Ancient Wisdom of the Day – 1/10/11

“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.”
— Matthew 5:21-22

FILED UNDER: Religion,
Alex Knapp
About Alex Knapp
Alex Knapp is Associate Editor at Forbes for science and games. He was a longtime blogger elsewhere before joining the OTB team in June 2005 and contributed some 700 posts through January 2013. Follow him on Twitter @TheAlexKnapp.

Comments

  1. MarkedMan says:

    What is “Raca”?

  2. PJ says:

    @MarkedMan:

    The common view seems to be an insult or a slur.

  3. Dave Schuler says:

    Raca is a hapax legomenon—a word that appears only once in scripture and is unknown outside of scripture. They can only guess at its meaning from context, hence, a slur.

    Yeah, me, too, Alex.

  4. G.A.Phillips says: