Matthew 6:22-23

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Perry
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Matthew 6:22-23

Post by Perry » Mon Sep 24, 2012 6:59 pm

What, if any, is the significance of these two verses being surrounded by two passages about money?

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mattrose
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Re: Matthew 6:22-23

Post by mattrose » Mon Sep 24, 2012 7:08 pm

22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

In the OT, a wicked eye is associated with greed. A good eye may have, then, been associated w/generosity.

This connects the passage to issues like money, but I'd assume there are still some cultural idioms involved that make it a yet confusing couple of verses

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Perry
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Re: Matthew 6:22-23

Post by Perry » Mon Sep 24, 2012 10:51 pm

mattrose wrote: In the OT, a wicked eye is associated with greed.
Do you have some specific OT references for that? I'm going to scuttle off now and see what I can find.

Thanks Matt.

Edit:

Okay, here's what I found:



Miser = "him that hath an evil eye" in KJV.



And most interesting of all:

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mattrose
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Re: Matthew 6:22-23

Post by mattrose » Mon Sep 24, 2012 11:59 pm

Yes, those were the passages I had looked at earlier today. Strangely enough, I had been investigating the same thing earlier (only Luke's version) for a Bible study I am teaching Tuesday night.

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Homer
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Re: Matthew 6:22-23

Post by Homer » Tue Sep 25, 2012 9:36 am

In Bruce Malina's book, "The New Testament World, Insights from Cultural Anthropology", Malina has a chapter on "Envy - the most grievious of all evils". Malina states that "this association of the evil eye and envy is typical of ancient Mediterraneans". Malina points out that envy is not jealousy. Jealousy is in regard to what is rightfully yours, envy with what is rightfully someone else's, and in the ancient "limited goods" society anything anyone gained meant less for others.

Today envy isn't the problem it was then because we view the "pie" as not being fixed. If someone gets a new car we can work and get one too; the supply is not limited.

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