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Except that Jesus taught his disciples not to wash their hands before eating -- a basic hygenic practice that people of his time certainly understood. However

Except that Jesus taught his disciples not to wash their hands before eating -- a basic hygenic practice that people of his time certainly understood. However valuable his moral teachings may have been, Jesus is not exactly an authority on preventing disease spread... (Also, the story of Jesus and the leper may have been nothing more than an attempt to talk about Jesus' miraculous powers.)

hajile 5y ago
He was rejecting ritual purification saying that your actions are more important. He agreed with all the requirements in the Torah, but not all the additional rituals gradually stacked on top (where the excessive ritual purification of his day fit). Leprosy was viewed as a symbol of sin. This story was about Him touching a sinner and purifying them from that sin.
- betterunix2 5y ago
  If that is true, why would Jesus have taught his disciples the spiritual value of ritual bathing and ritual foot washing?
  - alexvoda 5y ago
    Because the teachings of the Bible are not required to be coherent with eachother. It is detrimental if they are because it reduces the flexibility of interpretation. A good dogma, can always be interpreted favorably regardless of the situation. A good dogma is like xkcd.com, you can always find a relevant quote for any given thing. A rigid dogma can not, therefore it is a bad dogma, therefore it does not stand the test of time.
    - alehander42 5y ago
      this is a problem: your interpretations contradict. Yes, if it was only about hygiene, this would seem strange. But the actual passages are more complex: and naturally, ignoring symbolism, ignoring the whole context, the huge difference between Law and human rules, the giant focus on sin in thousands of years of Scripture, Christ's ministry and the Law, Israel society, one can leap to any interpretation he wants. We can also add James epistle , James 4:8-9: "Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world."
      - alexvoda 5y ago
        > one can leap to any interpretation he wants. That is the very point of dogma beeing incoherent. Any interpretation can be derived. Therefore you need a profitable hierarchical beurocracy to tell the people the right interpretation. Every cult new and old has worked the same way.
        alehander42 5y ago
        Not really. The Scripture is very good at showing what's in our heart: we have freedom to interpret some non-obvious things wrongly, to not put effort at actually understanding it and into deluding ourselves. However especially the Gospels have a lot of very obvious spiritual teachings. But very often the truth reason that we don't like them is not because of our intelligence(you can find genius people believing in almost every kind of faith or ideology), but because of trauma, misunderstanding or the fact that often deep down we want to be our own gods, but we just end up being slaves to our own fragility and animal-like passions. Hebrews 4:12 "For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it pierces even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart. " (edit: also, my point is: if you ignore all the things you shouldn't ignore, it's easy to leap to wrong interpretations. you shouldn't ignore them! end of edit)
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  - hajile 5y ago
    Let's talk about Christian theology from that perspective Jesus spoke sternly several times about the hypocrisy and burden of those artificial rules. He pointed out how they would "strain a gnat and swallow a camel" (straining their drinking water to avoid unclean animals while enjoying camel steaks which were unclean) or meticulously paying tithe of their little herbs while taking bribes and corrupting their legal judgements or promising their possessions to God so they could avoid honoring and taking care of their parents. He talked about how they made the Sabbath a burden and the day of rest was made for the good of mankind rather than mankind being made slave to their onerous Sabbath rituals (eg, you couldn't go more than a certain distance, but if you went out before Sabbath and laid out parcels of food, you could go the distance, then stop at your "house" for a meal and then continue on). If Jesus was indeed the Creator and Son of God, then His establishing a ritual would be very different from an ordinary man creating a ritual. Jesus fulfilled the ceremonial laws when He died (becoming the literal death the symbol that the lamb pointed toward). This applied to the rest of the ceremonial laws (though not the Ten Commandments else sin could not exist as it is defined as the breaking of those laws). In effect, the many daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly ceremonial rituals were swept away. Their replacements were a single baptism when one decided to follow Him and an occasional ("as often as you do this") ritual of humility (foot washing) followed by a ritual to remind of His death (communion).
ekianjo 5y ago
> not to wash their hands before eating if you dont have soap rinsing your hands with water that could be contaminated by a myriad of bacteria may not be the best course of action. Even in the modern world of less-developed countries, most gastrointestinal infections come from (unclean) water, not food.
- cainxinth 5y ago
  Soap was invented in 2800 BC
  - ekianjo 5y ago
    And you would be surprised that it was not routinely available everywhere, anytime, in antiquity. Mass consumption of soap is a very, very recent thing.
    - cainxinth 5y ago
