The Prodigal Son for debate

[Divine Insight]

I just watched the video posted by Otseng in the Holy Huddle forum. It's a story I'm well familiar with.

However there appears to be a grave contradiction in this story. The obedient son who had become jealous at the end of the story was supposedly upset that his father had killed the fatted calf to celebrate the return of the prodigal son.

Buy then the father turns to is righteous son and says, "Everything I have is yours".

How is this not a contradiction? According to the story the righteous son was upset because his father wouldn't even give him a goat to share with his friends. (see video @ 3:15) But now the father is claiming that everything he has also belongs to his righteous son.

Is the son only just now being told that everything his father has is also his free for the taking? If that's true then what's up with him complaining that his father never gave him so much as a young goat?

These are the kinds of self-contradictions that tend to always plague the Biblical stories.

Sure, from a purely moral perspective, we can make some kind of moral justification for this tale as being nothing more than a moral parable. However, that doesn't change the fact that the parable contains serious contradictions.

The righteous Son in this story apparently felt that his father would not permit him to take a young goat and share it with his friends. In fact, the mere fact that the righteous son was so upset about this implies that the son had actually requested this in the past only to have his father deny him.

So the story appears to me to have some serious self-contradictions associated with it.

Question for debate: How is this parable not self-contradictory?

Note to Otseng: Great video production by the way. It's not your fault that the original story contains these contradictory inconsistencies. If what the father claimed was true (that he would deny nothing from the righteous son), then why would the righteous son have any reason to be jealous of the prodigal son?

The story shoots itself in its own foot with this extreme contradiction concerning the righteous Son. He was upset about something that supposedly didn't even exist. Supposedly he could have had a young goat to share with his friends anytime he wanted and apparently just didn't know. This seems a bit problematic to me.

[otseng]

For reference, video is here:


I think the first thing to keep in mind is it is a story (and most likely a fictional one) that Jesus gave to illustrate some points. Like many stories, there can be inconsistencies. But, just because there might exist inconsistencies doesn't mean the entire story needs to be thrown out. If that were the case, might as well throw out practically all movies today.

The righteous Son in this story apparently felt that his father would not permit him to take a young goat and share it with his friends.

I don't see it that way. Instead, it's more like the older son has been waiting for the father to put on a party for him since he's been such a great son. But, after being obedient for all these years, the party never happened.

Buy then the father turns to is righteous son and says, "Everything I have is yours".
How is this not a contradiction? According to the story the righteous son was upset because his father wouldn't even give him a goat to share with his friends. (see video @ 3:15) But now the father is claiming that everything he has also belongs to his righteous son.

I do believe everything also belongs to his older son.

In Luke 15:12, it says, "And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living." The father had given his inheritance to both the younger son and older son. So, I'm leaning towards thinking Luke 15:31 means, "I've already given you everything, so everything that was mine is now yours."

One reason for Jesus sharing this story is to address the religious leaders and their arrogance.

Luke 15:1-2
Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.

The religious leaders have been obedient to the law for all these years. Jesus should be eating with them and throwing them a party, not for the sinners. The religious leaders outward obedience to the law is not something worth celebrating. Though they might be pious on the outside, their hearts are full of jealousy, anger, resentment, and lack of love.

[Overcomer]

It's a parable and has to be understood as such. First of all, we have to ask ourselves, who do the characters in the story represent?

The father represents God. The prodigal son represents sinners. The (self-)righteous son represents the Pharisees and teachers of the Law who held a high opinion of themselves and thought God would love them and only them because they were (in their own eyes) righteous because they kept (again, in their own eyes) the rules.

Parables all have a deep theological meaning and that meaning in this particular story is this:

Everything God has is available for the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law. It belongs to them, but they choose to reject it when they reject Jesus Christ. The Pharisees et al. criticized Jesus for hanging out with sinners, but here's the thing: It's the sinners who recognized their sinfulness and, like the prodigal son, "come to themselves", recognizing their wrong, returning to God and repenting of it.

The father in the story is sad that the son is jealous of his brother instead of recognizing that, as he stated, once his brother was dead, but now he is alive. There should be rejoicing at that. But the son, like the Pharisees, can't see beyond his own nose.

Bottom line: The story is about the restoration of a relationship between father and son, mirroring the restoration of repentant sinner with God. It includes the sad truth that there are those who could and should have all that God offers, but who miss out because of their own ignorance and self-centered willfulness.

