Was Jesus homeless? Matthew 8:20

[Thomas123]

Matthew 8:20

Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

Is this quote simply about accomodation or can we reasonably apply metaphor to it?

What do you think?

Thanks!

[Difflugia]

Matthew 8:20

Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

What I don't understand is why Jesus refers to himself in the third person.

I'm pretty sure this isn't referring to Jesus (or any other particular person), but humanity in general. In Hebrew, the phrase "son of ____" means one of a class. "Sons of gods" are gods themselves and "sons of men" are human beings. The "one like a son of man coming in the clouds" as written meant "one like a human being." The saying attributed to Jesus appears to be comparing animals and human beings and makes more sense that way, not animals and a specific demigod. The saying is probably an earlier Aramaic aphorism (or part of one) that was placed on the lips of Jesus by the author, perhaps specifically because of the son of man, Son of Man imagery.

This actually makes more sense of Genesis 6:1-2 than the traditional interpretation:

And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all that they chose.

The "sons of gods" were divine men and "daughters of men" were human women. The "mighty men" that resulted from the union were demigods. As the theology of this verse shifted toward monotheism, the "sons of gods" became angels or somesuch, but it makes more sense in light of the original form of the Hebrew idiom.

[Thomas123]

It is said that it is easy to be cynical,TRANSPONDER. I think that it is just a position people take, a personal response, that is often for good reasons. I am different on this. I am probably idealistic!

Nothing in history resonates within me like the teachings of this prophet man Jesus. I believe that he may not have reached the limits of his insightfullness, within Judaism, because of an untimely death. I search among the debris of the NT, in the hope of developing a semblance of what this guy was about. He is to me what Mahomes is to Chief fans ,....and then some.

Thanks!

[Thomas123]

Difflugia:"I'm pretty sure this isn't referring to Jesus (or any other particular person), but humanity in general"
...........
Hi Difflugia, please look closely at the Matthew quote and its context within the situation.

It is in the singular form.
Foxes are plural.
Birds are plural.
Man is singular.

Your in depth account makes no sense in this situation. There is precedent for both forms in the Gospels...here is Luke

"44Let these sayings sink down into your ears: for the Son of man shall be delivered into the hands of men. ..."

The only logical inference from the narrative,( unless we totally ignore grammatical form is that...

Jesus is referring to himself, at least in the mind of the writers. He is saying " I am isolated and exhausted"

[Difflugia]

Difflugia:"I'm pretty sure this isn't referring to Jesus (or any other particular person), but humanity in general"
...........
Hi Difflugia, please look closely at the Matthew quote and its context within the situation.

Fine, I'll bite.

It is in the singular form.
Foxes are plural.
Birds are plural.
Man is singular.

I don't see how that helps you. Replacing "the son of man" with "the human being" mixes case, but still makes at least as much sense of the overall metaphor as replacing it with "Jesus," which not to belabor the point, is also singular.

Your in depth account makes no sense in this situation. There is precedent for both forms in the Gospels...here is Luke

The Gospels were written by four different people with four different theologies.

"44Let these sayings sink down into your ears: for the Son of man shall be delivered into the hands of men. ..."

Luke's Jesus is contrasting himself with other human beings. Of course, that context matches the traditional Christian understanding of "son of man," so nobody found it confusing enough to start a thread about it. Matthew's doesn't, so it's confusing.

The only logical inference from the narrative,( unless we totally ignore grammatical form is that...

Your inference has the identical "grammatical form" issue, so by your logic neither interpretation can be correct.

Jesus is referring to himself.

That may even be how "Matthew" clumsily intended his Jesus to be repeating the aphorism, but comparing animals and humans is the obvious intent behind the saying itself.

[Thomas123]

Difflugia:That may even be how "Matthew" clumsily intended his Jesus to be repeating the aphorism, but comparing animals and humans is the obvious intent behind the saying itself.

Thomas123, I suggest that you have missed this ' by a mile,' D.

Work with me here,Please!

The most fundamental aspect of survival and wellbeing for common life forms is the security of shelter. Imagine the broken sleep of the people still sleeping in Bakhmut tonight. Recuperative rest is about context.

