Inconceivable

There is one thing I veer distinctly... away from the left on.   I believe evil is real.  I believe that very bad things do exist and that they do hurt people.   I've seen real evil.  I know what it smells like.  The answer, if you're wondering, is fear.  Fear and misery.

Matt. 17: 14- 21 (NRSV)
14 When they came to the crowd, a man came to him, knelt before him, 15 and said, "Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and he suffers terribly; he often falls into the fire and often into the water. 16 And I brought him to your disciples, but they could not cure him." 17 Jesus answered, "You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you? How much longer must I put up with you? Bring him here to me." 18 And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was cured instantly. 19 Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, "Why could we not cast it out?" 20 He said to them, "Because of your little faith. For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you."

I'm puzzled by this translation.   He's an epileptic, but Jesus rebuked the demon and it came out of him, curing the boy.  The NIV says "He has seizures", but there's still a demon.  The New American Standard Bible calls him a lunatic (I think that's my favorite) but that pesky demon is still there.  The King  James also calls him a lunatic, but promotes the demon to a devil.

So are the bible translators schizophrenic or is the kid in the story?  


That wasn't very politically correct, was it?   The same story appears in Mark, and they describe the symptoms, which sound like seizures, so one can assume that's why they're calling the child an epileptic but not why they can't let that demon go.    


One thing I've learned dealing with the supernatural is that it helps to know what you're actually dealing with. I'm taking a wild guess that on some level, conscious or not, Jesus knew that the child had a brain disease that needed to be healed.   Did the disciples not understand what the child needed?  Did they focus too much on power over the supernatural and not believe that God knew what the boy needed and provide it?  


Don't you love how every one else jumps straight to the mustard seed?   It's easier, isn't it, to go straight to moving mountains rather than dealing with the difference between evil spirits and mental illness.  I don't have a good answer, I have complicated and convoluted answers.   I'll look at one instance in the gospels of demonic possession and say "Yup, that was a demon" and then at another and say it was epilepsy.   In any case, I don't blame Christ for not sitting everybody down and explaining to them that it was a brain injury causing behaviors x y and z and that it wasn't a demon at all in some cases because it wouldn't have done anyone a lick of good in that context.  


Sometimes it's easier to just fix it.   Sometimes it's easier to gloss over it.  No matter how you slice it though, that word is in there.  Should we talk about it?