What is the religious defense of this Jesus Christ quote?

[Sheldon]

Quoting from the bible, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household." - Jesus Christ, Matthew 10:34-36

How would theists defend Jesus here? It's my favorite biblical quote when I want to point out that Jesus is a dick.

It is incumbent upon us to understand what is written and what is translation. What bible translation are you quoting from?

If you go back to the Greek as written then the verse reads very differently.

"Think not that I am come to send [ballō - to throw or let go of a thing without caring where it falls] peace. I came not to send [same word, same meaning as before] peace but a sword [machaira - this is not a sword as we imagine but a small sword or large knife, its use here is figurative to mean judgement]. Freed of the constraints placed on it by translation it now says (me paraphrasing);

"Think not that I am come to carelessly discard peace. I have not come to carelessly discard peace but to bring judgement." This is setting up the next lines, where he then explains that judgement will set a man against his father, daughter against mother, etc.

Whilst I have no problem with the helpful translation, the original texts are all anonymous, as they were unauthored, making them the very definition of unevidenced hearsay, so we can't really know what was or was not said, or who did or did not say anything. Unless of course there is something approaching objective or independant verification.

[Ferrocyanide]

Quoting from the bible, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household." - Jesus Christ, Matthew 10:34-36

How would theists defend Jesus here? It's my favorite biblical quote when I want to point out that Jesus is a dick.

It is incumbent upon us to understand what is written and what is translation. What bible translation are you quoting from?

If you go back to the Greek as written then the verse reads very differently.

"Think not that I am come to send [ballō - to throw or let go of a thing without caring where it falls] peace. I came not to send [same word, same meaning as before] peace but a sword [machaira - this is not a sword as we imagine but a small sword or large knife, its use here is figurative to mean judgement]. Freed of the constraints placed on it by translation it now says (me paraphrasing);

"Think not that I am come to carelessly discard peace. I have not come to carelessly discard peace but to bring judgement." This is setting up the next lines, where he then explains that judgement will set a man against his father, daughter against mother, etc.

Thank you for that translation. I don’t think that line about swords means that Jesus is saying that he is coming to our house to stick a sword in our guts. I agree with you.

When it comes to christians, they defend Jesus as if he would never harm anyone.
The reality is that when you are the life giver, the dictator, the ultimate judge, it goes with the territory. You will most likely desire to damage, inflict pain, make people suffer, kill off those who don’t worship you.
It is part of the personality of ancient people, such as the jewish priestly class and they built their god in their own image.

For example, read Revelation 14:2.
This shows that Jesus is racist. His goal is to save his people, the jews.

Revelation 14:9 KING JAMES VERSION
And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive [his] mark in his forehead, or in his hand, {14:10} The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: {14:11} And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up FOR EVER AND EVER: and they have NO REST DAY NOR NIGHT, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.

Notice the line:
the smoke of their torment ascendeth up FOR EVER AND EVER
That implies being tortured forever.

Notice the line:
they have NO REST DAY NOR NIGHT
That implies being tortured forever.

Revelation 14:19 KING JAMES VERSION
And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast [it] into the great winepress of the wrath of God. {14:20} And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand [and] six hundred furlongs.

^^^^^Jesus is talking about collecting people, putting them in a winepress and crushing them like grapes and letting the blood flow into the streets.


Christian: It is a figure of speech. Jesus is a nice guy. He will give you hugs and kisses.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

If translation is an issue, one would have to ask why God, the purported author of scripture, would even allow the roadmap to salvation to be mis-interpretable at all. It seems problematic that something like a wrong noun or a misplaced comma would be enough to merit eternal damnation.

Boru

[Ravenshire]

If translation is an issue, one would have to ask why God, the purported author of scripture, would even allow the roadmap to salvation to be mis-interpretable at all. It seems problematic that something like a wrong noun or a misplaced comma would be enough to merit eternal damnation.

Boru

Our ways are not his ways, or some other such bullshit in 5... 4... 3... 2...

[The Grand Nudger]

Earlier you wrote that:

The Genesis creation myth, and the Noah flood myth, are two examples that not only contain risibly erroneous claims, but whose core message is contradicted by objective scientific facts.

