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Technically, it is turn the 'left' cheek. The way I remember it being explained to me is that Jewish law was clear: you strike your slave, you have to let them go. Now many slave owners still wanted to beat up their slaves, so they found a loophole. If you backhanded a slave, it wasn't considered striking. How could someone tell it was backhanding? If the mark was on the 'right' cheek, since everyone was right-handed. Bunch of slaves asked Jesus what to do about it and he said
"When he goes to hit you, hold out your left cheek. If he hits you, you are free, and if he doesn't, well, problem solved."
This is not where this comes from. It comes from Christianity being a pacifist religion, not some weird pretend loophole about hitting your slave properly.
It's a really simple concept - absolute nonviolence. There's nothing "secret" about it at all. Whoever "explained" this to you was just perverting the religion, which is exactly what this article is about.
In general, if an explanation sounds like "slave masters hate this one neat trick" or an email forward from 1996, you should probably not buy into it.
I'm sure Quakers believe all sorts of interesting things, but that doesn't make them or this ahistorical explanation correct biblical scholarship.
What's ahistorical about it?
The entire left-handed thing is made up after the fact. Riches, for instance, were seen as being borne by the left hand, far from the left hand being taboo.
There was no "slapping culture" among equals/non-equals.
More to the point, the line directly processing the "turn the other cheek" bit is literally a command to not resist evil people, and the whole being slapped thing is a metaphor.
Thanks, I appreciate your perspective.
How would one put their left cheek on their right side? I feel like you'd need to be upside down.
Edit: I figured it out
That's just how it's interpreted nowadays. In no way is Christianity absolutely pacificist. Jesus himself whipped the lenders at the temple.
Christianity is absolutely a pacifist religion. Christians are required to forgive those who do anything up to and including torture them to death.
Some of the absolute nonviolence stuff got put in to the King James version of the Bible because King James wanted a passive population.
One of my favorite bits from the Gandhi speechs on the sermon on the mount is about the "impossible" question Jesus got asked. The Roman army would randomly kidnap people and force them to hall there stuff. Israel was under occupation at the time and people wanted to resist that occupation. Also, hauling stuff on the sabbath was against the religious law. So Jesus got asked if he would hall stuff for the Roman army on a sabbath. If he said no, they were going to turn him in as a rebel. If he said yes, well, what religious leader says ignore the sabbath?
However, Jesus knew the rules on hauling for the Roman's. They would only force you to haul until the next marker. If a Roman soldier forced you to do more than that, they would be whipped for disobeying the rules. So he simply stated: "If someone asked you to haul for one mile, haul for two. Then call out ' I have hauled for two miles, how many more do I have to do?' Then the solder who asked you to do this will be whipped. If all Jews did this, the army would stop asking jews to haul - thus preserving the sabbath."
It's bizarre to me the things people will make up to rationalize to themselves that Christianity is not non-violent.
No one was seeking to "trick" romans into getting in trouble by hauling shit extra distances. That doesn't even make sense as a concept. It's again, email-forward level of "just trick the system!" It's nonsense.
The entire point of that passage is that the Gospel is to be spread through meekness and humility. Which is why, you know, every single teaching of Jesus's revolves around these concepts.
In what way was helping the Romans by lifting there stuff violent? The whole concept of Gandhi's speeches was that pacifism wasn't just rolling over and taking abuse. Jesus's non-violent teaching went on to inspire many movements from Gandhi's, Martin Luther and Martin Luther King. Trying it back the article, it seems people think non-violent = weak these days. I'm just pointing out that there is a nuance that has seemingly been lost, and sometimes the non-violent approach is one of the strongest approchs you can take to a situation.
I didn't say carrying things for a roman was violent. I said the radical misinterpretations of Christianity are done to make room for violence. The "carry it 2 miles and get them in trouble" thing is just false, and the story about Ghandi referencing it probably apocryphal.
Jesus commands all Christians, very explicitly, to be non-violent regardless of circumstances, up to and including their own torture and death
Yes, but just because you are non-violent does not mean you have no way of fighting injustice, or are weak, as the Trumper say.
Sure! not arguing against that at all.
Someone said that to you and you believed them?
This was a methodist pastor summarizing a speech given by Gandhi on Jesus's sermon on the mount which in of itself was a reinterpretation ancient Jewish law - so someone down the line might have got something wrong.
Slave in the back: Umm... Jesus? Isn't...isn't God against slavery? Can't you just tell these assholes slavery is immoral and free us, instead of this gotchya cheek slapping shit?
Jesus: 🤣 stfu and obey your masters, even the cruel ones!
God compared his relationship to humanity to that of a master and a slave. It was also compared to a husband and a wife, so the nature of both human institutions have changed a bunch over the years. Back then it seems like both were 'strong protect weak' institutions and not 'I own you so you mater not' institutions.
🤣 Are we defending slavery now? Jesus Christ... How hard would it be for God to simply say thou shall not own another human being as property? Is that really so hard? Was he pressed for time? Because he spends shit loads of time talking about cattle and graven images, yet slavery he just can't get right...
Almost like all this shit was written by humans 🤔...
Yugoslavia didn't even exist during the time of Jesus, and that is the origin of the word 'Slav(e)'. Human institutions change over time, see all the Christians freaking out over gay marriage. Condeming whatever people called slavery back then would be like condemning marriage, as they were considered similar institutions.
Correct me if im wrong here, but im pretty sure Yugoslavia has nothing to do with the etymology of 'slave'. I thought it derives from the ethnonym of slavic people that were spread around south/east of europe
Oh, I knew it came from the Slavic people. I just thought it had something to do with Yugoslavia, as that was the only county I knew that had Slav in it name. I guess the Slavs as people might have been around 2000 years ago, so you are probably right.
So what the hell would stop them from simply punching you in the face? Or nutshotting you?