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God’s Pearls Cast Before Human Swine
Why the notion of divine revelation makes no sense
Do not give dogs what is holy; and do not throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under foot and turn to attack you (Matthew 7:6).
According to the New Testament, Jesus was a frustrated prophet. In the end he was crucified, so clearly the Roman Empire didn’t welcome his message or movement. But even the run-up to that dire reckoning must have discouraged him because most Jews and Romans couldn’t understand what Jesus was saying or what he represented. After all, early Christianity combined those two cultural perspectives, so early Christians would have been criticized from both sides.
In this respect, Jesus was a typical Jewish prophet since Jewish monotheism, too, seemed a strange revelation, one that challenged the polytheistic norm of many ancient civilizations. Consequently, prophets who advocated this simplification of the pantheon were often dismissed as cranks. Deuteronomy 29:3–4, Isaiah 6:10, Jeremiah 5:21, and Ezekiel 12:2 all show the prophet lamenting how the listeners don’t have “ears to hear,” and Matthew 13:15, Acts 28:27, and Romans 11:8 carry on this theme, quoting especially from Isaiah.
Matthew 7:6 is in the same vein, using the striking images of giving dogs what’s sacred or pearls to…