Jesus misunderstands terms of reference

[Filippo Lippi]

BBC Radio 4's Thought for the Day contained a story about Jesus refusing to heal a woman (or the woman's son, it was hard to concentrate as I was driving at the time) because she wasn't Jewish; the all-loving one even saying something along the lines of "why should I take food from the children and give it to the dogs." No chapter and verse given.

I don't get it, surely the man upstairs gave JC some parameters before sending him on his way?

 

[Lothian]

BBC Radio 4's Thought for the Day contained a story about Jesus refusing to heal a woman (or the woman's son, it was hard to concentrate as I was driving at the time) because she wasn't Jewish; the all-loving one even saying something along the lines of "why should I take food from the children and give it to the dogs." No chapter and verse given.

I don't get it, surely the man upstairs gave JC some parameters before sending him on his way?

Mark 7 21.

Jesus would not cast the devil from a woman’s daughter until she accepted her place as the lowest of the low and only then did he cure her. This teaches us that Jesus was a bastard.

 

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

24Jesus left that place and went to the vicinity of Tyre.[g] He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it; yet he could not keep his presence secret. 25In fact, as soon as she heard about him, a woman whose little daughter was possessed by an evil[h] spirit came and fell at his feet. 26The woman was a Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia. She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter.

27"First let the children eat all they want," he told her, "for it is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs."

28"Yes, Lord," she replied, "but even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs."

29Then he told her, "For such a reply, you may go; the demon has left your daughter."

30She went home and found her child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

 

[Lord Muck oGentry]

It's in Matthew too:

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/james_still/syrophoenician.html

 

[Beerina]

It occurs to me that we need a lot more demons. Then they could take over every human on earth, and trash God's idiotic plans.

 

[Psi Baba]

Perhaps it teaches that Jesus knew that there were no demons, and that the woman was crazy. He told her what she wanted to hear, and it worked, just like all the other "faith healers."

 

[bignickel]

You're assuming things about Jesus from an Xtain viewpoint. Jesus believes he was sent to restore Israel to greatness, not help mankind.

People such as this woman, the Romans, the Greeks, et al, were lower than low to Jesus, and would all be eventually employeed cleaning Jewish houses and performing menial labor once Israel became the Supreme Nation on Earth, according to Jesus' reckoning.

 

[stupidquestion]

A strikingly disturbing passage, but it's important to note Jesus operated in a sociological context. Physical, economic, etc. distinctions between Jews and gentiles were a universal fact of social life in his time. (See Oxford Companion to the Bible.) That doesn't make his words and attitude any more appealing, but it wasn't just him.

From the Bible's text, I find it unclear what Jesus' personal feelings were about gentiles--whom he also preached to. (Of course, we get into the question of which lines may have been interpolated after Christianity took off among gentiles.) I am certainly unaware of evidence showing him to regard gentiles as the "lowest of the low" and future slaves in some sort of temporal Jewish-supremacist state. Can you provide citations? The passage under discussion is clearly indicative of already extant social conditions, not a dystopian future.