DID JESUS VALIDATE PEDERASTY?

The gospel of Luke, Luke 7, contains a story about Jesus healing the centurion's servant, a very young man he boasted of his love of.  It has been alleged he was curing the centurion's lover.   If so, Jesus then used a miracle to further sex abuse for this lover was certainly underage and a vulnerable male rape victim.

The lad was a slave.  For Jesus to say nothing and let the slavery continue though he knew that many slaves were sexually attacked by their masters would be abominable indeed.  The abuse was protected.  Sure enough there is little evidence of how rife such abuse was.  There wouldn't be much.

In Matthew Jesus asks if he should go to the centurion's house to heal the slave.  We are told that the slave has paralysis.  So the master was hardly that kind when he wanted him made better.  Jesus doesn't go the house. But why did Jesus want to go?  The story says the cure happened there and then at a distance.  We don't know if it is guessing the cure happened.  It does not mention evidence or witnesses.  Luke's version is similar but says that a group went to the house after the cure and it was found that the lad was well again.  Luke adds in how the master said that the servant does all he is asked just like the soldiers under his command do.  In Luke Jesus is near the house but receives a message not to go to it but just do the cure.  The centurion calls him Lord and says he is too unworthy to have the Lord under his roof.  Jesus responds that this is a great sign of faith and no Jews faith can compare.

The word Pais is used and it can mean beloved slave and/or little boy.  There is a euphemism here.

The story is stupid.  Jesus being asked to not cure the boy face to face but at a distance is acclaimed as a great sign of faith?  But how could trust in Jesus be better if he is kept away?  The faith is not undermined by Jesus being invited into the house.

You can imagine a sorcerer thinking that a person who claims he can send healing power over a distance has better faith in him than one who thinks he needs to be standing beside the person.  Whatever Jesus was using here, it was not the power of a God who is everywhere and to whom distance is nothing.

Some say the faith was in how Jesus would cure a boy for his sexual abuse to continue.  That would be something.

Peter Ould says:

Phang, in The Marriage of Roman Soldiers argues coherently that in the period of Roman history this passage occurs, it would have been inconceivable that a Roman soldier would have been permitted to have had a sexual relationship with either another soldier, any freeman, or even a male slave. There is however evidence that some Roman soldiers bought slave boys in order to have sex with them, but the documentation of this phenomenon is scarce. In some parts of the Empire at this time (i.e. Egypt) it was already unheard of for a free Roman to enter into pederasty with a junior. By the middle to end of the third century it was almost eliminated from the life of the army across the Empire.

Luke 7:2 and 7:10 call the lad doulos or servant.  The Centurion uses the word "pais" which means a few things but child is the best and most obvious interpretation.  It can mean son but a servant would not be called a son we think.  If he was indeed a son to the man then the worst kind of abuser has a slave who he manipulates to feel like he is being thought of like a son.  That sounds like a monster trying to sooth his conscience.  Jesus then if he let this man call a slave his son was condoning slavery and gaslighting.  Matthew 2:16 has pais meaning child for child. It is son in John 4:51.  It is servant at Luke 15:26 and Acts 4:25.

Pederasty is the best interpretation.  James Neill's research backs that up.  Even critics agree he could be right even if they do not think so.

Jesus had no problem with abuse of young females.  They were forced to marry but could not divorce or annul their marriages.  Jesus made sure it would stay that way by saying a woman who divorces is an adulteress. He was speaking not to Jewish culture only but to all cultures especially ones that permitted women to divorce!  In John 8 he takes evil men at their word that a girl committed adultery.  How young was she?  Nobody knows.  Only a man who is okay with abuse lets them say that and does not ask them for evidence or send them to the court.  Only a misogynist does it.