Ah yeah, about that. You may find it interesting that there is no record of Jesus ever actually diagnosing anyone as demonically possessed. You may also be interested in this comment by Swedish theologian Dr Torsten Löfstedt, in his paper “Exorcism and emotions in the gospels”
It is easy to overanalyze words spoken in anger, however, and I argue on the basis of both New Testament passages and modern-day parallels that one should be careful about assuming that when Jesus displays anger at something that he necessarily considered it a supernatural agent. The demonic was not clearly defined, and in both healings and exorcism it was not unusual for the healer to express anger at the personified ailment. Anger is a social emotion that will normally be directed at an agent felt to have moral responsibility. Because of the emotional intensity involved in an exorcism (as in other forms of faith healing), personification of the patient’s condition is expected.
@Bill_II, Jesus refers to Adam and Eve as “them” in Matthew 19:4-6 and Mark 10:6-9. And, no offense, but EVERYTHING in the Bible is a matter of interpretation. This is why Christianity has over 40,000 different denominations now. Everyone brings their own interpretation to the Bible, to Jesus, to the Church, and to Christianity. I’m not saying this as a criticism, just as an observation of the truth. That being the case, that the Bible and Christianity reflect a very wide range of views on things, I can only say what “seems” to be the most persuasive conclusion to me, lacking, as we do, any objective interpretational standard.
Them could be Adam and Eve or it could be all of mankind. I think there is a reason Jesus didn’t actually say Adam and Eve. If you go back to Genesis 1:27 the “them” refers to mankind and not Adam and Eve.
And I agree with your observation. We are all forced to come to our own conclusion.
Thank you for your reply. The Bible is simply not a science book. It reflects an ancient understanding of science, including medicine.
I believe that prayer and modern medicine are complementary. That’s why hospitals usually have chapels and chaplains.
You might be interested in the book Evolutionary Creation by Denis Lamoureux. He has Ph.D.s in both evolution and theology, and does a great job explaining the ancient science in the Bible, as well as the timeless message of faith found there.
As for epilepsy, I hear you. My nephew has it. I’m glad you have it under control. I believe in the New Testament healing stories, but people back then erroneously attributed seizures and other maladies to demon possession. (I got in big trouble here for saying that I don’t believe in demon possession!)
Epilepsy used to be referred to as the “sacred disease” since it was once thought to be caused by demon possession. It was used to diagnose witches. Laws in the U.S. forbid epileptics from marrying, and mandatory sterilization was legal in some states. Thankfully, times have changed (for most of us).
In my experience it’s considered a bit rude in most forums to post links with minimal explanation that lead people to your personal blog when said blog post is a rambling fifteen-page essay. You have to read over 1,000 words into the body of your piece before you even get to the word “kind.” After doing a word search on your page for “kind” and reading all the paragraphs with “kind” in them, all the while trying to get to the heart of the matter without winding up spending my evening doing this, I’ll be honest that I still have no idea what you’re trying to say.
Would you mind summarizing your contribution here? You might get a lot more engagement that way.
I must have missed the part where Jesus said that your epilepsy is caused by demons!
Just because your condition can be explained and treated medically doesn’t mean that there weren’t -and aren’t - demon-possessed people. If the Bible is to be believed, not everything has a naturalistic explanation.
Except that the Gospel writer Luke includes Adam in his genealogy in Luke 3:38. There is no reference to Adam in the New Testament that can be considered legitimately symbolic. If you believe that, then you ignore the literary type of those sections of Scripture and have license to pick and choose what is symbolic and what is not. For example, at what point in the genealogies did actual people kick in?
A lot of what I am observing here is professing Christians over realizing science as indisputable fact to call into question the plain meaning of many passages of Scripture. As Christians, it should be entirely the opposite. For example, do we actually know that the earth is billions of years old and that humans evolved from lower life forms? No! These are theories with assumptions that we must be honest about. Where they collide with the plain meaning of Scripture, as faithful Christians we must take by faith what God has said, and not rely on our understanding (Proverbs 3:5-6) which is evolving (pardon the pun), changing, and incomplete.
Except you are viewing genealogies as a Westerner would. Those for whom those genealogies were written would have a different view.
And we know the earth is 4.something billion years old because there is evidence that says it is. Showing that it is older than 10,0000 years is easy. Just look at the Grand Canyon. It was Christian Geologists that first found the earth wasn’t young.
There are more rational ways to explain why people aren’t diagnosed with demonic possession anymore. Like, the same reason why we don’t burn people for witchcraft when there’s a storm.
I apologize. I thought it the best way to provide a thorough explanation of the Biblical sense of the word “kind” since this is a philosophical question as well as a religious one. Essentialism and evolutionary theory are knocking heads these days.
I guess what I don’t understand, without having read your article, is why the use of “kind” in Genesis entails any kind of essentialism, whether (narrowly) an essentialist reading of Genesis or (broadly) a Christian worldview that is married to essentialism and reads Genesis accordingly. Yes, essentialism is an important philosophical movement to understand, but I don’t get the connection to Genesis. Even non-essentialists speak of different kinds of things, right? Maybe you cover this in your article.
But we do find ourselves in that position all the time. Which is why in all but a few churches women are not silent. And nobody gouges out their eyes after looking too long at the Sport’s Illustrated Swimsuit Issue cover in the supermarket line. And some people insist Jesus turned water into fancy grape juice at Cana. And why most denominations don’t spend any time encouraging people to eagerly desire the greater gifts of tongues and healing and miracle working. No one consistently thinks the Bible “means what it actually says.”