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Here the disciples act as stooges, feeding Jesus a line about the reason the man was blind.
Quote:
Originally Posted by thrillobyte
Yes, I believe there were three of them: Moe ben Gurion, Larry of the House of Moronica, and Curley Hassen ben Sober. Most Bibles edit the actual question posed to Jesus. In the Textus Idioticus, dated to between 600 and 6000 BC, the full question is asked, "Master, did this man sin or his parents that he should be born blind, nyuk! nyuk! nyuk!"
Frist of all the Greek word that the disciples used here refers not to inherited sin but to an actual act of sin commited. So they were not refering to the punishmnent for the sins of the parents visited upon their children to the 3rd and 4th generation. Second of all the question raised by the disciples was a two part question first refering to whether the blind man had commited an act of sin that he was being punished for by being born blind, and second if it was not the man being punished directdly for an act of sin committed before he was born, then was it because his parents had sinned and he was being punished for their sins.
This shows that they believed that the reason for the man being born blind had to be for one of the two reasons that they raised in their question to Jesus. But how could this man have committed an act of sin before he was born unless there was a way to committ an act of sin in the womb. Remember we are not talking about inherited sin here. The greek work they used in their question refered to actual sin committed and not to inherited sin. A baby is not able to committ an act of sin in the womb of his mother. A baby in the womb has no reference to sin or thoughts of action to sin or possibility of it or intelligence to conceive of an act of sin or the motivation to do so. There is no way a baby in the womb can be accused of committing a sin while in the womb or even thinking about sin.
The fact that Jesus in His answer gave a twofold answer saying that neither did the man born blind commit an act of sin for which he was being punished, and neither was he born blind because of any sin his parents committed, show that the reason he was born blind had nothing to do with anyones sin but simply that this man was chosen by God to reveal His power of God's love through Christ as Messiah and that there really doesn't have to be act of sin that anyone actively committed and had to be punished for in order for a person to be born blind.
The mind set of the Jews in general at that time was that whatever bad thing happened to a person had to be some kind of punishment. There is a scripture for this but I don't have my Bible here with me to I can't give that particular reference at this time. It was a scripture refering to the bloodbath of some Galaleans that the Romans had killed and the Jews were thinking it was because they were bad sinners that this bad thing happened to them and Jesus refuted that mind set telling them that they were not any less sinners than those who were killed and that they could just as likely end up the same because they were not any less sinners.
In regards to the man born blind Jesus was just making the point that bad things don't happen to people because they in particularly deserve it, and that God in His mercy steps in and works His miracles for the glory of His Name in working what is good towards mankind.
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