What moral do you take away from this story?
But I'm really not sure what to make of the ending.
> "Oh," he said, "she wants to become like God."
> "Go home. She is sitting in her filthy shack again."
This is ambiguous. The flounder simply acknowledges a change in state without saying whether he actually fulfilled the request or not.
If he rejected the request, then it's a tale about checking ambition, trying to be like God, etc.
But if he accepted the request? Then it's advancing a very different idea of what God is like.
I wonder if the original German is equally ambiguous...
EDIT: I suppose she's not making the sun and moon rise, so maybe I'm overcomplicating it.
The translation is good and authentic. Those who can read Low German[1] can compare the slightly different versions here[2]. In their comments[3 (German)], the brothers Grimm state that the storyline of a woman who pushes her husband for too much is ages old and known in many cultures. They have picked the richest German version.
If a Straussian reading is needed, then it should be considered that a Low German story from a coastal - hence Protestant - region rates the pope higher than the king.
[1] Low German was a way of getting crap[4] past the radar for the Grimms. Compared to the Juniper Tree[5] (Van den Machandelboom - Low German, again), this fairy tale is harmless.
[2] https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Vom_Fischer_und_seiner_Frau
[3] https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Kinder-_und_Haus-M%C3%A4rchen...
[4] What he translates as "filthy shack" is literally a "pissing pot", i.e. a chamber pot. He seems to have a hard time telling it as it is. Maybe, the Straussian reading makes sense.
[5] https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm047.html - you have been warned.
>> "Oh," he said, "she wants to become like God."
>> "Go home. She is sitting in her filthy shack again."
Jesus was poor and humble and God. Like, remember which cup the Holy Grail was in the test at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade?
She exactly got her wish, it just wasn't what she expected because she was a greedy fool.
Edit: and this take is interesting: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45303908. It might even be a happy ending for her.
In my head, all that Sunday school I had internalized as a kid makes me think, "This is not the kind of church Jesus would preach at" when I see a really nice church where wealthy people attend.
Some Christians talk about "mammonites" or "the cult of mammon":
- wealth and power are not reliable proxies for favor and righteousness (as many in Jesus's day thought)
- wealth and power come with unique temptations
Jesus also said "make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings" and there's a bunch of proverbs that talk about how the diligent prosper.
A lot of wealthy people are really generous.
And Luke 16:9, which you quoted, is taken out of context.
> A lot of wealthy people are really generous.
Not so much that they give away all that they have, as Jesus commanded. So, more like "kinda really generous, but not enough that it hurts".
[I am an atheist, but I will not stand for antithetical repurposing of religious texts.]
What context am I missing?
>Not so much that they give away all that they have, as Jesus commanded
Matthew 19:16-30, which you're quoting, is taken out of context.
https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/does-jesus-teach-us-t...
Only God knows.
Maybe she spent a near-eternity in agony with all that power and responsibility, and wished it all away. "Genie...er, Fish, make me an all-powerful fish!!!"
Older generations might have been most offended by the "becoming like God" part. The enchanted fish was willing to grant any wish that is in principle achievable by a human being, even the most ridiculous wish of becoming Pope.
But the moment the wish transcends that human realm it is turned down and punished.
I guess the theme of "becoming like God" resonates with the story from Adam and Eve's fall.
In which religion is the God humble? It wont be Christianity for sure.
You don't have to believe it, of course, but God humbling himself is pretty much the defining aspect of Christianity.
That is self sacrifice.
But another reading is: God would have chosen the shack (grace to the humble, etc.) So she got her wish.
> And they are sitting there even today.
... hints strongly that once that wish was granted, she stopped wanting something different.
Or it could mean that due to the transient nature of all material things, anything gained will invariably break down eventually. All desire leads to loss.
Maybe it's both. I think it's both.
The more jaded you are the less of them you'll reject but also the less of them you needed to be told.
1) Listen to your conscience & speak up unambiguously
2) Something like "Victim blaming is correct in moderation"?
I don't know if I agree with that but it seems like an interpertation