Consider the Three Little Pigs! This is , superficially at least,a fable about structural integrity. It is actually a moralistic instruction to prepare well for any eventuality. Many of the children's stories follow this modus.

A fox is comfortable in its smelly den. A bird is safe in the windy tree tops. All this Jesus wants is a peaceful nights sleep.

He is afraid, frustrated and nervous. Sick people keep coming, serious people are out to get him, his followers are indiscreet and talkative. He has cut off ties with his home and he is rambling and living off charity.He has no idea what the next day will bring but he suspects that things will worsen towards a terrible conclusion.

Jesus wants to be left alone.

He carrie's the burden of his revolutionary ideas, he wants to improve things but instead everything is becoming confused. His new ideas refuse to shelter him in any way.

When I composed this thread, I asked myself.

What am I?

I am actually a very 'lapsed' Catholic.
I cannot call myself an atheist.
I am not a mystic agnostic.

I have a stick, a piece of straw and a brick, and I have no structure in which to rest.

Thanks

[Thomas123]

TRANSPONDER:Post 30
"I continue to say that this is Christian -authorship screenplay and imposing dramatic scenario on Jesus stood here, said that and everyone went 'Yeah!' is reading too much in. I see (with cynicism) the insistence of massive crowds following Jesus, and yet I see no convincing evidence that anyone had heard of him before the Christians started telling his story. How did they hear him before the loudspeaker was invented?"

Thomas123

Permit me to relay, to you T, an incident that happened to me last week. At my mother's wake I met a guy that I hadn't seen for 30+ years. He was 'paying his respects' and the conversation was extremely cordial. Call him X.

X: "I always remember what you said to me ,once!"

(Thomas123 cluelessly thinks...this will be good)
T: "And what was that?"
X: " I remember it well, I asked you where you worked. You stretched out your two (soft) hands and said "Work!, do these hands look like they have done any work? I regard work as a failure!"
T: I laughed but I knew he was telling the truth and I knew that his recall, of an incidental occurrence was vivid, even after 30+ years

[Thomas123]

Memory

The following ramblings may be dismissed as extremely subjective, with no offence taken.

My wife's memory amazes me. Her capacity to store detail from the past and the present is phenomenal. ???
T: Did you see my black body-warmer? I haven't seen it in 3 days.
W: It's on the hall landing rail. ???

My memory ranges from poor average to poor average to ...poor average! If I am engrossed in thought I will arrive at the upstairs landing and be oblivious of the purpose of my ascent. I am watching out for any signs of cognitive collapse. I am really struggling with spelling and I use spell check, almost constantly, eg the word 'incedent".

Last week I got 2 credit card numbers mixed up and I met a person out of their usual context that I failed to identify properly.

Three years ago my Dad died prematurely as a consequence of Lewy Body Dementia( I would have spelt it dimentia???) We had this cordial conversation, a month before his death.

D: I know you!
T: Sure you do!
D: You're from -------(our parish name)
T: I am indeed, no flies on you!
D: I knew that! (Smile)

Memory over years???


I'm nearly finished,....at my mothers wake , I was reunited with a priest friend of mine. He is now semi retired but I recalled 2 incidents in the past, when he was a strong 'strapping' fellow like myself. .
He came into my class of 10yr olds to casually instruct them. A guy at the back was yawning!. The priest said, ..." Why am I boring you?, I am not a boring person! On another occasion during break time my class put him on 1 team and me on the other for a football match and we spent half an hour, ' knocking saucepans' off each other.

There is a point to this that is relevant to the thread.

I placed these incidents as happening between 1990 and 2000. At the wake the priest corrected me that that was impossible, given the years of his priestly parochial assignments. The ' boring' incident could only have happened in my previous school. My recollection was extremely inaccurate. The football match did take place where I imagined but it was a different priest. The words were accurate but the incident happened in my first school.

I was willing to wager 1000 euro that I was correct and my priest friend found this amusing that he had missed his only opportunity to extract cash from me.

If you got to the end of this, I salute you,....we need you on the Zoroastrianism thread.