      First hit from Google for “Did they use soap in biblical times?”: >”Soap became hugely popular throughout the Roman Empire, around 100 BC to 400 AD. When the ruins of Pompeii were excavated, an entire soap factory was discovered in the rubble.”
- JetAlone 5y ago
  You can wash your hands if you think it is wise to, but don't make it a matter of spiritual, ritual cleanliness that you place trust in the performance of above God as the pharisees did. As you say, God can make the water a worse poison to you. Honour your father and mother. Be just to your neighbor. Trust God above man and cultivate a loving relationship with both. The modern day godless neo-pharisees will of course, as always, ask questions and make remarks that are trite, intended to discredit people's faith, or trip heartfelt believers into contradiction. They want to maintain the social order they're scared of having overturned by a just man willing to make a real sacrifice going against its grain in a sorely needed fashion. They don't understand, so be it.
  - 5y ago
alehander42 5y ago
It is about the actual purpose of the Law and it references ritual purification. It's about human traditions vs God's Law. We don't need to wash our hands as a spiritual ritual before eating, we absolutely can wash them if it makes sense to wash them, e.g. hygiene. Read Mark 7: 1 The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus 2 and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. 3 (The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. 4 When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles.[a]) 5 So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?” larger second EDIT: The focus is of course, spiritual, and it is on the actual things that defile people, for example: 20 He went on: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. 21 For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, 22 adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 23 All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”
- JetAlone 5y ago
  I tried to explain this too, but these airwaves are sadly dominated by people vehemently motivated to buttress the narrative that Christians are or should be against any form of hand washing if they were consistent. I think this case (among others) would be a pretty good litmus test to root out people who don't want to understand and, however intelligent or civil, are just not emotionally ready to discuss it. I can understand to some degree why they act as they do; they honestly think lots of people will tragically die and have their rights trampled on if they don't generate enough apostasy or prevent enough conversions to deter the Christian worldview from regaining enormous appeal. Being an anti-christian culture warrior feels rewarding. I should know, I used to be one. The simple matter I eventually discovered as I got older is, there is no life, no justice, no joy, no freedom, no rights, no good, nothing worth having without a sincere relationship with the Creator of all these things. I can't just generate these virtues and hoard them for myself, they ultimately came from something greater than me.
alexvoda 5y ago
Since we are discussing religion, lets invoke the problem of evil and see what theodicy GP comes up with. What kind of god, with the ability to completely cure a horrible disease with a simple gesture, instead goes arround and publicly heals a handful of people. How do you classify someone with the ability to eradicate a source of suffering, only making use of it for a few public appearances surrounded by those who will tell the tale. And if you respond that it is not him that healed them, it is their faith, that faith has spread far and wide on all continents since then, yet the only progress humanity has made against Mycobacterium leprae, has been since sanitation, antibiotics, and vaccination (BCG vaccine) entered the stage. Here is a chart about leprosy epidemiology in 2016: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leprosy#/media/File%3ALeprosy_new_case_detection_2016_rates%2C_2016_(cropped).png https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leprosy#/media/File%3ALepros... It must be really nice living in a country where the threat of leprosy is closer to a myth than to an everyday topic. One in which you are not praying to a god each day to be shielded of the threat of leprosy or to be cured of it because you have better things to pray for. I find it amazing how some human traits are so deep that people do not realise just how human, every single description of a god is. It is a monumental failure of imagination of what a god might be. And no wonder it is so. People before the enlightenment had far fewer sources to feed that imagination. And people after, found better uses of that imagination.
- alehander42 5y ago
  God gives eternal life. In this case, the biggest problem we have isn't really sickness, or even physical death: it's separation from the Him: the Source of all that's actually good, and being enslaved to everything opposing Him. Christ himself wasn't spared a brutal death in this life: many apostles and martyrs in a similar way, and this wasn't by accident. Earthly comfort or even health isn't the goal of christianity. Being re-united to God and stop being slaves to sin is more important: but this is a question of free will imho. (as apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians: 1 For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. 2 Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling,..) The faith doesn't make sense, if one believes only in the material world. It's central point is the Resurrection: "If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied." (1 Cor 15:19) [1] 1 Corinthians https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians%2015%3A12-19&version=NIV https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians...

