Did Jesus study economics? New Bible version corrects his mistakes

[Toto]

Actually it was a publicity stunt.

A lot of religion news sites (http://www.crosswalk.com/news/religiontoday/1439018.html) picked this up as a straght story:

The new bible version, released by the Western Bible Foundation in the Netherlands, has created a storm by trying to make the Christian gospel more palatable. . . . . "Jesus was very inspiring for our inner health, but we don't need to take his naïve remarks about money seriously. He didn't study economics, obviously," he said. De Rijke says no serious Christian takes these texts literally. "What if all Christians stopped being anxious, for example, and started expecting everything from God? Or gave their possessions to the poor, for that matter. Our economy would be lost. The truth is quite the contrary: a strong economy and a healthy work ethic is a gift from God."

or from here (http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/content/news_syndication/article_061018bible.shtml) The foundation wanted to "boldly go where no one else has gone before" by cutting out the confusing texts.

“We don't use them anyway! There's no single Christian selling his possessions and giving them to the poor."

Of course, it turned out that this was a publicity stunt by a progressive Christian group Time to Turn (http://www.timetoturn.nl/new/english.php)

From WingNutDaily (http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=52536) However, the names listed for the officials of the foundation, "De Rijke" and "Fortuijn" give away the joke, which sometimes has produced more anger than humor among Christians.

"De Rijke" means "rich," and "Fortuijn" means "fortune," and the Bible actually is published by Time to Turn, a network of Dutch Christian students "who want to choose a sustainable and just way of life, based on their faith in Jesus Christ."

"They do not believe in a new legalism, or in a utopian state, but in a God who is willing to deliver the world from materialism and injustice. Time to Turn is linked to the international student movement Speak," the announcement said.

Question: can anyone justify Jesus' economic statements? Isn't this revised version an improvement? How much cognitive dissonance can Christian businessmen put up with anyway?

[Hrvoje Butkovic]

Question: can anyone justify Jesus' economic statements? Isn't this revised version an improvement? How much cognitive dissonance can Christian businessmen put up with anyway?
I don't think that Jesus was trying to equip his followers with more effective ways of competing with their fellow humans in the economy of that time. Rather, we was trying to show them a way to live that was based on compassion and co-operation, I suspect because he has found this kind of existence more fulfilling.

[Tigers!]

What economic statements did you have in mind? Some parables contained economic factors but parables were usually for a spiritual purposes and used any economic factors often as props.

Anyway I would have thought for example that Matt 10:10 - "for the worker is worth his keep."
or
Luk 10:7 - "for the worker deserves his wages."
are good economics. Pay your workers/employees what they deserve.

I must look more closely at the group you mention. Any group that is trying to live consistent with Biblical principles is one that I want to watch closely.

[Hot_ice72]

Exodus 25:22 " if you lend money to one of my people among you who is needy, do not be like a moneylender, charge him no interest"

Nehemiah 5:7 "After thinking it over, I spoke out against these nobles and officials. I told them, “You are hurting your own relatives by charging interest when they borrow money!” Then I called a public meeting to deal with the problem."

i find it hard to believe this world would be a better place without loans and interest. the world would be significantly impoverished without finance markets and financial institutions.

the holy trinity must of flunked economics 101

[seebs]

The question of whether usury is any interest, or merely excessive interest, is non-trivial. The concept of the time value of money had not been found.

I think a plausible case can be made for interpreting it as a ban on profiting on loans. Can you make an economy work without profiting from loans? Maybe. Consider the difference between a company making loans to people buying its products, at rates that merely cover costs, and a company lending people money at huge rates for whatever it is they're buying from someone else. The former has a much stronger bond to the customer, IMHO.

[sharon45]

10 "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.
11 So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?
12 And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property of your own?Jesus didn't know that much about economics, but he did know a lot about spouting fallacies.

[Tigers!]

Jesus didn't know that much about economics, but he did know a lot about spouting fallacies.
Are the fallacies in the verses you quoted? If so could you elaborate? I am having a hard time seeing any fallacies.

[Lógos Sokratikós]

There are very few attempts at syllogistic-style arguments in Jesus. When he wants to get a point through, he generally uses Æsop-style stories (but with humans instead of animals).

But when he discusses with the pharisees, he does create some fallacies, when he attempts to defend his humanitarian or fair vision of YHWH, which is, obviously false. He just wins confrontations with them out of sheer rhetoric, not straight theology. He actually sucks at it.

He says that there is divorce in Jewish law because the Jews willed it, not YHWH. He had weird reading comprehension, that's for sure.

[Ubercat]

What economic statements did you have in mind? Some parables contained economic factors but parables were usually for a spiritual purposes and used any economic factors often as props.

Anyway I would have thought for example that Matt 10:10 - "for the worker is worth his keep."
or
Luk 10:7 - "for the worker deserves his wages."
are good economics. Pay your workers/employees what they deserve.

I must look more closely at the group you mention. Any group that is trying to live consistent with Biblical principles is one that I want to watch closely.

Yeah. We need more people who murder old widows for being "witches."

-Ubercat

[sharon45]

Are the fallacies in the verses you quoted? If so could you elaborate? I am having a hard time seeing any fallacies.Could I then dare to surmise that you also probably don't see any fallices in these following quotes as well?
24 "A student is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master.
25 It is enough for the student to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. If the head of the house has been called Beelzebub, how much more the members of his household!
29 "Or again, how can anyone enter a strong man's house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man? Then he can rob his house.
57 And they took offense at him.
But Jesus said to them, "Only in his hometown and in his own house is a prophet without honor."
14 Leave them; they are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit."
17 "Don't you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man 'unclean.'The point is that it is like saying one can trust anyone with a great deal of responsibility if they have already shown they can be trusted with a little bit of responsibility.
Just like no one has to be trusted with very little responsibility just because they have shown they can be trusted with a great deal of responsibility.