A question about the love of god

[Cato]

What does it matter?

It matters because, if we don't know the disease and cause, then the boy may have been demon-possessed. Demon possession is of course cured by casting out the demon.

Are you seriously making the argument that the boy's affliction was caused by something other than the demon and just so happened to cure itself when the demon was cast out?

Also, I quoted the NAS; hardly a rogue translation.

[The Grand Nudger]

He's conflating his beliefs with the beliefs of the authors. Nothing more complicated than that. That absurdity would follow as you reference their beliefs and he references his is entirely predictable and uninteresting. Ad hoc salvage of a cherished concept.

[John V]

You understand that arguing over the factual accuracy of the beliefs of those people with someone who apparently believes in demons, but not that said demons cause disease, that there is a difference between demonic possession and disease -and that difference in his belief is indicative of a distinction in the minds of those authors who penned the tales- is not very appealing to me, yes?

Of course. You don't like to actually argue. If you did, you'd be willing to support your claims when challenged, or if not possible, to drop or alter your position.

---

Are you seriously making the argument that the boy's affliction was caused by something other than the demon and just so happened to cure itself when the demon was cast out?

No. As noted, demon possession is cured by casting out the demon. My position is that demon possession and disease are Biblically two different things which you're conflating.

Also, I quoted the NAS; hardly a rogue translation.

I agree that it's generally a good translation, but as noted, only two out of thirty say the boy was ill. Every translation gets some things wrong.

[The Grand Nudger]

Except that they aren't two things, biblically. You and I know that there's a distinction. Those that came up with these stories clearly did not.

[John V]

Except that they aren't two things, biblically. You and I know that there's a distinction. Those that came up with these stories clearly did not.

The fact that they stated them separately indicates that they clearly did consider them to be two things.

[The Grand Nudger]

They also stated them in conjuction, again, because they did not understand the distinction (as you and I do now, with a more comprehensive knowledge of the subject). Even when we might infer a distinction such as "is there no balm"(source me that quote if you like, I can;t remember where it's placed-it's been 15 years) we are ignoring how the people at the time would have conceptualized how balm worked - and upon what it worked. All of this stuff was essentially magic in the western world at the point in time we're referencing except to a handful of greeks (and their "disciples") who were forming the embryo of what we may today call medicine. The idea that demons merely caused "symptoms of disease" would be alien to them (and the concept of a physical cause for disease was largely foreign to them), the disease was the symptoms, and the cause could be anything, demons, foul spirits, etc. Such as my "spirit of infirmity" offered to you pages ago, or any of the others offered to you by other members.

[The Grand Nudger]

This is a conceptual failing that goes all the way back to OT "culture" such as it was. Some today (again, with our greater knowledge of the subject) might refer to obscure laws about seperating meat from dairy as though it were proscribed for health-which it was, spiritual health. They had no means of knowing that dairy is a perfect medium for bacteria common to meat - and particularly when you lack refridgeration, to thrive and become a problem. They probably did know that people got sick and died when food was thusly stored. Lacking a physical model they explained this in terms of spiritual cleanliness. The same is true for the washing of hands and feet. This was their model, this was how they percieved reality. A disease was spiritual (and there was very little -if any- seperation between the spiritual and the material), and demons could pull those strings. That's what made the healing of the sick and the casting out of demons such an important messianic claim. It expressed authority over what they saw as indistinguishable phenomena which could only be written down to godly power. Any magician could turn a stick into a snake, but only god could cure a leper or a lunatic.

[John V]

Matt 10
1 And when He had called His twelve disciples to Him, He gave them power over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease.

Sorry, but casting out unclean spirits and healing sickness are two different things here.

[The Grand Nudger]

Take a look at a literal translation of that passage, and you'll realize what my comment about translations was all about. The translators have applied their(our) understanding, rather than allowing the understanding of the peoples, and how they originally wrote that. Even so, and allowing you whatever translation you choose, elsewhere in the text they are the same. This is only because, again, the people had no fucking idea what they were talking about.

[Tonus]

There are a number of situations in the Bible where people were healed of sickness or other ailments (paralysis, blindness) without mention of demonic possession, so at the least they understood that a person could be ill and not demon-possessed. There are one or two incidents where demonic possession IS the ailment (the man who hosted the demons who named themselves Legion, for example), and at least one where it can be implied that the demonic possession is the cause of the ailments (the man who begins to speak after an exorcism).

I think that they understood that a person could suffer from disease or other impediments without demonic involvement, and that there were some ailments that they attributed to demonic possession. That they described exorcism separately from "healing the sick" indicates that they at least perceived that demons weren't floating around and sprinkling people with flu dust. But it's not a stretch to imagine that seizures or mental illness were frequently diagnosed as the direct work of evil spirits.