976
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2024
976 points (95.4% liked)
Political Memes
5023 readers
2133 users here now
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
The story makes sense (in context) because of animosity between Jews and Samaritans, going back many years. A modern equivalent might be a Trump supporter helping out a democrat, or a Russian helping a Ukrainian.
John 4:9 gives a good illustrates this situation. In that story, a Samaritan woman is surprised that Jesus would talk to her when he is a Jew. It also illustrates that Jesus very much went against the culture of the day in his relations with Samaritans.
So, Jesus' wasn't making a statement about whether Samaritans were good or bad - he was explaining that being someone's neighbour is about how you treat them, not who you are. A modern parallel might be the famous 'today you, tomorrow me' story on reddit.
The story relies on prejudice, that's my point. Jesus didn't say "Seminarians were as good as Jews", he said "Jews are worse than Seminarians".
There are dozens of examples from the Bible where prejudice and bigotry are explicit. Hell, the whole concept of a "chosen people" implies that some people are better than others. Jesus ordered Saul to genocide the Amalekites. And if you notice, Jesus punished Saul for not killing every single last one, which implies that genocide isn't just permissible, but a moral duty.
( I know that these stories are from the OT and you're probably annoyed that I said Jesus instead of God, but according to the sign out on route 519, Jesus is God. Y'all still believe that, right? )
He said being a Jew or Samaritan doesn't make you good or bad. Neither does your position (Levites and Pharisees were very powerful and respected). Your actions are a reflection of who you are.