in describing the highly miraculous, placing these miracles against a backdrop of great received wisdom and mundane details, all the while sounding as if they actually have the personal backgrounds, sources and motives they claim to have.
    - refurb 5y ago
      Sure but some stories are a little more reliable than others.

gwd 5y ago

Actually the primary reason he never argued for divorce was that in his day, divorce was actually super easy. During his day there were two schools of thought on divorce; one required specific grounds for divorce (which included adultery, abuse, and abandonment); the other allowed it for "any cause". There's a case to be made that Jesus' teaching on divorce (most fully represented in Matthew 19[1]) was aimed exclusively at the unfair use of this "any cause" divorce [2]. [1] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+19%3A1-12&version=NIV https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+19%3A1-... [2] http://www.instonebrewer.com/DivorceRemarriage/Articles/WhitefieldBriefing.htm http://www.instonebrewer.com/DivorceRemarriage/Articles/Whit...