Turn the other cheek

The one aspect of Christianity that gives me the most trouble is the "turn the other cheek" deal. In the old testiment, God is all wrath and fury, then along comes Jesus and he says:

"You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.' But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you." (Matthew 5:38-42, NIV)

"But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you." (Luke 6:27-31. NIV) ​

It sure seems like Jesus is saying Christians should be pacifists, but apparently it's not been interpreted that way since Christians are not often pacifists. (Of course, some sects are; but most Christians are not and never have been as far as I know.)

How am I misunderstanding this text?

 

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Haha, you have a good point, most people are hypocrites. You are not misinterpreting the scriptures.

The science of tantra and meditation teaches you to direct you feelings towards nobody, but to concentrate in those feelings in order to achieve awareness.
If someone hits you, the common reaction would be to be mad at the person, but this make no sense from a karmic perspective.
If a person hits you, he is causing his own karma, he will pay for that in this or in the next life. If you hit the person back, you are causing your own karma, not because the person hit you, but because you hit him with anger.
So this is like a vivious cycle, you will not be freed from your karma if you keep going in circles like this.

 

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Of course Followers of Jesus should be pacifists. And true Followers of Jesus are. But many who call Jesus Lord are liars. They want Him as their Redeemer but not as their Lord. Unfortunately it does not Work that way. If people disagree with Jesus then they cannot be followers of Jesus and if one is not a follower of Jesus but lies and calls Him Lord then scripture states one day He will deny them.

Matthew 22
21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’


All Praise The Ancient Of Days

 

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you're not. The Bible is a mishmash of many people's ideas and there are many contradictions. Christians, in general, do not follow that quote and often vote for wars faster and in greater numbers than their immoral pagan and athiest fellow citizens.

I don't fully agree with Jesus there, but I do wish Christians listened to their God.

 

How do you know this? Is you belief based on experience or on received ideas from 'masters'?

To respond with violence to a rape, for example. To kick someone in the balls and run away should not, and does not incur bad Karma.

And to assume that if somethign bad is happening to someone in this life means they did something bad in another life is as much an act of violence - especially if this is said to the victim - as the violent act itself. It functions exactly the same way as a batterer for example saying that the women he hit brought it on herself.

 

To be perfectly honest, I don´t know, but if I see someone harming an innocent person, I could care less about my own karma, and help the innocent. I don´t think this can be interpreted as bad karma, to help an innocent.

But yes, the person being hit is paying for his own karma, I do believe this, and if one helps the person, you become a part of the person´s karma, because he must have done something good before, for something good to happen to her/him.

 

The Bible is like one of those inkblot tests, where you see what you want to see. It has long been used to support an authoritarian male-dominated hiearchy, which necessarily includes war-making. Christians get away with no following Jesus by calling him too perfect to follow.

 

Very few Christians actually make a serious effort to follow Jesus's teachings. I suppose you could say that the Quakers take a stab at it.

 

I understand what you're all saying, and it seems to be the obvious answer. But surely, over the years, someone must have come up with some interpretation to justify their actions.

Perhaps something in the vein of give unto Caesar that which is Caesars? Not to mention the fact that Jesus himself became violent when faced with money changers in the temple. This implies violence is not always wrong for Christians.

 

Jesus caused a commotion, but he didn't kill anyone. I would compare it with some harmless activism.

 

At least one disciple of Jesus carried a sword.

 

Didn't most men back then?

 

If you could afford one.

 

"Turn the other cheek" is referring to the ideal response to insults and slurs which Christians receive because of their faith, Christians are not instructed to be pacifists though, just patient, we are certainly allowed to defend ourselves when faced those who mean us physical harm.

 

Right, he cut off the Roman soldiers ear trying to prevent Jesus' arrest. Then Jesus healed it.

 

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M*W: Laurence Gardner in Bloodline of the Holy Grail: The Hidden Lineage of Jesus Revealed, discusses Judas Iscariot:

"Another well-born nationalist leader of renown was Judas, who was Chief of the Scribes."1

1Barbara Thiering, Jesus the Man, ch.15, p.80.

