![]() Nineteenth-century American Christians were especially torn. Yet even if judgement ultimately resides with a power greater than ourselves, for centuries Bible readers have struggled with putting that interpretation into practice, given how naturally judgement comes. Given the close connection between ethics and eschatology in Jesus’s teachings, Tertullian concluded that the command to “judge not” is a reminder to us that judgement and punishment are not ours to mete, but God’s. According to historian Jaroslav Pelikan’s article on the early church father, Tertullian wrestled with Jesus’s proscription in an eschatological frame. It was one that second-century Christian theologian Tertullian returned to many times throughout his life. In this digestible, secularized gloss of the verse, Jesus’s imperative suddenly feels like a tolerationist bromide on par with “to each her own” and “live and let live.” Or, as one education scholar in 1964 called it, a “harmless aphorism.”Įven in the early days of Christian thought, this verse proved tricky.īut is that really all it is? Judging by the array of sources and intellectual byways opened up by the JSTOR Understanding Series for the King James Version of the Bible, the answer to this question is a definitive “No.”īest to begin at the beginning. Even in the early days of Christian thought, this verse proved tricky. ![]() “It’s not for you to say,” wrote Saunders, “if someone wants to do something that you consider foolish or silly.” The horoscope, penned by syndicated astrologer Jeraldine Saunders, clarified the meaning of the cryptic verse in the next sentence. For with what judgement ye judge, ye shall be judged.” Here’s how the King James Version of the Bible renders Jesus’s timeless maxim: “Judge not, that ye be not judged. For example, on the morning of March 21, 2018, the nation’s Capricorns were greeted with a biblical warning when they checked their daily horoscope: “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” That sentence, of course, comes from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5–7. There are some Bible verses that have become such a part of secular culture that we receive them as generic platitudes, interpreting them in simplified, anachronistic ways.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |