Thread by @Delafina777

Okay, time for some more deep dives into weird Christian claims about Judaism found in commentary on the story of the prodigal son.

Full article here:

betterparables.com/fathers-and-so…

Here's yesterday's thread on all the claims that a Jewish father would never run to greet his son.

https://twitter.com/Delafina777/status/1489289885408133122

Now, let's look at some of the claims around the son's request for early inheritance.

So Christian commentators seem very certain that the son's request was

A) a sin
B) a scandal
C) wishing death on his father

e.g. McKenzie:

"[It is] to say to his father, in effect, "You are already dead to me.""

Here's Paul Simpson Duke:

"Either in demanding his inheritance or in dissipating it, most likely in both, the younger son commits a kind of patricide."

so, it feels like this is something that shouldn't have to be said, but if you're going to make claims about Jewish law and custom

maybe read

A C T U A L J E W I S H S O U R C E S

Christian commentators just keep quoting each other about Jews in an endless circle-jerk

Thank heaven for Luise Schottroff:

"The younger son can expect a lesser inheritance than the firstborn. He asks, during his father's lifetime, for the share of the property that will come to him. "And he divided his property between them" (v. 12)...

... The text gives no indication that the son's request is in any way reprehensible. The father fulfills his request. Thus it makes sense to him also."

So here's a short thread about how and why I think weird Christian claims about how first-century Judaism worked happen:

https://twitter.com/Delafina777/status/1489670310156660737

So Greg Carey, a theology professor who studied with Amy-Jill Levine, has one of the few reasonable Christian takes I've seen on this whole discussion:

"Simply, hogwash. We have ample evidence of love and affection from ancient fathers, including Jewish fathers."

And Bernard Jackson, a Jewish legal scholar, weighs in:

"Jewish sources give no support to [the idea] that the prodigal, in seeking the advance, wishes his father dead."

he also zeroes in on the Christian commentator tendency to go from "Jews would have found this unseemly," to "it was illegal!" to "Jews would STONE someone for doing this":

"Yet the degree of disparity Bailey’s argument implies between social acceptability and legal permissibility must prompt hesitation."

Mmm, I do love people calling out Bailey. Doesn't happen nearly enough.

So anyway, asking for early inheritance wasn't illegal (there are literally legal rules for how to do it), it wasn't wishing death on your father (otherwise fathers wouldn't have done it enough that there was a whole set of legal rules for how to do it).

Sources definitely treat it as *inadvisable.* Jews of the time might have thought the father was foolish and overly indulgent for doing it, and they might have thought the younger son was being a bit crass and irresponsible in asking for it, but bad taste isn't a stoning offense.

It's interesting that Christian exegesis sees this as the story of a sinner being forgiven, because it's unclear what the younger son's "sin" actually is. It's not asking for his inheritance. It's also not *squandering* his inheritance.

The way parents gave early inheritance was as a gift. So again, while spending it on booze and girls might be a *foolish* thing to do with it, it wasn't a *crime.*

More importantly, while Jewish sources don't exactly look favorably on sons who ask for early inheritance, they overwhelmingly direct their opprobrium at fathers who choose to do it, not at the sons who ask.

So if there's a "sin" in the early inheritance situation, Jews of the time would have most likely have seen it as being on the part of the *father.*

Moreover, focusing on the behavior of the son breaks the unity of the trio of stories the third parable is part of.

The first is about the behavior of the sheep owner who loses--and finds--his sheep.

The second is about the behavior of the woman who loses--and finds--her coin.

The third is about the behavior of the father who loses--and finds?--his sons.

Ultimately, between being certain that Jewish fathers would never run to greet a long-lost son, and that Jewish sons wished death on their fathers, Christian exegetes seem to have a hard time imagining that Jews are capable of normal familial love.

A LOT of this stuff comes from Bailey. But as Jackson notes:

"Bailey works from a methodologically questionable premise: that one should interpret both the parable and near contemporary Jewish sources against a construct of “Middle Eastern” custom...

... heavily informed by medieval Arab Christian interpretation and contemporary Arab custom."

Again, with all due respect to Arab Christians, the behavior of 20th century Christians is not a reliable guide to that of 1st century Jews.

It gets worse. It's actually unclear whether Bailey's assertions are actually representative of even Arab Christian culture (he appears to be denigrating and exoticising both Jews and Arab Christians).

As Levine observes:

"One major problem with such fieldwork approaches is that the questioners sometimes forget to ask the women. Biblical scholar Carol Shersten LaHurd, reading the parable with Yemenite women, posed the question:

"“What would your husband do if his son returned home after wasting all his money?” The women unanimously agreed that the father would lovingly welcome the son, especially if he were a child of his old age."

"[W]hen she "asked whether any part of the father's behavior was unexpected in the light of their experience of the Middle Eastern family, all answered negatively and provided stories about how the family serves as location of unconditional care.""