@Susan I use ① http://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions?pagesize=50&sort=newest to see the newest questions and ② http://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions?pagesize=50&sort=active or http://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/ for active questions.

@Susan I remember that I have used that feature before, but I don't remember the situation. Fortunately, we have a summary of flags.

@GreatBigBore we could discuss it in here...chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/1505/the-library

Ok, sorry, when I first read your post, I mistook it for a challenge, and I didn't know how to respond. But yeah, if you would help me sharpen my research that would be awesome.

A kind of peer-review.

@BenjaminHoogterp Are you reading me? I forgot to tag the last two posts for you.

Sorry. working now

Had to switch to computer... Chat on phone is bad..

I see them without the tags... No, no challenge... Just wondering what classificatoin you were using.

So, you asked about my classifications. I made the distinction between people who have anything and people who have nothing.

He never talks about anyone who has nothing.

Right..

So I'm thinking I would get flooded with answers when I ask about what scholars have to say.

My thinking would be that "poor" and "rich" are the extreme ends of the spectrum.. and that "normal" would be somewhere in the middle

But those are just the words. Use any words you want. He never, ever tells any stories about people who have nothing.

Drawing the line at having "anything" or "nothing" doesn't seem like it would be his majority audience, is all..

Surely this hasn't gone unnoticed for 2000 years?

It has never occurred to me, but that doesn't mean much.

And ok, I made a bad assumption.

My guess is that there were only some absolutely destitute folk..

Even the woman with 2 mites.. she still had 2... to start with.

You mention his audience. I was coming from the angle independent of his then-audience, the angle that everyone in the world seems to believe, that Jesus was a champion of the needy.

I don't get the sense from Jesus' words that He was advocating absolute poverty--Compare Mark 10:30.. That is the premise I would question. There is a sense of leaving everything to follow, but in the spirit of Matthew 13:44, it is always "gain".

But that would suggest that he wasn't really a champion of the needy. I'm stunned that no one has ever said anything about this.

Heh.. I don't agree with that "angle".

Advocate? Who said anything about advocate?

On some level, maybe, but depending on what level and applicatoin..

All I'm saying is that not a single one of his stories, ever, ever, is about a person who has nothing.

That's remarkable, isn't it?

My thoughts would be that that fact would question your original premise about the "angle".

I don't get that impression from what Christ said.

Ah. Ok, well, then I understand the confusion.

:)

Wow. Now I see my naivete.

I thought everyone in the world saw Jesus as very concerned about the poor.

So maybe I could say that your doctrinal school is exactly what I'm looking for.

You can explain this dearth to me.

What denomination are you?

Or doctrinal school, sorry, I don't know what to call it.

Pentecostal, mostly..

I see Jesus' main thrust was "the kingdom of God"..

So all this about giving to the poor in Jesus' name, you guys don't do that?

And, of course it "concerns" the poor...

There is certainly the giving to the poor..

Wait, I'm losing you.

Paul was admonished by the apostles to help the poor, the thing he was eager to do.. And, Jesus carried a money bag... and they collected the extra of the feeding to give to the poor..

Ok, wait.

The poor are involved, but it isn't the primary focus.

Jesus said, "The poor you shall always have with you."

Sure... explain.

Is Jesus deeply concerned about the plight of the poor?

To say otherwise would be to deny scripture, of course...

Funny you should say that.

370 verses in the Gospels say otherwise.

But, is he deeply concerned about something else MORE? Is the primary focus of his mission on earth to help the "poor"?

Right. :)

Ok, now you're talking about why Jesus was here. My question isn't about that at all.

And I worry now that we're talking about value judgments. I'm just studying and seeing where it takes me. I'm not making any value judgments. I'm just surprised that everyone thinks Jesus is so deeply concerned about the poor, because the Gospels don't say that.

My thought is that "why Jesus was here" is "what Jesus was talking about", and, hence, the "why" is source for the "what". His primary teaching concerned his primary mission, which was the Kingdom, and the poor are great candidates for the Kingdom.

If we understand that Jesus is "deeply concerned" about all men, it would make sense that his parables relating to daily life would be primarily about the primary class of individuals. Neither the absolute destitute poor, nor the absolute filthy rich.

Ok, so my question "what was he talking about" is irrelevant to you. I am fine with that.

His primary message must have related to the primary ministry...

And by the way, he spared a lot of time for the absolute filthy rich.

A lot more than for blue-collar types.

I thought his parables were largely argicultural..

And again, as I say, one, for the truly needy.

They often are, and they describe rich landowners.

