Comments on: Jesus as Rabbi 6: Bringing Up Talmidim

By: Chris L

Chris L — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 15:14:26 +0000

Thanks, guys – I really do appreciate it (though I don’t mind shorter comment threads if that means there’s less acrimony involved

Blessings,

Chris

By: Henry (Rick) Frueh

Henry (Rick) Frueh — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 13:18:01 +0000

Actually Chris L. is a psuedo-name. These articles are written by someone named “Zan”. Wierd.

By: Dave Muller

Dave Muller — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 13:05:42 +0000

I’m going to post again, just to show how much I appreciate these series you do, Chris. With the time and effort you must put into it, they deserve all the comments of the other threads.

By: Henry (Rick) Frueh

Henry (Rick) Frueh — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 12:21:12 +0000

In all seriousness, your scholarly research is so wonderful.

By: andy

andy — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 07:11:02 +0000

Exactly Tim and only around 19 to boot & then hell awaits ! (see u like Rainer excellent taste)

Great series Chris

By: TimB

TimB — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 02:28:29 +0000

Chris L,
I’ve really enjoyed this series. I think Judas has been treated very harshly by history. He played a role in the crucifixion. His suicide, to me, shows the magnitude of his treachery came crashing down on him. He seems more like a pathetic figure who let his greed get the better of him. Besides, every great story needs a villian.

By: merry

merry — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 02:26:30 +0000

Oh– and remember that story about when 3 of the disciples got into a stupid argument over who would sit on the left and right hand of Jesus in heaven, and the argument was so bad that their mothers came to talk to Jesus about it? I always laughed so hard at that story, imagining the disciples’ mothers coming to the defense of their darling little babies, but if they were teenagers, that makes more sense. It’s still hilarious, though.

By: merry

merry — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 02:15:16 +0000

“When you force children to take on adult roles earlier, they will step up to the plate.”

That’s true, but the explanation of the disciples being teenagers makes sense as to why they sometimes didn’t seem to act very “mature”. Peter had a tendency to speak before thinking and said some hilarious, stupid things. And Judas . . . greedy Judas– when that woman poured the perfume on Jesus’ feet and dried it with her hair, and Judas made the comment of how all that money could have been used to “help the poor”, I can just imagine him, like some smart-alecky teenage boys I know, saying something like “That was so stupid–duh!!”

And John, the “disciple whom Jesus loved”, was the youngest and only 12 or 13? That’s so sweet, that Jesus looked out for him. John is my favorite of the 4 gospels.

By: andy

andy — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 23:01:48 +0000

Hi Chris thks for the reply…That Judas makes the biggest mistake in history,and then i presume pays for it for eternity, and was only 19,very sobering

By: Chris L

Chris L — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 22:52:37 +0000

Andy,

Note the passage on the Temple tax (which is consistent with disciples in their teens) above. You would need to argue that, for some reason, Jesus only provides the tax for himself and Peter – stiffing the remaining disciples.

Also, Peter is clearly treated in the way that the oldest talmid would have been treated (and has traditionally been taught to be the oldest of the disciples, with John being the youngest). Talmidim were never older than 30, in any setting.

How old were tax collector like Matthew and fishing men?

You started learning the family profession at the age of 12 or so. Since many boys were married between the ages of 13 and 16, there is no reason to correlate their working (fishing, collecting taxes – which often meant taxing the produce by taking a portion of it, not collecting coinage – , etc.) with being out of their teens.

Rather, there is no indication whatsoever in scripture that the disciples were in their twenties (or older), which would be far out of the norm. This is a case where we’ve taken our cultural norms (adult at 18, responsible in your 20’s) and placed them in a culture whose average lifespan was pretty short (some suggest late 30’s/early 40’s), and adult responsibility (via bar mitzvah and bat mitzvah) clearly was bestowed at an earlier age.

That Judas could of been a young man, is even more scary thought, considering what happened to him,makes me sympathetic to him if i dare say so..

I wouldn’t say ’sympathetic’. When you force children to take on adult roles earlier, they will step up to the plate. It just so happens that, in the west, we’ve delayed adulthood by treating kids like kids long past the age of puberty. Other cultures in the world, where adulthood is thrust upon kids at a younger age, show teenagers with more maturity than the soft Western world…