DID JESUS VALIDATE PEDERASTY?

The gospel of Luke, Luke 7, contains a story about Jesus healing the centurion's servant, a very young man he boasted of his love of.  It has been alleged he was curing the centurion's lover.   If so, Jesus then used a miracle to further sex abuse for this lover was certainly underage and a vulnerable male rape victim.

Peter Ould says:

Phang, in The Marriage of Roman Soldiers argues coherently that in the period of Roman history this passage occurs, it would have been inconceivable that a Roman soldier would have been permitted to have had a sexual relationship with either another soldier, any freeman, or even a male slave. There is however evidence that some Roman soldiers bought slave boys in order to have sex with them, but the documentation of this phenomenon is scarce. In some parts of the Empire at this time (i.e. Egypt) it was already unheard of for a free Roman to enter into pederasty with a junior. By the middle to end of the third century it was almost eliminated from the life of the army across the Empire.

Luke 7:2 and 7:10 call the lad doulos or servant.  The Centurion uses the word "pais" which means a few things but child is the best and most obvious interpretation.  It can mean son but a servant would not be called a son we think.  If he was indeed a son to the man then the worst kind of abuser has a slave who he manipulates to feel like he is being thought of like a son.  That sounds like a monster trying to sooth his conscience.  Jesus then if he let this man call a slave his son was condoning slavery and gaslighting.  Matthew 2:16 has pais meaning child for child. It is son in John 4:51.  It is servant at Luke 15:26 and Acts 4:25.

Pederasty is the best interpretation.  James Neill's research backs that up.  Even critics agree he could be right even if they do not think so.

Jesus had no problem with abuse of young females.  They were forced to marry but could not divorce or annul their marriages.  Jesus made sure it would stay that way by saying a woman who divorces is an adulteress. He was speaking not to Jewish culture only but to all cultures especially ones that permitted women to divorce!  In John 8 he takes evil men at their word that a girl committed adultery.  How young was she?  Nobody knows.  Only a man who is okay with abuse lets them say that and does not ask them for evidence or send them to the court.  Only a misogynist does it.



No Copyright