As for the line about the eldest having everything the father has, bear in mind that the eldest would get two-thirds of his father's goods. The younger brother had already gotten HIS third and squandered it. That means everything the father had remaining did indeed belong to the eldest.

As for the goat, we don't know that the son ever asked for a goat. And if he did and his father said no, we don't know why he said that. It might have been because the eldest son wasn't worthy of it or was asking with a wrong motive or planned a party with people the father didn't want him involved with. All of that is speculation. But it's important to look at what the story says, not at what it doesn't say. And it says a lot about a father/God willing to forgive insult/sin (bear in mind that asking for one's inheritance early is the same as wishing his father was dead in that culture) and welcome the son/sinner back into the fold with open arms.

[Divine Insight]

For reference, video is here:


I think the first thing to keep in mind is it is a story (and most likely a fictional one) that Jesus gave to illustrate some points. Like many stories, there can be inconsistencies. But, just because there might exist inconsistencies doesn't mean the entire story needs to be thrown out. If that were the case, might as well throw out practically all movies today.

The only problem I have with this is that Jesus was supposed to be God incarnate. You have suggested that if we need to toss out stories due to inconsistencies we would need to toss out practically all movies made today. That may be true, but those movies were all made by men. So the fact that men can never make up a consistent story should not be surprising.

Not only this, but is Jesus was God incarnate, he should have been able to come up with a consistent story. Instead of telling a contradictory story he could have told a story where the righteous son actually was given everything he wanted but complained anyway.

So why should Jesus make up a logically inconsistent story when it's even possible for a mere mortal human to make up a consistent one?

How does that make any sense?

After all, a large part of my reason for rejecting the Biblical stories as having come from God, is not so much that I disagree with the moral principles they are attempting to address, but rather they always contain these type of logical contradictions that I wouldn't expect had they come from an actual supreme being.

The stories should be perfect and flawless in terms of containing any contradictions.

The righteous Son in this story apparently felt that his father would not permit him to take a young goat and share it with his friends.

I don't see it that way. Instead, it's more like the older son has been waiting for the father to put on a party for him since he's been such a great son. But, after being obedient for all these years, the party never happened.

But now you are already creating a different story from the one Jesus told. In other words, you, as a mere mortal man, are already attempting to do better than Jesus concerning how this tale should have been told.

So this itself becomes problematic. Why should you need to assume things that weren't contained in the original story?

Buy then the father turns to is righteous son and says, "Everything I have is yours".
How is this not a contradiction? According to the story the righteous son was upset because his father wouldn't even give him a goat to share with his friends. (see video @ 3:15) But now the father is claiming that everything he has also belongs to his righteous son.

I do believe everything also belongs to his older son.

In Luke 15:12, it says, "And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living." The father had given his inheritance to both the younger son and older son. So, I'm leaning towards thinking Luke 15:31 means, "I've already given you everything, so everything that was mine is now yours."

But according to the story itself the righteous son apparently didn't get access to everything. Otherwise why would he have been complaining about not having access to even a young goat to share with his friends. This also suggests that the young son must have been strapped financially, otherwise he should have easily been able to obtain a young goat to share with his friends. The contradictions here are simply too many to think that this story could have been told by an infinitely wise supreme being. If Jesus was God incarnate, he should have been able to tell a more logically consistent story and still get his point across.

One reason for Jesus sharing this story is to address the religious leaders and their arrogance.

Luke 15:1-2
Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.

The religious leaders have been obedient to the law for all these years. Jesus should be eating with them and throwing them a party, not for the sinners. The religious leaders outward obedience to the law is not something worth celebrating. Though they might be pious on the outside, their hearts are full of jealousy, anger, resentment, and lack of love.

Sure, Jesus' attitude toward these people may well have been as you suggest. But that still doesn't explain why Jesus couldn't come up with a flawless parable.

All I'm saying is that the parable Jesus told could have been made up by any mere mortal human. A parable made up by God incarnate should not be as lame as a parable made up by mere mortal humans.

Also, Jesus may have read the intentions of the publicans entirely wrong. What their point might have been is that if Jesus claims to be associated with God then he should be praising the righteous, and not the sinners.

