Hurtado on Jesus and the Syro-Phoenician Woman

pic from sacred sandwich

Hurtado writes,

Since the assigned lection a few Sundays ago on Jesus and the Syro-Phoenician woman (Mark 7:24-30), I’ve intended to comment on what appears to me a surprisingly widespread mis-reading of the passage.  Essentially, the “dogs” (who Jesus says here must wait till after the “children” have eaten before they can be fed) are taken with an extremely pejorative connotation as feral mongrels, and the scene is read as if Jesus is pictured insulting the woman and treating her with contempt. 

Read the rest, you'll be glad you did, first on the how we should understand the dogs in question (not to mention the connection to the gentile mission), and second as to how the parable connects with the woman's own life. This was a real ah-ha! moment for me. Those two posts justified wading through the other 100 worthless posts clogging up my reader. ;-)

For a totally different discussion of Moses' use of canine imagery and women try this old Xenos post.

Shoot Me Now: The End Has Come

No thanks to Rachel Held Evans for alerting me to this most disturbing and blasphemous development. Time to hide in the basement with lots of canned food cos this sort of thing can only mean the end is not far away.

Zondervan, you have finally lost all connection with what is sane and proper.

Hopefully there is an illustration of Prov 26:11 with a cute puppy licking up it's own vomit, which is pretty much what I would rather do that own a copy of this abomination.

For all Bible verses that mention dogs, click below

God and Dog

This is really beautifully simple, fun and profound.  thanks to David McLeod-Jones in the NZ Baptist Magazine for pointing this out.

Two posts on worship

 pic from Sacred Sandwich

I am very excited about Marc's new series on lessons from the Dark Ages for church worship.

And Roger Olsen poses an interesting question about a perplexing correlation between different churches' worship styles and their theology.

Deut 23:18, Rentboy or Dog?, Abuse of Nature or Insult to God?

[Warning: what follows is a little esoteric, but maybe useful as NT background?]

I know many of you have been staying up at night reading Deut 23:18 (v.19 LXX) and the footnote in your NRSV, NIV, or NLT, and wondering whether it is the wages of a dog or a male prostitute which you are disallowed from bringing into the house of God.  Well while I cannot answer for Moses, a slightly less ancient Jew gives an unequivocal interpretation:

Josephus, Antiquities, 4.8.9/§206: 

You are not to offer sacrifices out of the hire of a woman who is a harlot, for the Deity is not pleased with anything that arises from such abuses of nature; of which sort none can be worse than this prostitution of the body. In like manner no one may take the price of the covering of a bitch, either of one that is used in hunting, or in keeping of sheep, and thence sacrifice to God. (Trans. Whiston)

Ἐκ μισθοῦ γυναικὸς ἡταιρημένης θυσίας μὴ τελεῖν• ἥδεσθαι γὰρ μηδενὶ τῶν ἀφ’ ὕβρεως τὸ θεῖον, χείρων δ’ οὐκ ἂν εἴη τῆς ἐπὶ τοῖς σώμασιν αἰσχύνης• ὁμοίως μηδ’ ἂν ἐπ’ ὀχεύσει κυνὸς ἤτοι θηρευτικοῦ ἢ ποιμνίων φύλακος λάβῃ τις μισθόν, ἐκ τούτου θύειν τῷ θεῷ.

Pic of Canaan Dog from here

The wages of a prostitute are compared to the price given for the servicing of a bitch, and both are deemed unsuitable for offering sacrifices to God.  The profits from selling sexual intercourse, whether human or canine, are tainted with the shame of that intercourse.

Whiston’s translation does, however, mislead a little.  His translation, “abuses of nature,” suggests that Josephus is referring here to the idea of things being according to or against nature (φύσις), a common enough way of arguing (cf. Rom 1:26; 1 Cor 11:14; Atemidorus, Oneirocritica, 1.78, 60; etc).  The text, ἥδεσθαι γὰρ μηδενὶ τῶν ἀφ’ ὕβρεως τὸ θεῖον, might be bettered rendered “for the Deity is not pleased with anything that arises from such an insult [to the Deity].”  The idea is not that nature (φύσις) is being contravened but that God is insulted by anything bought with income from such a source.  This insult stems from the fact that prostitution involves the shaming of the body (τοῖς σώμασιν αἰσχύνης).  Apart from the significant (to my study) use of σῶμα in this context, it is interesting that Josephus does not condemn the owning or use of prostitutes or dogs, only the use of profits from their sexual activities for sacrifices.  The uncleanness of the sex act somehow attaches itself to the money made through it.  In the case of the dogs, the shame does not spread to the sheep they keep or the game they catch.  In the same way, Josephus gives no indication that the shame of prostitution affects those who own or use prostitutes.