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Jesus and Prostitutes
#21
RE: Jesus and Prostitutes
(December 1, 2021 at 11:01 pm)Ferrocyanide Wrote: The Bible says this

Matthew 19:30 KING JAMES VERSION
But many [that are] first shall be last; and the last [shall be] first.


Matthew 20:16 KING JAMES VERSION
So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.

Ephesians 5:5 KING JAMES VERSION
For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

Hebrews 13:4 KING JAMES VERSION
Marriage [is] honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.


So, it looks like prostitutes are rejects.
Which part of the Bible says that they are in?

Quote:There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’

“ ‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.

“Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go.

“Which of the two did what his father wanted?”

“The first,” they answered.

Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.

Matthew 21:28-32
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#22
RE: Jesus and Prostitutes
(December 2, 2021 at 8:48 am)Belacqua Wrote:
(December 1, 2021 at 6:36 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote: I disagree with the notion that Christianity influences compassion toward prostitutes in contemporary times.

You could easily disprove the claim that Christianity has increased compassion to prostitution by finding a pre-Christian claim that prostitutes deserve any compassion at all. Contemporary attitudes have deep roots.

For example, if you could point us to a passage in Aristotle saying that porne and pornos are capable of having as much arete as a man with the leisure to live a contemplative life. Or, more to the point, that a person with no arete at all has as much worth as someone who has it. 

I acknowledge that Christians have always fallen short of having the compassion that Jesus demands for them. But the fact that we have any sympathy at all for such people originates, in the West, in Christianity. 

Again: prove me wrong by finding a non-Christian source urging compassion for such people, before the 20th century. Or demonstrate that compassion for prostitutes and other "low" people would be as great as it is in our time, without the roots of Christianity. In what source, uninfluenced by Christian thought, did it originate?

Find me a church that had sacred prostitutes and I'll entertain your notion that this misogynistic patriarchy paid prostitutes anything more than lip service. The fact that Jesus mentions them in the same breath with the universally hated Roman tax collectors tells you pretty much everything you need to know even before you read the passage in context and realize that Jesus is using prostitutes and tax collectors to insult a temple priest. He's literally saying that the priest is lower than scum in the eyes of his dear and fluffy lord.

My band will be named Jesus and the Lip Service. I leave the album covers to your imaginations.
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#23
RE: Jesus and Prostitutes
(December 1, 2021 at 8:08 am)vulcanlogician Wrote: We're all aware that Jesus hung out with prostitutes. At least, this is the story told in the Gospels. Also found in the Gospels is this: "The prostitutes and tax collectors will be the first to enter the Kingdom of Heaven"... "the last shall be first and the first shall be last."

Theologians have produced a crystalized interpretation of these verses over the centuries, but others (like Leo Tolstoy) have their own interpretation of Jesus' amiability toward sex workers. To Tolstoy, Jesus compassion springs from empathy... that they are downtrodden and hated among members of society. As traditional theologians tell it-- they see it through a Pauline lens-- Jesus is rescuing prostitutes from sin. ie. even though they are so wretched, and their sin is so great, Jesus nonetheless rescues them.

I'd like to hear everyone's input on this, especially the Christians on the forum. How do you interpret the Gospels' statements about prostitutes being the first to enter the Kingdom? Why did Jesus particularly aid and befriend prostitutes? Was it their downtrodden-ness, their "sinful nature" or something else?

If you knew Who CHRIST the Son of GOD Is, you would not write like this.

For the record:

1. "... all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" - Romans 3:23 (So, occupation notwithstanding... all humanity would have been condemned but for the grace of GOD); 
2. "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." - Romans 6:23
3. "The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, Slow to anger and great in mercy." - Psalm 145:8; "Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, Because His compassions fail not." - Lamentations 3:22; "And when Jesus went out He saw a great multitude; and He was moved with compassion for them, and healed their sick." - Matthew 14:14... and so on.


If one were to objectively consider these three points (at the least) one would see that GOD has compassion on and forgives a variety of people who have committed a variety of trespasses. 

Note examples of the confessions of men who have received the grace of GOD - realizing Who He Is!
  • "When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!” - Luke 5:8
  • "And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke. So I said: “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, The Lord of hosts.” - Isaiah 6:4-5
  • "As he journeyed he came near Damascus, and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven. Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” And he said, “Who are You, Lord?” Then the Lord said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” So he, trembling and astonished, said, “Lord, what do You want me to do?” Then the Lord said to him, “Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.” - Acts 9:3-6
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#24
RE: Jesus and Prostitutes
Jebus, the inventor of the money shot, was simply exploring better ways to bless those around him with his holy water. The working girls were easy. Jebus was lazy like that.
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#25
RE: Jesus and Prostitutes
Pretty sad when someone can only post quotes and not engage in conversation.
I don't have an anger problem, I have an idiot problem.
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#26
RE: Jesus and Prostitutes
(December 1, 2021 at 8:08 am)vulcanlogician Wrote: We're all aware that Jesus hung out with prostitutes. At least, this is the story told in the Gospels. Also found in the Gospels is this: "The prostitutes and tax collectors will be the first to enter the Kingdom of Heaven"... "the last shall be first and the first shall be last."

