Hacker News Reader

Comment by autoexec | Hacker News Reader

[flagged]

Please don't take HN threads into religious flamewar hell. It's the last thing we need here, and easy to avoid.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I honestly didn't see this as a controversial reading of the religion's doctrine, but in hindsight there's enough wealth held by the userbase here that it was bound to touch a nerve or two. I'm glad my comment doesn't seem to have caused things to turn too ugly and I'm genuinely sorry that it ended up making more work for you.

Not an expert but my reading of the article is that the Book of Hours/Hardouyn Hours was a Catholic prayer book in Latin and Thomas Cromwell was a secret sortof proto-Protestant who had illegal copies of the english translated Tyndale Bible hidden at his home. So the jewel encrusted latin prayer book might have been a cover story of a sort. As in, I don't think the prayer book in the famous painting reflected his actual (hidden, illegal) religous beliefs.

I mean, if we're talking about the things Cromwell did wrong in life I'd put this pretty far down the list below all the mass murder.

You're probably thinking of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Cromwell and not https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Cromwell.

No, I was not. While Oliver certainly killed more, the reformation and crackdown that Thomas led claimed enough victims that I'm comfortable calling it mass murdr.

Perhaps your confidence in what god would have told a 14th century practicing christian is misplaced?

Yeah, I don't envision Jesus having a jewel-encrusted anything.

I don't think it's so cut and dry. A woman once washed his feet with expensive perfume. He then derided the man who scolded her for not selling it and giving the money to the poor.

The disciples were upset by the waste because Jesus had a pretty clear and consistent message on wealth. Jesus didn't tell them they were wrong about his message either, seems like he just didn't like that they were being dicks to the woman, didn't want her turned into a villain, and he went out of his way to say she would be remembered for her actions which were directly serving him.

> While Jesus was in Bethany in the home of Simon the Leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, which she poured on his head as he was reclining at the table. When the disciples saw this, they were indignant. "Why this waste?" they asked. "This perfume could have been sold at a high price and the money given to the poor." Aware of this, Jesus said to them, "Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me. When she poured this perfume on my body, she did it to prepare me for burial. Truly I tell you, wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her."

Hearing the story as a kid though, I kind of suspected it was really just Jesus saying: "I'm literally about to die for you assholes ffs, can you guys lay off for 5 minutes and just let me have this one nice thing!"

I've heard a few sermons that said the effect of the perfume might have lasted until his crucifixion, and might literally have been the one pleasant part of his execution and death. The other part, if you read the scriptures closely, Jesus generally treated the individual as a person first, and a problem (win) second, so the disciples being dicks to her wasn't something he'd be cool with. And he tended not to correct the individual in a group setting.

“That’s the cup of a carpenter.”

the Puritans agreed with you, a century or so later.

How to become an authority on gods?

Well, I'm certainly no theologian, I just grew up in a christian household and according to scripture Jesus was neither shy or subtle about his views on wealth and greed. He returned to it again and again and again. It was clearly a pretty big deal to the guy.

A jewel encrusted prayer book is basically "Tell me you're a hypocrite without telling me you're a hypocrite"

This is a terrible question, one doesn't become an authority about gods. One reads about the so called actions/demands of gods. Maybe you were being sarcastic?

1) locate gods.

2) observe them intensely.

Maybe it was a gift from a close friend.

Can't be gouging up the gift. The friend would get upset.

Maybe a powerful friend. A patron.

Gotta keep the gift nice to stay in good graces.

Maybe it was part of his costume. Something to wag and fondle at aristocratic gatherings.

Appearances are important.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com