Matthew 8:28-34; Mark 5:1-20; Luke 8:26-39.
Me: You know how, in the Gospels, Jesus banishes the demons into the swine?
Dad: Yeah, I know that story.
Me: Okay, I vaguely get the banishing them into swine thing. Pigs are unclean and all. But why, once the demons get into the swine, do they go tossing themselves into the water just to die? They'll just have to re-host themselves again.
Dad: You're reading that story all wrong. Whose pigs were they?
Me: It doesn’t really say. But I assume just some Jewish swineherd's, since Jesus mostly went around to Jews in Jewish towns.
Dad: And what were Jews doing with pigs?
Me: Uh, I don’t know. Raising them for Romans?
Dad: There you go! See! It’s a political act! He banished the demons into some Roman pigs, and then made them kill themselves! Economic rebellion!
Me: Doesn't seem very nice. Those Romans would be pretty mad when they came back to find their pigs dead. What happens to the poor Jewish swineherds?
Dad: What does Jesus care? He cast out some demons, killed some pigs, made some Romans mad! A day well spent!
Me: Well, it does say that people begged Jesus to leave their neighborhood afterward. He got into his boat and sailed away. Not his problem, eh? No wonder they killed him. It's one thing to claim to be God, and quite another to go about terrorizing innocent swine.
Dad: ::laughs:: Imagine having to row through all those pig corpses!
posted by Sarie @
8:45 PM
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