Not only this, but this is yet another contradiction. If the righteous brother was not so righteous after all, but secretly jealous in his heart, then why not have the father tell him so? The way the parable is stated it sure looks like the righteous son was indeed righteous. But now we have the contradiction that he wasn't so righteous after all.

There's just too many contradictions here to ignore. A supreme incarnation of God shouldn't be making up parables that contain so many inconsistencies. Surely if Jesus was divine he should have been able to do better.

Remember, in this theology the claim is that Jesus is "The Word Made Flesh", therefore Jesus should have been keenly aware of the value of words, and how not to include inconsistencies and logical contradictions in his stories.

Instead we see a Jesus who isn't any better at making wisecrack comments to his enemies than any average mortal human could come up with. It's just not impressive and points to the conclusion that Jesus was just your average mortal human. Nothing to indicate that he had any divine knowledge or wisdom about anything. Too many errors in his parables.

[Divine Insight]

It's a parable and has to be understood as such. First of all, we have to ask ourselves, who do the characters in the story represent?

The father represents God. The prodigal son represents sinners. The (self-)righteous son represents the Pharisees and teachers of the Law who held a high opinion of themselves and thought God would love them and only them because they were (in their own eyes) righteous because they kept (again, in their own eyes) the rules.

There's a problem with your assessment. In the story, the father himself was in agreement that the righteous son was indeed righteous. So there isn't any claim that the righteous son was actually a failed sinner who only thought he was self-righteous.

By the way, the son who had sinned was not merely a sinner, but rather he was a deeply repented sinner who was not only confessing his sins to the father but apparently was wishing he had never committed them. Those are not the people Jesus was hanging around with. Jesus wasn't hanging around with repented sinners. He was hanging around with sinners who had not yet repented.

So there's another problem with the parable. It doesn't even match up with the actual scenario he was attempting to address. So it not only contains logical contradictions, but it's not even a fitting analogy for the situation at hand.

Parables all have a deep theological meaning and that meaning in this particular story is this:

Sure the story has a deep theological meaning. It was written by theologians. In fact, we don't even have any way to know whether there was a "Jesus" who even told this parable. All we know is that someone wrote up this parable and claimed that Jesus is the one who told it in a given situation.

So yes, I fully understand what the people who wrote the story were trying to imply. The problem is that the parable they came up with is grossly flawed.

If the parable actually came from Jesus and Jesus was God incarnate, then why is the parable so flawed? If Jesus was God he should have been able to come up with a far better parable to make his points.

That's all I'm saying.

[SallyF]

[Replying to post 2 by otseng]

One reason for Jesus sharing this story is to address the religious leaders and their arrogance.

That is an opinion only.

We don't know that there ever was a human Jesus.

But we do know that the Christian-Jewish writings are sectarian propaganda.

The Pharisee sect were pro-Roman and pro-Herodian. They supported the peace treaty with the Empire: pragmatically forged by the Hasmoneans.

The sect that the Jesus character - and his father and numerous others (possibly the Essenes) - belonged to were pro-David. It's quite simple and obvious - to me - that this sect was trying to regain the throne. No magic, no virgin-births, just human politics and propaganda.

I suggest this sect believed their leaders were the Sons of the Elohim ("God") referenced in Genesis.

This tale is quite possibly anti-establishment propaganda - but I had not, until now, thought of it in that way.

Even in Sunday School, I had trouble with the moral message of this parable.

I still believed in Magic Jesus back then, and this is one of the many items that made me begin to doubt that Jesus was fathered by Jehovah on a human virgin and that he was my Lord and Saviour.

I thought the righteous son had every right to be miffed. I thought the prodigal son should have been accepted back at a much lower status.

I think this tale, however, gives that wonderful Christian message of: "Repeat sinners are repeatedly forgiven".

No matter what you do, just get Jesus on the line, and you'll still win your robe and crown and dodge the pit where the fire is never quenched.

And a little something extra in the collection box this week won't go unnoticed either ….

It's a clever religion trick that's been working for millennia.

[Divine Insight]

Even in Sunday School, I had trouble with the moral message of this parable.

I still believed in Magic Jesus back then, and this is one of the many items that made me begin to doubt that Jesus was fathered by Jehovah on a human virgin and that he was my Lord and Saviour.

Exactly. In fact, this is why I started this thread. This parable of the prodigal son has been problematic for me clear back to my days in Bible School. I saw logical problems with this story from the day I first heard it.

