The centurion and his servant
Submitted by Heather on July 30 1999 at 20:35:26
|
Hi, Encouraged, My thoughts are the same as Ben's; I see no reason to believe that David and Jonathan were lovers, but some people on this board have suggested that possibility, so I felt obliged to explain why I wasn't including those verses. As for the centurion story, I was using shorthand, because we've had discussions of that passage here and at Religious Debate Chat. I might as well take the opportunity to reprint here excerpts from one of the articles on that subject, but what I will emphasize here is that an interpretation that the centurion was a pederast does not necessarily mean that Jesus approved of this fact, any more than the fact that the centurion worshipped pagan gods meant that Jesus necessarily approved of him being pagan. I've appended to the excerpts the reactions of a pastor who posted a reply to the excerpts at RDC. At any rate, welcome to CBF. I'm sorry that you've had problems posting – perhaps there was some sort of technical glitch? Heather * * * Mader, D. H. "The Entimos Pais of Matthew 8:5-13 and Luke 7:1-10." Paidika (Summer 1987), 27-39. 1. Respecting the consensus of criticial opinion, it is probable that Matthew 8:5-13 and Luke 7:1-10 are both drawn from the same original account; that Matthew's version better represents that original; and that the word pais [boy, servant] was used in that account, with Matthew preserving the word while Luke substituted doulos [slave]. 2. The word pais, when used in the context of a close non-parental relationships such as that portrayed here – a relationship that John, when using the account, found fitting and explicable as a parent-child relationship – could have conveyed to a first-century audience the implication of paederasty. [This is Mader's central argument, which he develops at length by citing uses of the word pais in other first-century literature.] 3. Not only could this account have been read as referring to a paederastic relationship, but the author of Luke, by substituting doulos for pais (thus affirming his understanding that the relationship was non-parental while using a less provocative word), and by adding the qualification that the boy was entimos [honored], indicates that he understood it that way. 4. While it is presumed [to] be that a deeply observant God-fearer [the centurion] would not practise paederasty, the possibility that this account does refer to paederasty cannot be eliminated for that reason. There were many levels of observance among God-fearers, and the details that imply that the centurion was an observant God-fearer are probably Luke's composition. This passage will not allow us to reach any sweeping conclusions about Jesus' attitudes toward paederasty or homosexuality. As we noted early in this paper, the story does not contain any authoritative moral teachings on the subject. . . . Therefore, the most that can be claimed is that a segment of the early church out of which the 'Q' document and Matthew arose, was not concerned, and believed that Jesus was not concerned, when confronted by a responsible, loving paederistic relationship, but rather held it subordinate to questions of faith. This is entirely consistent with the rest of the image created by the Gospels. . . . [Throughout the Gospels], Jesus is shown as more concerned with the state of a person's faith than with their observation of conventional, and particularly sexual, morality. There is nothing unusual, then, in the response Jesus is shown to have toward the centurion, whose request is evidently based on his real love for the boy as well as his strong trust in the saving power of Jesus. Indeed, Jesus is depicted as affirming the relationship here, and fulfilling the centurion's faith, by restoring his boy to him. * * * Reply by Bob B (pastor): Heather, thanks for bringing this one to my attention. Since biblical exegesis is kind of treadin' on my turf, I'll be glad to mak e some comments. Just one or observation to toss into the mix. First, we have no record of Jesus refusing, for any reason, to heal someone when asked (the closest thing we have to that is the matter of the Syrophoenecian woman's daughter). So no implication can be drawn from the fact of the healing concerning his attitude toward someone's activities. Besides, what sense would it make to punish the boy for the sin of the centurion (if that's what we're looking at here)? The love of Jesus knows no moral bounds. Second, since both Matthew and Luke report the centurion as asking Jesus not to come under his roof, specifically because of his own unworthiness, this might indicate several things. It may be a recognition of the difficulty for any Jew to accept the hospitality of any Gentile, as is found later in the case of Peter and the centurion Cornelius; but since Jesus has already indicated that this is not personally a barrier to him ("I will come and heal him"), there must be something more. Presumably if the relationship was one of pederasty, a not uncommon practice among the Romans, this Roman, who has familiarized himself with Jewish ways, would know that it is something specifically abhorrent to Jews, and may even have, at least, mixed feelings about it himself – hence his expressed sense of unworthiness. In that case, Jesus' praise of his faith would be similar to the high way he speaks in parable about the tax collector who beats his breast in prayer and says "God be merciful to me a sinner." The recognition of "great faith" may be directly tied to the self-recognition of unworthiness. Such faith, as Paul later points out in his discussion of Abraham, is counted as righteousness. |