A question about the love of god

[John V]

Translations be damned.

I doubt you'd say that if 28 translations agreed with you, and I was hanging my hat on just two.

I just looked at your list and the majority say epilepsy, lunacy, or shaking. All still symptoms of disease.

Maybe you don't understand the definition of disease:

a condition of the living animal or plant body or of one of its parts that impairs normal functioning and is typically manifested by distinguishing signs and symptoms

I understand the modern secular understanding of disease. What I don't understand is how it's applicable to NT culture.

The boy was diseased and was cured by casting out a demon. The logical conclusion is that the demon was the cause of the disease. Earlier I gave you the only logical way around this by asking if you believed that the disease had a non-demon cause that cured itself at the time of exorcism; you said no.

Again, "ill" is only used in two translations out of 30. Most say the boy was possessed by a demon, and suffered severely from such possession. And again, note that there were instances in which people were healed of illness with no reference to demons, and instances in which demons were cast out with no reference to illness. Your case is built on a fringe translation of one passage, while ignoring all the others that go against it.

Perhaps you'll understand the point another way....
If your son frequently threw himself in fire and water while imitating a paint shaker, would you take him to a doctor or an exorcist?

I'd take him to a doctor, as I don't see that demon possession occurs today. We don't see examples of it in the OT. It was not a normal occurrence. Personally, I think it happened for a time as a challenge to Jesus and his followers.

But you bring up an interesting point. There were doctors back then. Luke was one. If people thought that all disease was caused by demons, then there would be no need for doctors - just priests.

Further consider the law (see Lev 15 for example). People with discharges which could indicate communicable diseases were not sent for exorcism. Instead, they were to separate from other people, and others were not to touch the things that the sick person had touched. Where are the demons?