For the last several months, our church has been holding a weekly noontime Bible study through the book of Revelation. It’s been quite enlightening, and my end-times theological cage is being rattled a little. Incidentally, the progress is being written about @ The Watchman’s Gaze if you care to follow.
But, during a recent meeting, we chased a few rabbit trails, including: Did Jesus (and by extension God) curse Israel (specifically when Jesus cursed the fig tree, or ever)? Does God curse anything? If He did before, does He still? Is God capable of cursing anything given His nature(?), or given Christ’s accomplishment on the cross(?), or are curses merely brought upon one’s self?
The discussion was obviously much more in depth than the narrowly defined questions posed above, but this is my (admittedly) slanted summary.
Thoughts? Ideas? Comments?
#1 by Chris Pieper on April 2, 2010 - 6:08 pm
The whole notion of cursing is based on a highly anthropomorphized image of God, which is untenable, both intellectually and spiritually. To my mind, cursing (and to a large degree, blessing, by the same logic) is largely a projection of wishes of the author more than a generalizable/valid concept of God. All things are by nature blessed because they contain the essence of the Creator. Human beings and their organizations may appear cursed or curse another because of choices that bring suffering, pain, death, misfortune, etc., but these are human-imposed categories. To bring just one limited but useful example, chronic illness may be interpreted as curse (as it often was in pre-modern times) or blessing (e.g. a cross to bear, a taste of Christ’s own suffering) or just value-free facts. The perception of such events is largely arbitrary until the affected or his/her fellow humans begin to act on them. Then they become quite real indeed (e.g. the notion of the Jews as a chosen people).
From the point of view of real human relations, all people should be treated as manifestations of the Divine and therefore worthy of protection and love. Obviously, I am not a biblical literalist, which may put me at odds with the mainline of your group, but is the course I’ve found most spiritually, intellectually, and politically sustainable.
Love,
Chris
p.s.
Figs are still here and pretty tasty.
#2 by Peter on April 5, 2010 - 3:02 pm
I agree with much of what you say, and I really have no idea what the mainline of my group is. As far as readers, I would say they vary from Bible literalists to atheists and worse. As far as the church group, they are closer to Bible literalists. Your example about chronic illness is an interesting one, primarily because it is one of the most confusing to Christians. I find no scriptural authority for a chronic illness being a blessing, but there is scriptural authority for it being a curse. This is not to say that all chronic illness is the result of a curse, lung cancer resulting from years of smoking, for example, is hard to pigeonhole into the “curse” category. There are numerous other examples as well. However, there are probably as many chronic conditions resulting from “curses” (an I use the term loosely-given that I was asking question to begin with), or at least where the root is actually spiritual and not physical-unforgiveness, and such. It’s a dicey subject, and one that’s been relegated to online discussions
, but it’s the complicated matters that need our attention the most, lest we perish from a lack of knowledge.
And I love figs. I’ve even eaten them in Israel.
#3 by What would you do in heaven? on April 11, 2010 - 2:48 am
I think that when the Bible tells us that God curses something, it is just expressing a truth, like a prophecy of what’s going to happen, which is based on natural law. There are natural consequences to our actions, and God is merely pointing out to us what such consequences will be.
#4 by Bob MacDonald on May 15, 2010 - 3:52 pm
It’s curious that when Job’s wife says ‘curse God and die’ – she uses the Hebrew for the word bless. Same as when Job worries about his kinder ‘cursing’ God in their hearts – he too uses ‘bless’. The ‘task’ of doing the damage to Job is given to the accuser (a job any of us beni ha-elohim can fulfill and often do with our judgments). The accuser gets no mention at the end of Job. So whatever ‘cursing’ is, it has no future in that self-described epic parable. Given that we are under the same Anointing – (Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever) it seems to me that cursing is not the final word. But that the fig tree might be a curse for us – remember who is ultimately identified as the ‘son’ who is called out of Egypt, or ‘the vine’ or the ‘elect’? And think, who became a curse for us taking on all the accusations which we bring against each other?
#5 by Peter on May 17, 2010 - 9:25 am
Interesting. I’ll have to give this some thought.
#6 by Bob MacDonald on May 15, 2010 - 7:27 pm
btw kinder = children