Theologians have produced a crystalized interpretation of these verses over the centuries, but others (like Leo Tolstoy) have their own interpretation of Jesus' amiability toward sex workers. To Tolstoy, Jesus compassion springs from empathy... that they are downtrodden and hated among members of society. As traditional theologians tell it-- they see it through a Pauline lens-- Jesus is rescuing prostitutes from sin. ie. even though they are so wretched, and their sin is so great, Jesus nonetheless rescues them.

I'd like to hear everyone's input on this, especially the Christians on the forum. How do you interpret the Gospels' statements about prostitutes being the first to enter the Kingdom? Why did Jesus particularly aid and befriend prostitutes? Was it their downtrodden-ness, their "sinful nature" or something else?

The poor and downtrodden were the target market of the early romanizers.  

There's nothing in the character of christ that remains of any human prototype.  In a collection of sayings attributed to a holy person that are (at least conceptually) a mix of authentic and inauthentic utterances, there are two basic reasons that anything out of the full body of literature remains in the sanctioned version...neither of which has anything to do with what or why some jesus, if there was a jesus, said anything.

It was popular with the target market, and useful to the disseminator. The jewish jesus, the alleged historical jesus, was supposed to be an apocalypticist crowing about the immanent fulfillment of davidic prophecy. The meek inheriting the earth, the last being first...negatron, none of that shit. As to some historically plausible explanation for there being so much outsider weirdness in the stories about a christ.....about a savior....... That's the authors of the narratives coming through. The lens they saw the world with, what made their narratives (as opposed to those others deemed heretical) so useful, what made them speak to the disenfranchised of rome. I always suggest to people who want to know why the character in magic book says this or that, to read up on early christan rebuttals to julian apostate. It's rare to find such a credible back and forth in the historic record in which both parties admit to their underlying aims as well as their failures while laying out their goals and accomplishments so frankly. Their world was full of the sick, starving, maimed, and impoverished. Two appeals competed for space in the minds of those afflicted. One, the now failing organization of the imperial cult, and two, a nascent catholic church providing those services the hallowed out civil administration had bungled. The emperors religion and the bishops religion are both political vehicles which serve the purpose of contextualizing their beliefs about the proper civil order. Walls of separation between religions and states are artificial, poorly constructed, and ineffectual today...and were non existent then.

It's an unsatisfying answer for the superstitious - as it's a literary and sociological explanation for a literary and social phenomena. I think that's a shame, as an understanding of why this sort of thing was crammed into the mouth of a god is the heart of a religion, a real religion that a society can organize itself around and absolutely none of it hinges on whether or not a real boy said a thing to have personal intentions about. We start off wrong footed in asking the question about an individual of whom we have no trace, by reference to a book about a movement of which we have a great deal of information, a book and a movement which has no meaningful relationship to any jesus-the-man, whoever he was, if he was.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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#27
RE: Jesus and Prostitutes
(December 6, 2021 at 5:25 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: The poor and downtrodden were the target market of the early romanizers.  

There's nothing in the character of christ that remains of any human prototype.  In a collection of sayings attributed to a holy person that are (at least conceptually) a mix of authentic and inauthentic utterances, there are two basic reasons that anything out of the full body of literature remains in the sanctioned version...neither of which has anything to do with what or why some jesus, if there was a jesus, said anything.

It was popular with the target market, and useful to the disseminator.  The jewish jesus, the alleged historical jesus, was supposed to be an apocalypticist crowing about the immanent fulfillment of davidic prophecy.  The meek inheriting the earth, the last being first...negatron, none of that shit.  As to some historically plausible explanation for there being so much outsider weirdness in the stories about a christ.....about a savior.......  That's the authors of the narratives coming through.  The lens they saw the world with, what made their narratives (as opposed to those others deemed heretical) so useful, what made them speak to the disenfranchised of rome.  I always suggest to people who want to know why the character in magic book says this or that, to read up on early christan rebuttals to julian apostate.  It's rare to find such a credible back and forth in the historic record in which both parties admit to their underlying aims as well as their failures while laying out their goals and accomplishments so frankly.  Their world was full of the sick, starving, maimed, and impoverished.  Two appeals competed for space in the minds of those afflicted.  One, the now failing organization of the imperial cult, and two, a nascent catholic church providing those services the hallowed out civil administration had bungled.  The emperors religion and the bishops religion are both political vehicles which serve the purpose of contextualizing their beliefs about the proper civil order.  Walls of separation between religions and states are artificial, poorly constructed, and ineffectual today...and were non existent then.

