You get the point!
Submitted by Heather on November 30 2000 19:35:07
In reply to Okay, I'll analyse your post then :) submitted by Triple Q on November 30 2000 16:11:03
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Defending God (the real God) against "God" (the false God that the faith community was preaching). You caught me in my slipshod reading of Paul, but my main point remains: that he's complaining about the Church in Corinth. Likewise, did you read far enough to see where God chews out Job? He'd hardly have felt the need to do so if none of Job's protests were against God. As for the Pharisees and scribes: I think that they were trying to mend souls. That's quite obvious from the way that Jesus refers to them throughout the Gospels. His argument isn't that they're stealing money from their fellow Jews (that's the job of the tax collectors with whom Jesus is so chummy); his argument is that they're destroying their fellow Jews' souls, by favoring the letter of the law over the spirit of the law. Wish I had a few rabbinic anecdotes at hand to provide you with some more examples of Jews complaining to God; here's the best I can do at short notice. (The Jewish scholars who comment on this passage complain that Christians never get the humor of this.) Then Abraham came near and said, "Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will you then sweep away the place and not forgive it for the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?" And the Lord said, "If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will forgive the whole place for their sake." Abraham answered, "Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?" And he said, "I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there." Again he spoke to him, "Suppose forty are found there." He answered, "For the sake of forty I will not do it." Then he said, "Oh do not let the Lord be angry if I speak. Suppose thirty are found there." He answered, "I will not do it, if I find thirty there." He said, "Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord. Suppose twenty are found there." He answered, "For the sake of twenty I will not destroy it." Then he said, "Oh do not let the Lord be angry if I speak just once more. Suppose ten are found there." He answered, "For the sake of ten I will not destroy it." And the Lord went his way, when he had finished speaking to Abraham; and Abraham returned to his place. Apparently this is real slapstick humor when read in the context of Jews' long history of complaining to God. (You've seen Fiddler on the Roof, I trust?)
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