The Dumplin' Dumbash Page

On "Lord of the Sabbath"

Anyone dumb enough to put Jesus in the Bronze Age isn't likely to get much else right about the NT, and that's what happens here.

Dumplin' old bean....we don't use the argument here that "Jesus was entitled to violate the Sabbath laws because they were his laws." Nope.

Rather, we tell you plain and simple that Jesus never violated the Sabbath laws....period.

Your poor head whirling? Okay, we'll help you out.

You say, According to the Bible, Jesus taught that his disciples did not need to respect the Mosaic prohibition against working on the Sabbath as long as violating the Sabbath brought them some personal benefit. Then you appeal to the place where Jesus plucked grain. After that, you really make a fool of yourself; ready to see how?

First of all, notice that the reference to priests working on the Sabbath is a red herring. They’re not violating the law when they do their job on the Sabbath, because the law tells them that they have special Sabbath duties as priests.

Uh, you missed the point, Dumpy. The Sabbath command, as it is stated, offers no exceptions -- not even for priests. So clearly, as was typical of ancient law codes -- which were didactic (that is, they were "case law"), not meant to be read with wooden non-exceptionalism -- one could argue for other exceptions as well.

That means also that your whine-whine -- It’s all well and good to take the liberal view that human needs have to come before a strict obedience to an unjust law, but in order for Jesus to take that view, he must implicitly declare that the law, as given, is less than perfect at best -- is misplaced. You're reading the law like an ignorant fundamentalist...not in its proper context as a didactic tool.

In fact, what exceptions there might be to particular laws -- including the one here at issue -- was one of the discussions of the day. As Casey shows in Aramaic Sources of Mark's Gospel, Jewish commentators of Jesus' day agreed that there WAS a violation of the law in what was done by David, and they explained the violation just as Jesus did, as a matter of necessity [154]. Casey also notes [147] that evidence "strongly suggests that the prohibition of plucking did not enter the generally accepted halakah until it was promulgated by the rabbis in the third century CE." Jesus did not break any law; he did break what some interpreted the law as saying in their attempt to apply it as case law.

So much for that. But Dumpy tries to maintain his fundamentalist delusion by claiming that indeed, there were no exceptions to the law, "even if it was just building a fire to warm yourself on a cold, desert night." Say what? Uh uh. He uses the example of the man stoned for picking up sticks on the Sabbath, but there is no evidence that the sticks were needed for a cold night; Dumplin' is making up that context to contrive an argument. The facts are these: Ancient law codes were didactic. If it were not, there wouuld have been no need to ask Moses what to do; it would have been clear that the law had been broken. As it is, we see a picture of the way things worked: An elder would be called in to judge the case, and at that time consideration could be offered, such as, were the sticks needed for a fire to keep away cold, say for someone very ill?

So then. It's just that simple, and Dumplin' extended rant about Jesus not setting a good example with his "needless disobedience," and asking why Jesus just didn't make sure they had food with them before, is just crybaby Jell-o puddin' pops. As if Dumplin' actually cared in the first place.