It's an unsatisfying answer for the superstitious - as it's a literary and sociological explanation for a literary and social phenomena.  I think that's a shame, as an understanding of why this sort of thing was crammed into the mouth of a god is the heart of a religion,  a real religion that a society can organize itself around and absolutely none of it hinges on whether or not a real boy said a thing to have personal intentions about.  We start off wrong footed in asking the question about an individual of whom we have no trace, by reference to a book about a movement of which we have a great deal of information, a book and a movement which has no meaningful relationship to any jesus-the-man, whoever he was, if he was.

I hadn't thought of it that way before, the Gospels being pieced together and composed amidst a political debate, addressing concerns and/or compromises within that debate.

To me, there needn't be a historical Jesus for a Christian to offer an interpretation of the text. The text had an author... perhaps many authors... and teams of editors. But that doesn't mean the final product doesn't say something coherent. I think the Bhagavad Gita says something coherent, even though I accept the conclusion of textual scholars that the supposed author of the text, Sanjaya, never existed. Nor do I think Krishna and Arjuna are historical figures. They are complete fabrications. Nonetheless, I do think the Gita had an author, and (despite revisions/modifications through the centuries by many) I still think the text has a cohesive message. A book authored by many is still a book. Many authors can often do a better job or improve upon what a single author has done.

From the atheists, I was seeking answers like yours. And I'm aware that Christianity is as Roman as it is Jewish. You gave a meaty answer with a causal explanation for the teachings in question.

But from the theists I just wanted to know what they thought of what the text says, despite the historicity of Jesus or the dubious authorship of the Gospels. I did hint at that in the OP, but I didn't want to mention the historicity of Jesus when all I was curious about hearing from some was their interpretation of the text.
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#28
RE: Jesus and Prostitutes
Asking christians about christianity is a sure way to be disappointed. Wink

Very specifically, the well moneyed sufferers from the antonine plagues who had failed to capture buy in to the imperial cult recognized that their secondary route to power was through the seething mass of whores who could marshal an army of combatants to rival the wolf mother herself. That could swamp any assorted cohort of the brothers romulus and remus, as had been so famously achieved by other barbarians and heathens in living memory. The classical pagan world left the door wide open for the ravages of christianity.

-and now there's nothing left of them, exactly as predicted. Meanwhwile, the promise of judaism remains unfulfilled. Imagine that.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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#29
RE: Jesus and Prostitutes
Jesus, "But Centurian, it's medicinal."

Centurian, "First of all, that's a prostitute."
Dying to live, living to die.
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#30
RE: Jesus and Prostitutes
(December 5, 2021 at 2:07 pm)Paleophyte Wrote:
(December 2, 2021 at 8:48 am)Belacqua Wrote: You could easily disprove the claim that Christianity has increased compassion to prostitution by finding a pre-Christian claim that prostitutes deserve any compassion at all. Contemporary attitudes have deep roots.

For example, if you could point us to a passage in Aristotle saying that porne and pornos are capable of having as much arete as a man with the leisure to live a contemplative life. Or, more to the point, that a person with no arete at all has as much worth as someone who has it. 

I acknowledge that Christians have always fallen short of having the compassion that Jesus demands for them. But the fact that we have any sympathy at all for such people originates, in the West, in Christianity. 

Again: prove me wrong by finding a non-Christian source urging compassion for such people, before the 20th century. Or demonstrate that compassion for prostitutes and other "low" people would be as great as it is in our time, without the roots of Christianity. In what source, uninfluenced by Christian thought, did it originate?

Find me a church that had sacred prostitutes and I'll entertain your notion that this misogynistic patriarchy paid prostitutes anything more than lip service. The fact that Jesus mentions them in the same breath with the universally hated Roman tax collectors tells you pretty much everything you need to know even before you read the passage in context and realize that Jesus is using prostitutes and tax collectors to insult a temple priest. He's literally saying that the priest is lower than scum in the eyes of his dear and fluffy lord.

My band will be named Jesus and the Lip Service. I leave the album covers to your imaginations.

Yes, it looks that way.
Matthew 21:23 says that Jesus is having a discussion with chief priests and the elders of the people.
They questioned Jesus by what authority is he here, preaching. Jesus did not like their attitude so he gave them some attitude.

But who knows, maybe Jesus is ok with tax collectors and prostitutes as long as they say “sorry” and they worship him as a god forever and ever.
Perhaps Jesus will actually put them at the front of the line.

It’s always possible to do some apolegetics (weaselletics) and claim that
Ephesians 5:5 and Hebrews 13:4
don’t matter.
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