Friday, October 30, 2009

Jesus and The Rich Young Ruler and Mandatory Compassion Outsourcing

Many of you are probably familiar with the story of The Rich Young Ruler: A guy comes up to Jesus and asks "What do I have to do to be saved?" Jesus says "Take what you have, sell it, and give the money to the poor". The guy sadly walks away, because he has lots of money that he doesn't want to part with.




That entire story is a mistranslation from the original Greek. I've spent the last 6 months working on this. I don't know how these textual errors have lasted for 2000 years, but I've set it all straight.
This is from Matthew 19:16-22.


16 Now a man came up to Jesus and asked, "Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?"

17 "Why do you ask me about what is good?" Jesus replied. "There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments."

18 "Which ones?" the man inquired. Jesus replied, " 'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony....

19 ....honor your father and mother, and 'love your neighbor as yourself.'

20 "All these I have kept," the young man said. "What do I still lack?"

21 Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, lobby for Hope and Change. Set up large programs administered by your government, in which other people are forced to give up their money to fulfill your agenda. Keep a lot of this money for yourself. Dole it out to your favorites. Give nothing of your own, for you know best how to use it, and nothing feels better than spending other people's money. Ensure that the multitudes retain their dependent victim status, and that they will be with you always. For such is the Kingdom Of God."
22 When the young man heard this, he went away rejoicing, for none of this would cost him a dime.

I'm sure that all of you are relieved to learn this. This new interpretation relieves you of all personal responsibility, and puts the burden on others.
I've found other passages that have been mis-interpreted, and I'll be getting to them later.

The painting of Jesus and the Rich Young Ruler came from here.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

Hugo Chavez must have read the same translation, since he also claims that 'Socialism is the Kingdom of God on Earth.'

Browncoat Libertarian said...

Awesome.

That Damn Libertarian said...

Chancellor Gorkon says, "You've not experienced Matthew the Apostle until you've read him in the original Klingon."