If Jesus was truly God he should have been able to come up with better parables, that's the first thing that came to my mind.

[Zzyzx]

.

It's a parable [Prodigal Son] and has to be understood as such.

Did Jesus identify it as a parable (a usually short fictitious story that illustrates a moral attitude or a religious principle)? Did other people claim it was a parable?

Can it be ruled out that Jesus intended to tell a true story and that others misinterpreted his intention? ‘Luke’ (whoever wrote the gospel by that title) relayed the story decades or generations after it was claimed to have been told. Is there assurance he got it right?

First of all, we have to ask ourselves, who do the characters in the story represent?

Then we can make up whatever we wish, right? Is any one opinion guaranteed to be what was intended in the story?

[otseng]

But now you are already creating a different story from the one Jesus told. In other words, you, as a mere mortal man, are already attempting to do better than Jesus concerning how this tale should have been told.

I'm not recreating a different story, but interpreting it. And I don't think my interpretation of the passage is unique.

But according to the story itself the righteous son apparently didn't get access to everything. Otherwise why would he have been complaining about not having access to even a young goat to share with his friends. This also suggests that the young son must have been strapped financially, otherwise he should have easily been able to obtain a young goat to share with his friends.

I assume you mean older son.

Or it could be the older son never fully accepted he did receive the inheritance already and acted as if he didn't own any of it. Why would he complain about not having a goat BBQ with his friends? I don't think the point was that he was denied being merry with his friends. The point was that he was complaining the father threw a massive party for his "sinful" son, but wouldn't even recognize the "righteous" son with even a small picnic.

The contradictions here are simply too many to think that this story could have been told by an infinitely wise supreme being.

I'm not sure what you mean by "infinitely wise". Is that a description of Jesus from the Bible or from man?

All I'm saying is that the parable Jesus told could have been made up by any mere mortal human. A parable made up by God incarnate should not be as lame as a parable made up by mere mortal humans.

Actually, I don't believe the parable would have been made up by a typical mortal human. The parable is a demonstration of an extreme level of grace that is rarely found or contemplated by anyone.

Why should you need to assume things that weren't contained in the original story?

Well, why assume the older son asked for a party and the father denied it when it's not in there? We are both interpreting the story, not rewriting the story.

Also, Jesus may have read the intentions of the publicans entirely wrong. What their point might have been is that if Jesus claims to be associated with God then he should be praising the righteous, and not the sinners.

Do you mean the Pharisees or the publicans (tax collectors)?

The way the parable is stated it sure looks like the righteous son was indeed righteous. But now we have the contradiction that he wasn't so righteous after all.

Yes, the older son acted righteous and thought he was righteous. The older son believed that if anyone deserved a feast, it was him. He was the one who never disobeyed the father. He was the one who stayed away from sin. He was the one who never ran away. We all think this is the son that deserves the best treatment and highest recognition. But, Jesus turns it all around in this story. The story really speaks to me because most all of us religious folks are like the older son. We think God deserves to reward us for not sinning, going to church every Sunday, and obeying all the commandments. If we take this story seriously, then the father is not impressed with any of it.

After all, a large part of my reason for rejecting the Biblical stories as having come from God, is not so much that I disagree with the moral principles they are attempting to address, but rather they always contain these type of logical contradictions that I wouldn't expect had they come from an actual supreme being.

I think we have to take a step back here. If the expectation is that God, Jesus, the Bible are all infinitely perfect, then I agree with you, such a God cannot exist. But, I think this view is more a result of man's thinking than what is described in the Bible. Christians like to describe God and the Bible with superlatives that might seem correct, but I think it's more influenced by philosophy than the Bible. Yes, some might brand me a heretic for saying these things. But, actually I believe this is the more Biblical position.

[otseng]

In the story, the father himself was in agreement that the righteous son was indeed righteous.

Why do you say the father was in agreement the older son was righteous?

I thought the righteous son had every right to be miffed. I thought the prodigal son should have been accepted back at a much lower status.

Most people, including me, would also have this view.

I think this tale, however, gives that wonderful Christian message of: "Repeat sinners are repeatedly forgiven".

No matter what you do, just get Jesus on the line, and you'll still win your robe and crown and dodge the pit where the fire is never quenched.

I think the message is much more than simply a "get out of jail free card".