Why did Jesus bring his sisters?


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There is nothing in the immediate text which indicates that they were in the immediate gathering of people.  This passage pointed out that Jesus "came into his own country".  So, he had actually returned home to where his earthly family was.  

It is unlikely that he was responsible for their temporal needs.  He himself had no money.  And the Law would indicate other means for the women to be taken care of.

This is the same passage where Jesus said

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4 But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.

 5 And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them.

 6 And he marvelled because of their unbelief. And he went round about the villages, teaching.

I'm more impressed by verse 5.  This tells us that not only could the Savior Himself not do* many mighty miracle due to unbelief, but that the simplest of miracles is healing the sick of minor illness/ailment.  Of course, this opposes

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For I perceive that ye desire that I should show unto you what I have done unto your brethren at Jerusalem, for I see that your faith is sufficient that I should heal you.

3Ne17:8

That is very interesting.  But I believe the healing he did at that point was the more miraculous type that he could cure leprosy and otherwise permanent and terminal illness.

*To clarify: I do not mean that he had not the power.  But we know that miracles are wrought only when there is sufficient faith.

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13 hours ago, moonman239 said:

In Mark 6:3, we read

"3 Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him.

My guess is they were reliant on Him for their temporal needs. 

But in Mark 6:1, we read that He was in His hometown, where His sisters would have been married "[there] with [the Nazarenes]". They'd have been "reliant on [their husbands] for their temporal needs." Among all the charges the scribes and Pharisees leveled at Him, none was about abandoning His familial responsibilities.

Carb says the Jesus had no money. There is nothing in the scriptures to support that assumption, and, given that He was a "carpenter", He'd have been comfortable, being one of the "high tech guys" of His day. I doubt He was "rich", but He was not necessarily poor.

Lehi

Edited by LeSellers
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10 minutes ago, LeSellers said:

There is nothing in the scriptures to support that assumption

Why did he have to pay taxes via a miracle rather than out of his pocket?

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27 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

Why did he have to pay taxes via a miracle rather than out of his pocket?

As I understand it that whole anecdote is supposed to reinforce that Jesus, as God, wasn't subject to the tax; and that Jesus, as God, had claim on the material  resources of the entire world any time He wanted them.

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2 hours ago, Carborendum said:

...I'm more impressed by verse 5.  This tells us that not only could the Savior Himself not do* many mighty miracle due to unbelief, but that the simplest of miracles is healing the sick of minor illness/ailment.  Of course, this opposes

That is very interesting.  But I believe the healing he did at that point was the more miraculous type that he could cure leprosy and otherwise permanent and terminal illness....

Rather than healing being the simplest of miracles, perhaps the few people in verse 5 were the only ones with sufficient faith to be healed (or receive any other miracle).  (Not saying what is / is not a simple miracle - not sure it matters - just that there's more than one way to reconcile any apparent discrepancy in this case.)

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44 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

As I understand it that whole anecdote is supposed to reinforce that Jesus, as God, wasn't subject to the tax; and that Jesus, as God, had claim on the material  resources of the entire world any time He wanted them.

Maybe.  I also remember that when he asked if "any (had) a coin among you", that he himself did not have any because it was a violation of the Law of Moses to carry a coin since it had a graven image.

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4 hours ago, LeSellers said:

Among all the charges the scribes and Pharisees leveld at Him, none was abandoning His familial responsibilities

Interesting point. The Jewish leaders were already holding His feet to the fire, and He would have been adding coals by shirking His family duties.

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3 hours ago, Carborendum said:

Maybe.  I also remember that when he asked if "any (had) a coin among you", that he himself did not have any because it was a violation of the Law of Moses to carry a coin since it had a graven image.

I think you're referring to a separate incident, where Jesus was asked if it was lawful to pay taxes to Caesar and Jesus asked for someone to show him a coin, pointed out Caesar's image, and pronounced His "Render to Caesar" line.

In this incident, I believe the tribute money being sought is the annual temple tax levied against all Jewish males.  That would have been paid in temple coin (the Tyrian shekel), which did not bear Caesar's likeness but did, ironically enough, bear an image of Baal.