I could link you to my spreadsheet if you just want to see the stats.

Land-ownership in 2nd-temple Israel was by inheritance. I would want to see documentation that this actually related to monetary wealth.

It was actually illegal to permanantly lose your land... It had to revert every so many years to the original owner.

Are you kidding me? How can you not see this? His stories are about the haves.

Losing your land was actually impossible (except for in walled cities), according to Torah law.

Actually, I don't know why I'm arguing this with you. I'm doing a research project. I thought you might help me to learn something. Now we're just arguing values.

So, agricultural stories are not necessarily for the "haves".

No, that land owners are "rich landowners" is a faulty premise.

Thanks for taking the time to have this conversation. I appreciate it, truly. Even though it was fruitless, you took the time.

Either way.

@Susan @JackDouglas Colloquially (i.e., "naturally") in speech, I would just say "Who did Pat pay for the tickets?" Even the Oxford advice recognizes that "who" in all contexts is increasingly acceptable. But I'd go with "Whom did Boaz pay when purchasing Naomi's land?" and leave out any "to". Not that we really care. :D

@Davïd Thanks. Since the OP included "whom" and it's basically correct, that wasn't even in question for me. It's the weirdness of figuring out whether it's acceptable to use "to whom" as Jack had it that confused me.

(It looks like the OP also had "to whom" but was speaking some language other than English and placing the subject after the verb. I guess? Thanks for figuring that one out, @JackDouglas!)

@Susan Indeed, thus my suggestion. Flipping it around, one sees the "to" isn't needed at all: "Boaz paid whom for Naomi's land?" is grammatical ... isn't it? (More coffee, please...)

@Davïd Absolutely. I have no doubt that it's correct without the "to." I just got hung up on why it's not correct (or doesn't seem to be to me anyway) with it. It seems to be because there's no stated direct object, but that appears to be backward from what normally happens with the IO when adding/subtracting the DO in English. Or my head's just going in circles today.

But clearly an unimportant issue!

@JackDouglas @swasheck ahh, but I try :P

@JackDouglas @swasheck I'm joining that club soon (parent). Due date in late May :)

@Davïd @PaulVargas many of the AI folks are on Linguistics.SE (particularly the computational linguistics folks, who tend to be the same crowd)

@Susan meh, we're all about pedantic nuances of grammar here at BH.SE :P

@majnemɪzdæn Thanks for the heads-up - I expect @PaulVargas would be interested to know that, then. (See above).

@Davïd that was supposed to be your name and his, not your name twice pinged

fixed

@majnemɪzdæn @Susan - Good to have things put in proper perspective. ;)

@majnemɪzdæn Much pinging. Better overpinged than under, wouldn't you say?

@Davïd I dunno, that is why I change my name to convoluted things :P

@majnemɪzdæn lol - yes. I still feel abandoned. Sigh . . .

@Davïd yeah, I had to move the wacky characters after character position 3 (or 2 if you're a programmer)

@majnemɪzdæn That's quite an interesting question (isn't it always "third", even if you start from 0?). And an interesting issue - was the previous version "too short" somehow?

@Davïd it is always third, yet still in position 2 :)

@Davïd only two characters wasn't enough to bring my name up in the list when pinging for many folks

I really just need to change it to my simple name again

and I will perhaps

@majnemɪzdæn "...we're all about pedantic nuances of grammar here..." ;) Should have a Pedants.SE, don't you think?

@Davïd we already have that, in a sense :P

@majnemɪzdæn The very thought crossed my mind as I clicked "send"!

Although not particularly with reference to Meta.

@Davïd not any meta, but the meta

for the whole network

@majnemɪzdæn Capital-M Meta, one might say! ;)

@Davïd indeed

@majnemɪzdæn I'm just reading quite a fascinating article, btw. Bears on a few recent Q&A's. @JackDouglas might find it of interest, too.

hmm, there has to be a way to find a failed/closed proposal on area 51

I want to propose a site that has already failed previously

but try again

but it would seem better to have that data available

@majnemɪzdæn I looked into that once - and not a chance.

@majnemɪzdæn I looked into it for the renewed Hebrew proposal.

@Davïd hmm

@Davïd ahh

@majnemɪzdæn Will see if I can dig out refs - just a sec.

@majnemɪzdæn Come to think of it ... maybe Susan found it.

@majnemɪzdæn Here it is - and it was found by Susan.

@majnemɪzdæn I managed to dig some old stuff out of the Wayback Machine - depends how keenly you want it, I guess.

Surprised it's not in the data dumps somewhere, too.

@Davïd hmm, good idea