Another Patton Associates S-M-A-R-TBriefing
I did so because I thought one of the words in the text was weird. It seemed out of cultural context ...especially for so-called, prudish First Century Hebrew society.
In this passage, Elohim/God was taking with His listeners about things which He commanded we let go of rather than resisting violently. Yeshua's
talk has been labelled His "Sermon on the Mount". Alternatively, it's called His "Sermon on the Plain" when His identical concepts are quoted in the the Book of Luke.
You, like I was, may be shocked to discover that most English Bible translations
all copy the ancient King James Version (KJV) and prudishly mis-translate the Greek to English as "coat" or "tunic" in Matthew 5:40 . Even the so-called scholar's Bible, the New American Standard Bible (NASB), the popular New International Bible (NIV), and the helpful paraphrase, The Message (MSG), translations all use the polite "shirt" rather than the word Jesus used.
The word which Jesus' first Century listeners heard was not shirt, nor certainly not coat, but what we moderns call underwear!
Because of this mis-translation from the 17th Century until now, English-speaking Jesus Followers have been robbed of the non-violent power, and the radicalism of the correct translation. The truth is seldon taught from most pulpits!
I assume this mis-translation is intentional and designed to be culturally and politically-correct because most Christians teach their kids the myth that public, and in some homes, even, familial nudity is proscribed by The Almighty.
Because of this myth, the powerful emphasis that Yeshua was placing on non-violence for His first listeners we miss. What we can't hear, because of the mistranslation, is that He was telling the Jews listening to Him, then, and us, now, that it is better to go naked in public than to use violence to resist any form of evi. ln the case of the story which used in
Matthew 5:40, the evil requiring resistance is the greed of another.
You can know I'm not exaggerating because Yeshua has the hero of His story resisting in a public Law Court. He also commanded His first hearers, and us, that non-violence must be one of the highest priorities for their behaviour by commanding that they must walk around naked until they could afford new underwear ...like his hero had to.
You can know that this also is true because the First Century Palestinians listening to our seditious Saviour didn't have several pairs of underwear at home in a drawer like many of we Westerners do!
Please let me know how else I might be useful to you in any way?
Blessings and shalom ...'till next we interact!
Gary@PattonAssociates.ca
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