hajile 5y ago

He was rejecting ritual purification saying that your actions are more important. He agreed with all the requirements in the Torah, but not all the additional rituals gradually stacked on top (where the excessive ritual purification of his day fit). Leprosy was viewed as a symbol of sin. This story was about Him touching a sinner and purifying them from that sin.

betterunix2 5y ago
If that is true, why would Jesus have taught his disciples the spiritual value of ritual bathing and ritual foot washing?
- alexvoda 5y ago
  Because the teachings of the Bible are not required to be coherent with eachother. It is detrimental if they are because it reduces the flexibility of interpretation. A good dogma, can always be interpreted favorably regardless of the situation. A good dogma is like xkcd.com, you can always find a relevant quote for any given thing. A rigid dogma can not, therefore it is a bad dogma, therefore it does not stand the test of time.
  - alehander42 5y ago
    this is a problem: your interpretations contradict. Yes, if it was only about hygiene, this would seem strange. But the actual passages are more complex: and naturally, ignoring symbolism, ignoring the whole context, the huge difference between Law and human rules, the giant focus on sin in thousands of years of Scripture, Christ's ministry and the Law, Israel society, one can leap to any interpretation he wants. We can also add James epistle , James 4:8-9: "Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world."
    - alexvoda 5y ago
      > one can leap to any interpretation he wants. That is the very point of dogma beeing incoherent. Any interpretation can be derived. Therefore you need a profitable hierarchical beurocracy to tell the people the right interpretation. Every cult new and old has worked the same way.
      - alehander42 5y ago
        Not really. The Scripture is very good at showing what's in our heart: we have freedom to interpret some non-obvious things wrongly, to not put effort at actually understanding it and into deluding ourselves. However especially the Gospels have a lot of very obvious spiritual teachings. But very often the truth reason that we don't like them is not because of our intelligence(you can find genius people believing in almost every kind of faith or ideology), but because of trauma, misunderstanding or the fact that often deep down we want to be our own gods, but we just end up being slaves to our own fragility and animal-like passions. Hebrews 4:12 "For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it pierces even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart. " (edit: also, my point is: if you ignore all the things you shouldn't ignore, it's easy to leap to wrong interpretations. you shouldn't ignore them! end of edit)
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
- hajile 5y ago
  Let's talk about Christian theology from that perspective Jesus spoke sternly several times about the hypocrisy and burden of those artificial rules. He pointed out how they would "strain a gnat and swallow a camel" (straining their drinking water to avoid unclean animals while enjoying camel steaks which were unclean) or meticulously paying tithe of their little herbs while taking bribes and corrupting their legal judgements or promising their possessions to God so they could avoid honoring and taking care of their parents. He talked about how they made the Sabbath a burden and the day of rest was made for the good of mankind rather than mankind being made slave to their onerous Sabbath rituals (eg, you couldn't go more than a certain distance, but if you went out before Sabbath and laid out parcels of food, you could go the distance, then stop at your "house" for a meal and then continue on). If Jesus was indeed the Creator and Son of God, then His establishing a ritual would be very different from an ordinary man creating a ritual. Jesus fulfilled the ceremonial laws when He died (becoming the literal death the symbol that the lamb pointed toward). This applied to the rest of the ceremonial laws (though not the Ten Commandments else sin could not exist as it is defined as the breaking of those laws). In effect, the many daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly ceremonial rituals were swept away. Their replacements were a single baptism when one decided to follow Him and an occasional ("as often as you do this") ritual of humility (foot washing) followed by a ritual to remind of His death (communion).

ekianjo 5y ago

> not to wash their hands before eating if you dont have soap rinsing your hands with water that could be contaminated by a myriad of bacteria may not be the best course of action. Even in the modern world of less-developed countries, most gastrointestinal infections come from (unclean) water, not food.