Thanks

[Thomas123]

Memory 100yrs+

Let me recall an incident that happened to me in 1979. It occured in a YMCA Hostel in Salt Lake City.
I was on a Greyhound Bus trip around the States with a Jewish friend from Dix Hills N.Y, and a chap from London.

Cash was non existent at the time so we bunked down in this Hostel.

During the evening a conversation began between my group and 2 others, one of which was a Jew. There was no alcohol involved but we were all self consumed with the convictions of youth.
This Jewish guy tuned into my accent and basically said...I know you and I know your country your guys are on Peace Keeping duties in Lebanon and they spend most of their time in the brothels.
Thanks!
I instantly retorted,(unpremeditated)...that it was hardly my fault if 'his' women were easy. A "handbags at dawn' minor scuffle ensued and we all went to sleep. That's as a accurately as I can relay this sorry incident.
That happened 44 years ago. On a family night 2 weeks ago I was discussing with my daughter about the dangers of fundamentalist beliefs. I told her about the battle of Salt Lake City and she seemed to 'take it on board'.

"It's amazing that you are still alive, Dad"

If in the not so distant future, around a blazing fire ,she relays this epic tale to her children,....in 2079+, their Grandad will be knocking over tables against belligerent Jews in the inner sanctum of whatever Mormonism is. In 2179 I may in fact be deified, just for being a twat!"

[Thomas123]

In conclusion here, .....the greatest book ever written,the Bible,the NT, that we split literary hairs over every day, was once,all,so,so ,human. It was all about the chat!

Food for thought 'Banshees of Inisherin'

"Pádraic Súilleabháin : Are you dying?
Colm Doherty : No, I'm not dying.
Pádraic Súilleabháin : But then you have loads of time.
Colm Doherty : For chatting?
Pádraic Súilleabháin : Aye.
Colm Doherty : For aimless chatting?
Pádraic Súilleabháin : Not for aimless chatting. For good, normal chatting.
Colm Doherty : So we'll keep aimlessly chatting and my life will keep on dwindling. And in 12 years, I'll die with nothin' to show for it, bar the chats I've had with a limited man, is that it?
Pádraic Súilleabháin : I said, "not aimless chat..."

[TRANSPONDER]

It is said that it is easy to be cynical,TRANSPONDER. I think that it is just a position people take, a personal response, that is often for good reasons. I am different on this. I am probably idealistic!

Nothing in history resonates within me like the teachings of this prophet man Jesus. I believe that he may not have reached the limits of his insightfullness, within Judaism, because of an untimely death. I search among the debris of the NT, in the hope of developing a semblance of what this guy was about. He is to me what Mahomes is to Chief fans ,....and then some.

Thanks!

It is almost unavoidable to be cynical,since we so often find out how we were mistaken. But I see the basis of Cynicism caution and rationality given a rather bad press. One can be appreciative of many things while not buying into their message.

I can only say that the teachings of Jesus are to me the ideas, doctrines and propaganda of early Greek Christians and i can show this on evidence, not to say Prove it. I was thinking a bit last night about these 'homeless' scenarios, and how one can visualise them to make them impressive and even credible. Jesus turning to the scribe ( ! ) who impulsively swears to go with him. Jesus tells him how tough it will be before stepping into his little boat with the crowd on the shore staring after him as he floats off to Gadara...looking noble as the music swells. Easy to tell yourself how that is convincing.

But then you take Jesus and his followers on the south of Capernaum, looking down the dusty road to Tiberias as a 'man' swears he will follow him and Jesus uses the same script. Others he tells that if they go and do anything for their family, they'll find him gone when they get back, then they set off down the dusty road as the music swells... Still impressive and one can fool ones'self, adding imaginary cosplay that it seems true; but it is same words, different situation.

If one is cynical when the different usage of the same teaching is shown up, it is better than being gullible and ignoring it when it is shown up. Bottom line: up to you whether you go on believing that it is true, and even posting here and saying so, but you ain't gonna persuade me, because I know better, have seen how the trick works and cannot now be fooled. And I will keep posting and saying so.