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3 hours ago, Carborendum said:

Maybe.  I also remember that when he asked if "any (had) a coin among you", that he himself did not have any because it was a violation of the Law of Moses to carry a coin since it had a graven image.

Or just because He left His change in His other pants...oh wait...

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43 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

I think you're referring to a separate incident, where Jesus was asked if it was lawful to pay taxes to Caesar and Jesus asked for someone to show him a coin, pointed out Caesar's image, and pronounced His "Render to Caesar" line.

In this incident, I believe the tribute money being sought is the annual temple tax levied against all Jewish males.  That would have been paid in temple coin (the Tyrian shekel), which did not bear Caesar's likeness but did, ironically enough, bear an image of Baal.

Yes, I was.  This was in response primarily to @LeSellers post.  

@moonman239 indicated his sisters were dependent upon him for their support.
I had claimed Jesus had no money (or at least was very poor) and thus not in a position to do that.
Lehi said there was no evidence of that, etc.
I indicated the miraculous tax payment as evidence that he had none on him.
Then in response to your post I pointed out that, while that anecdote may have other meanings, another reference would also support the notion that he had no money.  Put many of them together and it does begin to paint a picture.

Put the whole picture together.  It seems that he didn't carry money.  And I see evidence that he was poor.  Water to wine, Mary and Martha.  I do see much evidence that he was indeed poor by earthly standards.

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6 hours ago, Carborendum said:

Why did he have to pay taxes via a miracle rather than out of his pocket?

Nothings says He couldn't have paid the Temple tax Himself. But, as the story tells us, He was not subject to it (being the King/Prince). Since not subject, He didn't actually pay it (nor did Peter who, as the "Prime Minister", would not have been subject to the tax, either).

5 hours ago, Carborendum said:

Maybe.  I also remember that when he asked if "any (had) a coin among you", that he himself did not have any because it was a violation of the Law of Moses to carry a coin since it had a graven image.

We ought to recall that Rome was among the earliest of civilizations to use coinage. The Jews used weights of gold (and silver) until relatively late in the history of the world. Yes, they did have coins (and, obviously, used Roman, and others, as well), but the injunction against false weights wasn't about how much butter in a pound, but about the amount of gold being exchanged. Even the Jewish coins of His era had images, just not of animals or people.

So, if we assume (with a lot of justification) that He was an observant Jew of the highest order, and He would not have carried a coin with an image, then He would have been required to get a coin from someone else, no matter His wealth status.

Lehi

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On 5/23/2016 at 7:19 AM, LeSellers said:

But in Mark 6:1, we read that He was in His hometown, where His sisters would have been married "[there] with [the Nazarenes]". They'd have been "reliant on [their husbands] for their temporal needs." Among all the charges the scribes and Pharisees leveled at Him, none was about abandoning His familial responsibilities.

Carb says the Jesus had no money. There is nothing in the scriptures to support that assumption, and, given that He was a "carpenter", He'd have been comfortable, being one of the "high tech guys" of His day. I doubt He was "rich", but He was not necessarily poor.

Lehi

we also do not know how the gifts that were given by th magi were used or saved.

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1 hour ago, Blackmarch said:

we also do not know how the gifts that were given by th magi were used or saved.

I think Talmage points out that when Mary and Joseph presented the baby Jesus at the temple, they elected the "poor man's option" of a sacrifice of two turtledoves in lieu of a lamb.  Of course, the magi visit probably came later; but I doubt their offering was enough to keep an otherwise-impoverished family in comfort for the next thirty years.

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Why would Jesus have been averse to paying taxes? The Jews commonly paid temple and other taxes. The gospels record that Jesus' mother gave birth to him in Bethlehem because they had traveled there for tax purposes.

