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Father Kenneth Doyle. Here we find a Canaanite woman pleading with Jesus to free her demonized daughter v. Jesus initially ignored her and his disciples urged him to send her away v.
And if Jesus actually intended his comment to disparage the Canaanites, I see no way of avoiding their conclusion. Moreover, since racism is a sin, we would have to consider the biblical claim that Jesus was sinless to be mistaken. On the other hand, if we accept that Jesus was without sin, we simply cannot believe Jesus intended his remark to disparage Canaanites. And in this case, it is incumbent upon us to explain what Jesus did intend by his remark. While God condescended to working within the violent-prone, fallen framework of his people in the Old Testament—as I argue in Crucifixion of the Warrior God—the OT is also full of references to how God worked to preserve his non-violent ideal as much as possible.
If she would have been 'offended' and turn away, he would never have used the slur. Jesus had just finished using sheep as an illustration when talking with his Jewish disciples - an illustration that they would understand. I doubt Jewish people of that day typically kept dogs as pets.
Yet when talking with a woman whose culture evidently did keep dogs as pets, he uses it as an illustration, not to drive her away, but to communicate effectively with her. His comments leave her thinking of all the times she had told her young daughter, now suffering with no other remedy in sight but Christ's healing, not to sneak food off the table for her puppy.
The woman seemed to understand that he, as the child of the Heavenly Father, was not to change his focus from accomplishing what he came to do, in order to dedicate his time to reach Gentile populations.
Yet she reminded him that his work would inevitably have a spillover effect for good on all gentiles around praise God for that! She seemed in no wise belittled by his illustration using pets, nor am I.
Jesus was very wise and obviously familiar with the Greek culture which still extended into his territory of Nazareth and environs. In Greek culture, being a dog wasn't an insult, but rather what we label today as a skeptic. As such, Jesus is simply making the distinction in this passage between the Children of Israel and the Gentiles in the sense that the Children of Israel are chosen and their religion expects them to believe in the Jewish God;. However, the gentiles of which this woman was, are assumed not to believe in the Jewish God, as after all they were not Jewish.
It is this reasoning Jesus follows, and the word dog might make more sense if you yused the modern synonym to the Greek Gospel for "Dog" and contemplated it as "skeptics". In Jesus' wisdom he was impressed by the humility and thoughtfulness of this woman, who rather than affirm she was a skeptic, was very clever in flipping it right back to Jesus by herself making use of the double meaning and basically demonstrating her faith in him as Master by her tenacity and subsequent witty reply.
She affirms she is a believer, and even if he wishes to call her a skeptic, her words say otherwise as she puts her faith in Him and lets Him call her however he wishes without complaint. The the reason why Jesus and the apostles uses such language is due to the particular cultural norm; It may appear racist insult to someone in today's time but it was the general understanding of Jews concerning pagans. The Canaanite woman was a pagan as opposed to Samaritan woman who was a half-breed.
The incidents show that Jesus was kind and compassionate towards pagans and women compared with other religious Jews. Josephus spoke of this as the customary way of the Galileans going up during the feasts at Jerusalem Ant.
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But more than anything Jesus is teaching his disciples about what it really means that he is the Bread of Life. Messiah takes the bread of redemption to Tyre. This article about the Canaanite woman originally appeared here. Store Subscribe. Sign in. Forgot your password? Get help. Password recovery.
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