Jesus on the Caste of his Day

Mark 7:11-13 But ye say, If a man shall say to his father or mother, It is Corban, that is to say, a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; he shall be free. And ye suffer him no more to do ought for his father or his mother; Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.”

These words of the Lord Jesus Christ, were directed to the Pharisees and the scribes of Jerusalem concerning the legalism of his day in Judea in which a form of Social Caste System was implemented. It seems clear that Jesus Christ is communicating something about himself and his immediate family as they would have suffered hardship in a Mishnah based Caste further exacerbated under tribute to Roman governance, taxation, and exploitation whereby in sum total for the poor and the marginalized of Judea, the mercies of God granted to the Jews as Gods people were largely nullified by legalistic human anthropological practice.

And herein do we also get a glimmer of insight as to how Mary became a widow, having suffered the death of her husband Joseph in poverty probably even while Jesus abode with her immediate family, even as he possessed great spiritual virtue. Likewise it would seem to concur with how she knows and believes before the days of his testimony, that Jesus has power from God to perform miracles as seen in the wedding miracle from the passages John 2:1-11. As noted, prior to this, Jesus had never publicly performed a miracle by record in the account of the Gospels.

Furthermore, one certainly notes how the passages of John 19:26-27, they serve in conjunction with these evidences to concatenate this reasoning. Such gives us insight as to the personal perspective of the Lord, and just how strongly the suffering of the Caste experience influenced his inner personal sentiment out of much grief. Sorrow and compassion, sentiments which Christ must have had to have had to be fully human while also fully God. His convictions are on display as Jesus Christ shows his attentiveness to Mary's well being even while suffering the cross. Again, it would seem certain that Jesus had had personal experience with Mary's many sufferings under Social Caste, and particularly in the loss of her husband Joseph, so much so that even as Jesus is facing agony and abandonment of God on the cross, Jesus upholds a conviction to provide a welfare for Mary in her widowhood. It is powerful ontological charge in authority, impactfull enough upon those who had observed the event that it was recorded in the Gospel account.

John 19:26-27 - “When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son! Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home.”

The Marginalization of Jesus in society by Caste upon his immediate family of which Jesus is calling out in Mark 7:11-13, it is further evidenced in John 6:42 and John 1:45-46. Clearly, Jesus is a marginalized figure as he and his family are classified and thought of by social convention as people of little worth. Jesus abode among them for what must be the span of multiple decades, likely considering his ontological capacity, serving the community as the principle stalwart agent of all right intellect motion in Nazareth, and seemingly almost no one in that village or anywhere else considered him much of anything at all but an inept figure.

John 6:42 – And they said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? how is it then that he saith, I came down from heaven?

John 1:45-46 -Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. And Nathanael said unto him, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?

Also, Jesus was himself a homeless person in the days of his ministry in Judea.

Mathew 8:20 - And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.

The holy Bible contains more evidence of Caste system in Michna like observance in Rabbinic Judaism in John the Baptist's chiding of the Pharisees and the Saudicess as testified to in Luke 3:7-9 as did Jesus likewise pertaining to Mathew 12:34.

Luke 3:7-9 - Then said he to the multitude that came forth to be baptized of him, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance, and begin not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: ...

Therefore, in the passages of Mark 7:11-13, it is seen how Jesus Christ calls out a social Caste System. Hence, it is know with more than just a slight confidence that social Caste existed in Jesus Chist's day, and that Jesus lived under the burden of it.





 



 

back

Back