In Jesus' time, the Jewish homeland was occupied by the Romans, who were but the latest of the foreign occupiers/conquerors of Jerusalem. The Jews hated the Romans as they had hated the Babylonians, the Assyrians, etc. Asking Jesus about paying his taxes was a political question or ploy designed to get Jesus either to admit the legitimacy of Roman rule (thus denying Jewish heritage and divine privilege) or else declare Jewish independence from Rome (thus being guilty of sedition, the crime for which Jesus was eventually -- and falsely -- accused of and crucified for). Jesus skillfully, and brilliantly, dodged the whole question by telling the truth: Render unto Caesar Caesar's things, and render unto God God's things. He also used a miracle of having Peter pull a coin out of a fish's mouth to pay the tax, thus avoiding using his own means or possession of coinage -- arguably a violation of Jewish law or at least custom, since it had an image of a human form, and thus an image of God by proxy, since men were created in God's image. Jesus cut through all the pointless legalism and superstition to get to the heart of the matter.

My apologies if this is obvious to everyone, but I thought it worth pointing out.

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9 minutes ago, Vort said:

Jesus skillfully, and brilliantly, dodged the whole question by telling the truth: Render unto Caesar Caesar's things, and render unto God God's things. He also used a miracle of having Peter pull a coin out of a fish's mouth to pay the tax, . . .

My apologies if this is obvious to everyone, but I thought it worth pointing out.

Just to clarify, though--traditionally, these two anecdotes concern two different taxes:  the former, a civil tax to Caesar; the latter, a religious tax to God Himself.  After Peter rashly and erroneously told an inquirer that Jesus was subject to the latter tax, Jesus pointed out to Peter that as the legitimate Child of the King of the Earth He in fact had no such obligation.

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I always do better when I actually read and review the scriptures before attempting to comment on them. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine whether I did my due diligence this time...

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I've sometimes thought that the exercise of extracting a coin from the mouth of a fish has some similarities to priestcraft - the use of divine Priesthood power for personal gain. Perhaps it could be argued that Jesus did not personally gain anything himself from this process as He gave the coin to the tax collector, to which I would reply that meeting a financial and legal obligation to which one is subject in this context is pretty much the same thing as personal gain. Or looked at in another way, it might appear that Christ used His Priesthood power to provide financial support to a dictatorial, murderous, corrupt, merciless, cruel government. This would be a rather unusual way of characterising this particular event but its an interpretation that seems to fit the basic facts of the matter. If this is indeed what Christ did, it must have been the right thing to do otherwise He would not have done it. 

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On 23/05/2016 at 0:33 AM, moonman239 said:

In Mark 6:3, we read

"3 Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him.

My guess is they were reliant on Him for their temporal needs. 

The chapter tells us that Jesus was in his homeland, it was the Sabbath and people were meeting in the Synagogue - that is why his whole family was there.

M.

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14 minutes ago, askandanswer said:

I've sometimes thought that the exercise of extracting a coin from the mouth of a fish has some similarities to priestcraft - the use of divine Priesthood power for personal gain. Perhaps it could be argued that Jesus did not personally gain anything himself from this process as He gave the coin to the tax collector, to which I would reply that meeting a financial and legal obligation to which one is subject in this context is pretty much the same thing as personal gain. Or looked at in another way, it might appear that Christ used His Priesthood power to provide financial support to a dictatorial, murderous, corrupt, merciless, cruel government. This would be a rather unusual way of characterising this particular event but its an interpretation that seems to fit the basic facts of the matter. If this is indeed what Christ did, it must have been the right thing to do otherwise He would not have done it. 

Given that the fish was his, the lake was his, the metal the coin was made of was his, the hole in the ground filled up by the lake was his, the planet in which the hole existed was his, indeed, all that the Father had was his, I'd say he didn't personally gain anything.  He just happened to know of a convenient place to find a coin*, and took the opportunity to teach a lesson and avoid giving offense.

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Matthew 17:27 Notwithstanding, lest we should offend them, go thou to the sea, and cast an hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up; and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money: that take, and give unto them for me and thee.

*How likely is it that a fish has a coin in its mouth?  Now maybe "opened his mouth" means "gutted", or maybe the coin somehow got stuck in the fish's mouth (and poor Mr. Fishy was miserable), or maybe Christ instructed the fish to go get that coin off the lake bed, just there, and bring it to Peter... :)

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