cainxinth 5y ago
Soap was invented in 2800 BC
- ekianjo 5y ago
  And you would be surprised that it was not routinely available everywhere, anytime, in antiquity. Mass consumption of soap is a very, very recent thing.
  - cainxinth 5y ago
    First hit from Google for “Did they use soap in biblical times?”: >”Soap became hugely popular throughout the Roman Empire, around 100 BC to 400 AD. When the ruins of Pompeii were excavated, an entire soap factory was discovered in the rubble.”
JetAlone 5y ago
You can wash your hands if you think it is wise to, but don't make it a matter of spiritual, ritual cleanliness that you place trust in the performance of above God as the pharisees did. As you say, God can make the water a worse poison to you. Honour your father and mother. Be just to your neighbor. Trust God above man and cultivate a loving relationship with both. The modern day godless neo-pharisees will of course, as always, ask questions and make remarks that are trite, intended to discredit people's faith, or trip heartfelt believers into contradiction. They want to maintain the social order they're scared of having overturned by a just man willing to make a real sacrifice going against its grain in a sorely needed fashion. They don't understand, so be it.
- 5y ago

alehander42 5y ago

It is about the actual purpose of the Law and it references ritual purification. It's about human traditions vs God's Law. We don't need to wash our hands as a spiritual ritual before eating, we absolutely can wash them if it makes sense to wash them, e.g. hygiene. Read Mark 7: 1 The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus 2 and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. 3 (The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. 4 When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles.[a]) 5 So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?” larger second EDIT: The focus is of course, spiritual, and it is on the actual things that defile people, for example: 20 He went on: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. 21 For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, 22 adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 23 All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”

JetAlone 5y ago
I tried to explain this too, but these airwaves are sadly dominated by people vehemently motivated to buttress the narrative that Christians are or should be against any form of hand washing if they were consistent. I think this case (among others) would be a pretty good litmus test to root out people who don't want to understand and, however intelligent or civil, are just not emotionally ready to discuss it. I can understand to some degree why they act as they do; they honestly think lots of people will tragically die and have their rights trampled on if they don't generate enough apostasy or prevent enough conversions to deter the Christian worldview from regaining enormous appeal. Being an anti-christian culture warrior feels rewarding. I should know, I used to be one. The simple matter I eventually discovered as I got older is, there is no life, no justice, no joy, no freedom, no rights, no good, nothing worth having without a sincere relationship with the Creator of all these things. I can't just generate these virtues and hoard them for myself, they ultimately came from something greater than me.

alexvoda 5y ago

Since we are discussing religion, lets invoke the problem of evil and see what theodicy GP comes up with. What kind of god, with the ability to completely cure a horrible disease with a simple gesture, instead goes arround and publicly heals a handful of people. How do you classify someone with the ability to eradicate a source of suffering, only making use of it for a few public appearances surrounded by those who will tell the tale. And if you respond that it is not him that healed them, it is their faith, that faith has spread far and wide on all continents since then, yet the only progress humanity has made against Mycobacterium leprae, has been since sanitation, antibiotics, and vaccination (BCG vaccine) entered the stage. Here is a chart about leprosy epidemiology in 2016: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leprosy#/media/File%3ALeprosy_new_case_detection_2016_rates%2C_2016_(cropped).png https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leprosy#/media/File%3ALepros... It must be really nice living in a country where the threat of leprosy is closer to a myth than to an everyday topic. One in which you are not praying to a god each day to be shielded of the threat of leprosy or to be cured of it because you have better things to pray for. I find it amazing how some human traits are so deep that people do not realise just how human, every single description of a god is. It is a monumental failure of imagination of what a god might be. And no wonder it is so. People before the enlightenment had far fewer sources to feed that imagination. And people after, found better uses of that imagination.

alehander42 5y ago
God gives eternal life. In this case, the biggest problem we have isn't really sickness, or even physical death: it's separation from the Him: the Source of all that's actually good, and being enslaved to everything opposing Him. Christ himself wasn't spared a brutal death in this life: many apostles and martyrs in a similar way, and this wasn't by accident. Earthly comfort or even health isn't the goal of christianity. Being re-united to God and stop being slaves to sin is more important: but this is a question of free will imho. (as apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians: 1 For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. 2 Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling,..) The faith doesn't make sense, if one believes only in the material world. It's central point is the Resurrection: "If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied." (1 Cor 15:19) [1] 1 Corinthians https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians%2015%3A12-19&version=NIV https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians...