growing up christian, i remember the teachings about Jesus and Pontius Pilate, about the other people Jesus was arrested and held with being "robbers" - i didn't realize some translations call the "robbers" "revolutionaries" and "insurrectionists" and "rebels" and "one who had taken part in an uprising
i think there's something to be said about public discourse taking on a similar form. it sometimes feels like all discourses are trending towards "child-friendly" and "morally performative" version of themselves
@exiliaex I resent it, along with the whole concept of wholesomeness. I am a millennial and i want to be horny...and emotionally affected
uspol, religion
@exiliaex@masto.anarch.cc i, for one, choose to believe that Trump is simply the antichrist, and that's why he's so good at fooling christians into following him despite being a terrible person
uspol, religion
@eri i've said the same (with some level of jest, as my lack of christianity prevents me from actually believing in the anti-christ)
but i genuinely don't think they're being fooled.
@exiliaex It’s the more critical translations (NRSVue, NABRE) that make that choice, too
@exiliaex This reminds me of something I wondered: the New Testament really labours the point that we should forgive tax collectors, but in the context of the Roman occupation of Israel I wonder if a more useful modern translation would be "collaborateur”
@jer_gib @exiliaex I guess I was wondering about the accuracy of the translation, since in most contexts it would be normal practice for a translator to favour a "cultural translation" over a literal one. There may or may not also be theological implications but I'm not qualified there
I also just remembered another case of this: as a kid I was taught one of the Commandments as “thou shalt not lie", and then one day I realised that the earliest English translation "bear false witness against” is far more specific and is very clearly about lying in order to get a person into trouble, but nobody in church ever mentioned that part
@julesh @exiliaex I don't think it's really about forgiveness. The contrast in the NT is between Pharisees (respectable members of society, looked up to) and tax collectors (collaborators as you say, despised). But God does not see them as we do. Indeed, Jesus shared company with the outcasts (tax collectors, prostitutes, lepers, etc) and criticised the respectable Pharisees.
@exiliaex This happened so often. The most crass of these that I heard of was that there are indications of the disciples not originally having been all male but just got assigned male gender by the copying monks because that fit their world view better.
something i've noticed about my experience attending different Protestant churches growing up is how it legitimately feels like the adults are mostly passing on memetic "sunday school" versions of the stories, and not at all interested in searching for meanings in the stories, but instead hoping to connect their memetic-sunday-school versions to current events.