2"Apart from his academic scholarship, Judas was the head of East Manasseh, and a warlord of Qumran. The Romans had a nickname for him: to them he was Judas Sicarius--the Assassin, the Hit-man a (sica was a deadly, curved dagger). The Greek form of the nickname was Sikariotes... and its corruption to Sicariote was in due course further corrupted to 'Iscariot.'

2"The Syrian Semitic verb skariot was an equivalent of the contemporary Hebrew sikkarti 'to deliver up'. It has been suggested that Judas Iscariot was therefore 'Judas the Deliverer', freferring to his betrayal of Jesus."

2Ahmed Osman, The House of the Messiah, ch.15, p.81.

In The Jesus Papers: Exposing the Greatest Cover-Up in History, by Michael Baigent, he states:

"The undeniable implication of Jesus's placement between two condemned Zealots at Golgotha is that, to the Roman authorities, Jesus was also a Zealot. As was Barabbas, the prisoner released under what is described as a feast-day amnesty by Pilate. The prisoner was described in Greek as a lestes (John 18:40). There really seem to have been a lot of Zealots around Jesus."

Baigent further states:

"This observation also extends to Jesus's disciples: one is called Simon Zelotes (Simon xeloten)--Simon the Zealot (Luke 6:15). Furthermore, a particularly nasty group of assassins within the Zealot movement were called sicarii after the small curved knife--a sica that they carried to assassinate their opponents; Judas Iscariot was clearly Sicarii (whether active or former we do not know)."

"The term "Zealot" occurs only in the history of Josephus; no other Roman author mentions them, and even Josephus is reluctant to name them. Instead, he prefers to refer to them negatively as Lestai (brigands) or Sicarii (dagger-men)."

There was a story I read, but I may no longer have the book due to flooding, so I must have thrown it away. The story goes, Jesus would draw a crowd, often in the area of the temple where large crowds would appear. As Jesus spoke, the sicarii would inter-mingle with the crowd for the purpose of robbing them. They held their daggers under their cloaks and gave them a poke with only to grab their bags of coins from them and run. Jesus may or may not have known his followers were working the crowd.

DISCLAIMER: Medicine*Woman does not believe Jesus was an historical character, but relates the above which she believes to be based on christian myth.

 

I must say, that is the most offensive thing I've ever read! You're saying Jesus was nothing but a con man or a dupe who traveled with a bunch of con-men and cut throats? And what is the bearing of this story on the doctrine of "turn the other cheek" presently being discussed?

I think you just ad homed Jesus!

 

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M*W: Then you don't know me.

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M*W: I read that somewhere, but I can't remember where. According to the person that wrote the above, the answer to your question is 'yes,' Jesus distracted the crowd with his preaching while the sicarii robbed the crowd.

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M*W: IAC mentioned that at least one disciple of Jesus carried a sword. I expanded on that.

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M*W: Ad homing Jesus is like calling Cinderella a gold digger.

 

The zealots were the Jews revels that were against the Roman oppresion, but the zealots were violent, it started with the Maccabees about the 2º century BC. Imagine that world, were Romans were able to do whatever they wanted with the slaves and whoever who opposed then, the women were raped, the children killed. Off course many Jews stood up to that, those are called the Zealots.
On the other hand, there are the Essenes, they ran to border lines to hide from the Romans in order to keep their sanctity, they did not beleive in killing.
There were known cummunities of Essenes in the border of Egypt, they were called the "Therapeutae" by the Greeks, because the Essenes were master on the arts of healing, there is were the term "therapy" comes from. I seriously believe that John the Baptist, Mary and Joseph (Jesus parents) and Jesus were essenes...
Somehow, the essenes term was deleted from the canon, they were persecuted by the Romans, and exterminated. But now we have evidence of their existence in the time of Jesus.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essenes

The lost years of Jesus childhood and adolecence were probably spent in the Jewish comunity of Essenes on Egypt.

"So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: "Out of Egypt I called my son." (Mathew 2:14).

So some of Jesus followers were Zealots (Jewish revels), who the hell can blame them? Jesus was not a Zealot, he was a pacifist.

 

But He won't be a pacifist when He returns, the Lamb of God the first time, and the Lion of Judah the second.