Replies

I have shared devotionals on this passage many times.

This alleged pastor shows total ignorance of the wording of both the Greek New Testament and the original Aramaic, which is probably the Language Jesus spoke during this encounter.

Jesus was making an incredible pun, and the woman knew it and continued in that vein. (We call that “riffing”)

The word Jesus used for “dog” was not the word for “bitch” or even the word that was a perjoritive for Gentiles. It was the dimumitive, meaning “little dogs”. The closest thing we have in English would be “Pups”, “doggies” or “pooches”.

Of course, there WAS a pun, because the perjoritive for “Gentiles” was “Dog”, which wasn’t a nice kind of dog at all.

We still have that division in our world. There are the wild, scary, feral dogs that hunt in packs and hurt people.

Then there are the “doggies”. These are the dogs that live with us, eat with us, curl up on the couch with us, and sometimes even work with us.

The Gentile Woman was able to pick up on this right away, and responded accordingly. She spoke of the Puppies that gather under the children’s table for the bits that fall to them. I suspect that the kids were surreptitiously handing the bits to the puppies, because they love them so much.

Evidently this Gentile Woman was able to understand Jesus better than this seminary graduate.

Or perhaps she wasn’t listening through a left-wing, woke, perpetually offended filter.

This really is a major problem. The Septuagint needs to be studied in Greek and not a modern translation. Maimonides explained the genius in the original Septuagint. Yet, despite Jewish scholars aiding in the translation it was never accepted into synagogues. Around the Third Century BC, the Old Testament was translated into Aramaic as well. During that period few people spoke or read Hebrew. By then the oral traditions that had been written down were thousands of years old.

My daughter and I had this discussion. I told her it is best to go to church but study on your own as well. Some churches do try to avoid dogma and study the word of God as best we understand it. But do not ignore the Torah and other older biblical texts. Even look at early Christian writings like the Nag Hammadi texts. Churches are man made therefore they are as flawed as mankind. They all have dogma to identify and control followers. They all like the men who built them, have the potential to fall into sin. This is very apparent in what we are seeing now. If you question Gods will regarding homosexuals, adultery etc..then look to the ancient texts of the Old Testament. That is all we have to go by. ‘Religious men” have their own opinions and often insert them into the Bible and claim them as Gospel.