Here you seem to be asserting a truth claim: that the stories' "core message" would be contradicted by objective scientific facts. And since you have said elsewhere that the person making the assertion carries the burden of proof, I’m asking you to demonstrate that your claim is correct. 

I KNOW that the global flood didn’t happen. I KNOW that the Genesis creation myth is not what happened. 

I DO NOT KNOW that the “core message” of each of these stories would be contradicted if the story is not scientifically true. So I’m asking you to support your claim. 

First, we’d have to establish what the “core message” of each story is. Then you’d have to show that, given this core message, it is no longer meaningful if the story containing it is fiction. You haven’t done these things yet. 

I am skeptical of your claim. Writers who wish to teach moral messages have used fiction as the medium for such lessons pretty much forever. They continue to do so. If the “core message” of a story is its moral interpretation, then fiction works perfectly well. Harry Potter novels and Spiderman comics may use these techniques as well. Why not? 

Scholars currently say that the Book of Genesis reached its current form sometime before the Babylonian exile, so prior to the 6th century BC. I’m curious if you can name any narrative text from that time or earlier which purports to give a straightforward account of events WITHOUT any moral or ideological message involved. I don’t know of any. When we read texts from this time, it is an informed person’s objective view to see them as carrying such messages. 

Herodotus is often said to be the first writer to attempt straightforward accounts of historical events WITHOUT adding in moral messages. He was writing at least 100 years after Genesis was edited together, and he was seen as an innovator. In other words, the kind of history he was writing was not the kind of thing that the authors of Genesis wished to write. And his methods were slow to catch on. 

Caesar’s Commentarii de Bello Gallico are taken to be accurate history, and of course these were written hundreds of years after Herodotus. At the time, though, it was still considered normal to write the kind of foundational myth in the same genre as the Hebrew Bible. Obviously Vergil’s Aeneid is myth written to give Rome a glamorous foundation, though everyone who read it at the time was perfectly aware that the events in the story are fictional. 

One book you could read to address this whole topic is Richard Rorty’s Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. Rorty is an atheist and so his approach to using fiction is perfectly safe for atheists to use. He makes the case that in teaching us about our moral lives, and how we can increase our empathy and solidarity with others, fiction is often more effective than non-fiction. He does close readings of novels by Nabokov and Orwell to make this point. All of these novels are of course fiction, yet the "core message" of each is not harmed by the fact that the events recounted never happened. 

So I disagree with you that the “core message” of a text is always its literal sense.

Utterly wrong in the most fascinating ways.  The first five books of the ot are believed to be post exile.  Written by the recently returned elites in control of the temple.  Genesis is believed to be redacted literature that gained it's current form around 400bc, so contemporary with herodotus.  It's joshua judges samuel and kings that comes from the 6th - and also purports to be a history of israel from the conquest of canaan to the siege of jerusalem in 587.  

The elite in the second temple period certainly didn't want anyone to call their stories from the 4th or the 6th fiction and didn't want anyone to take them that way - as they made an explicit claim to a theocratic regime and authority based on the presumed veracity of the tales.

(spoiler alert the alleged history from the sixth is also sideways with the facts of the matter)

[Fake Messiah]

Or what about this Jesus' quote? I want to see again how Vicky puts the blame on those "violent Jews" and not Jesus.

Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted to the heavens? No, you will go down to Hades.

Luke 10:13-15

[HappySkeptic]

Or what about this Jesus' quote? I want to see again how Vicky puts the blame on those "violent Jews" and not Jesus.

Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted to the heavens? No, you will go down to Hades.

Luke 10:13-15

Jesus never preached unconditional love.  Love was always conditional on righteousness.  Paul may have preached "salvation by faith alone", but Jesus never did.

Those who claim "God is Love" haven't read the bible.  Reading the bible is the quickest path to Atheism.

[Modern Atheism]

Or what about this Jesus' quote? I want to see again how Vicky puts the blame on those "violent Jews" and not Jesus.

Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted to the heavens? No, you will go down to Hades.

Luke 10:13-15

They would probably say that those people were sinners and Jesus is talking about just condemnation.

[Mister Agenda]

I think the official line is everyone is a sinner and deserves condemenation, but there's a get out of hell free card if you believe the right things.

[The Grand Nudger]

Yeah, abrahamism has a long history of legalism and with futile attempts to distance itself from it ex-officio.