Clirus #fundie

Clirus #fundie christianforums.com

[re: Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's]

That statement shows to me Jesus had a sense of humor.

What belongs to Caesar?

It was like Jesus was saying, render nothing to Caesar, because nothing belongs to Caesar.

93 comments

old comment by John_in_Oz

You're very close to the reason the Gospels say the crowd thought Jesus's "Render unto Ceasar" quote was so brilliant.
Remember, at the time the crowd didn't think he was the Messiah, nor did they think he was God. Yet they're still reported as having thought the comment was brilliant.
Let's face it, in the absence of either of those to bits of backstory, it seems a pretty ordinary claim, not one to get the crowd onside.
However, a few years before Jesus time, there had been an itinerant rebel leader, fighting to throw out the Romans, claiming 'the Holy land belongs to God alone.'
So the priests were trying to get Jesus into trouble, asking should he pay his taxes. Either the crowd would be pissed off, or the Romans would. However, Jesus's answer sounds like a 'yes' to the Romans, and a 'no' to his audience. And the crowd went wild.
No wonder this was reported as a clever answer, although in the absence of context, it really isn't very clever at all.
Oh, I'm certain that if Jesus existed, he had a better sense of humour than you do.

old comment by Professor M

This is another moment of prescient modernism on the part of the authors of the NT. 2000 years ago the transition from real to symbolic exchange (i.e. from a barter-based to a money-based system of trade) was near-complete but still recent enough to not be taken as completely natural. The "render unto Caesar" bit riffs on the status of symbolic exchange (where the "symbol" takes the form of an image of Caesar formed in metal) WRT the concrete Real (the land, which "belongs only to God"). This ability to play (with humor) on the presence of the signifier in the Real rather than only the Symbolic was mostly suppressed with Plato, and would not reemerge into the mainstream until modernity. The implied joke at the expense of both empire and trade is particularly late-modern. The State, on behalf of Caesar, collects "taxes", but this ends up ultimately amounting to a pile of signifiers which no longer provide access to the signified -- Caesar's power is reduced to the literal hoarding of empty signifiers. (And remember, money as symbolic exchange backed by the State is a product of the state -- so returning the coins-as-empty-signifiers to the state may legitimately be framed as the return to a disorganized and symbol-obsessed child of the object of his obsession by those more grounded in the real world.) So, we have a clever semiotic turn used as a joke at the expense of imperialists, worldly religious authorities, and the nascent capitalist class alike -- really, whoever wrote this stuff should be recognized as the founder of modernist literature.

Sure, as theology the Gospels might be mostly crap, but as an experimental novel they can be fun.

old comment by MadBumperJumper

Wow the ignorance on this board. This isn't fundie. Not all anti-government Christians are right-wing. Some are very left. Tolstoy was a far left anti-government Christian pacifist and made exactly the same argument. You wouldn't put him on here.

I don't believe in God, but taken this as fundie just shows how successful the media(through market mechanisms not conspiracy) has framed political issues so that the left is big government and the right is "little government". These managed to alter the political vocabulary so the libertarian left is practically defined out of existence. The first people to use the word "libertarian" were socialists. In fact in Europe that's still what it means. It's only in America where they've so thoroughly confused the public.

old comment by Horsefeathers

"That statement shows to me Jesus had a sense of humor."

I'm pretty sure most fundies would disagree.

"What belongs to Caesar?"

The entire realm and everything within it. Hence the point Jesus was making; Caesar may own the physical but not your soul.

"It was like Jesus was saying, render nothing to Caesar, because nothing belongs to Caesar."

All of fucking Rome and its provinces "belonged" to Caesar you jackass. Jesus was trying to tell a bunch of goat herders not much brighter than yourself that you should pay your taxes and not make trouble with the government. You shouldn't be worrying about such things anyway as it's your eternal soul and where it will spend the afterlife that is important.

Seriously, how hard was that to figure out?

old comment by WWWWolf

> It was like Jesus was saying, render nothing to Caesar, because nothing belongs to Caesar.

Disciples: "Okay, Jesus, should we pay taxes?"

Jesus: "To whom do all of your thoughts and faith belong to?"

Disciples: "To us?"

Jesus: "Right. Because you can't even give them to anyone. Now, what about your earthly possessions, like the money?"

Disciples: "It belongs to us, too?"

Jesus: "Didn't I, quite plainly, tell you to get rid of excess wealth? Okay, look... whose picture is in the coins, anyway?"

Disciples: "The... Emperor's picture?"

Jesus: "Which meannnnnns...?"

Disciples: "...it belongs to us?"

Jesus: *sigh* "And what makes you think that?"

Disciples: "B... because nothing belongs to the Emperor?"

Jesus: "Nothing belongs to the Emperor? Dude, that guy's goons are going to crucify me one day. He can do stuff like that because he's the Emperor. People have been slaughtered for smaller crimes than not paying taxes. So if they kindly ask a small part of your income to support public order, I suggest being a good citizen."

Matthew: "Um... sir, can I summarise this conversation? Perhaps leave a few disgraceful details away, and..."

old comment by

@kuribo

so we're to believe that Jesus made a snarky comment in the style of the Spartan wit? I'm pretty sure that throughout the rest of the New Testament, Jesus has exactly zero snark.

Check out this article: http://artfuljesus.0catch.com/viney.html

@Darth Vader

Atheist Larry Gonick illustrates this approach to the saying in his "Cartoon History of the University," with a caption that says "Many of the Rabbis sayings appeared straight forward... until you stopped to think about them." The cartoon depicts a man thinking "Wait... what doesn't belong to God?"

Okay, that's all well and good. But what's the point of the "Who's face is on the coin?" bit, then?

And how does one render everything unto God then?

Clirus #fundie christianforums.com

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