Talk:Render unto Caesar

It is perhaps significant that Jesus did not have such a coin with him but that one of his questioners did.

John 12:4-6 may shed some light on that; Judas Iscariot carried the money bag, not Jesus. – Tintazul ^msg 11:26, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

It seems to me the "perhaps significant" line should be deleted. While it just might be perhaps significant, the fact that he asked for the coin was already mentioned and this line adds nothing to the article. If the comments suggestions were elaborated to say something like "Jesus carried no money" or something like that, there would be verifiability issues. If they remain un-elaborated, they certainly don't seem encyclopedic in style.98.192.38.248 (talk) 03:08, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Why is the translation of the line in Latin, when the original was in Greek?

I came here to ask the same thing. The relevant Greek portion of 22:21 is Ἀπόδοτε οὖν τὰ Καίσαρος Καίσαρι καὶ τὰ τοῦ Θεοῦ τῷ Θεῷ. (Apodote oun ta Kaisaros Kaisari kai ta tou theou tôi theôi.)—Wasabe3543 18:16, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

This page is extremely well-done

It covers everything anyone who came to this article could hope to find. Someone should nominate it. ;) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.122.208.51 (talk • contribs)

I agree with the anonymous comment above, and have nominated this as a Good Article on their suggestion. Terraxos 14:59, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

GA quick fail

This page does not meet the GA criteria for sourcing, among other things. Much of the text, including interpretations of the story and controversial claims, are unsourced and have no inline citations. The editors need to spend some time reading WP:V so that they understand what needs to be sourced. Also, the page does not unfold in as logical a manner as one could hope. The editors need to put themselves in the position of a reader who is unfamiliar with the material. Finally, at times the page begins to takes on a POV and a tone of colloquial writing rather than a neutral, encyclopedic tone. On pages about religious topics, it is especially important to retain as much neutrality as possible.

If you have any questions about this review, please leave a note on my talk page. Thanks. Awadewit | talk 18:27, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Original research

Much of Render_unto_Caesar...#Interpretations is original research and the authors seems to be interpreting the New Testament. It needs to be sourced, and if necessary, attributed.Bless sins (talk) 05:02, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Graven image?

First time looking at this page, but I don't agree that the denarius in question was "doubly" blasphemous. How does it qualify as a "graven image"? I thought graven images referred to objects intended to be worshipped, not just any old picture. Tiberius certainly did not expect anyone to worship his denarii. Revising this .... Scrutchfield (talk) 21:27, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Christ’s Trial is a poor support

The fact that the charge went undisputed at Christ’s trial doesn't necessarily mean anything. The trial was full of false accusations that went unattested. -Alan Trick (talk) 16:47, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Benefits

The section on "benefits if people had followed Jesus" on this question needs, AT LEAST, some citations and supporting evidence. It is widely wide in scope and presumptuous. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.20.175.108 (talk) 04:10, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Authoritarianism

The article is written from a libertarian and evangelical perspective, which is often hostile to taxes and government authority. However, it ought to mention some more disturbing things such as the use of the statement to justify many historically authoritarian regimes and high taxes in Catholic Europe, such as Franco's Spain, the Bourbon monarchy or even the Tsars of Russia. For example, the statement might be even quoted today in order to state that it is legimitate for Christians in minority situations to obey leaders that are thought to be dictators, such as Kim Jong-il, Fidel Castro or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. ADM (talk)

Give way to what is the Truth.

The truth is that Jesus acknowledges the exsistance and uses of government on earth. As people of faith though our job is to give to God what is God's. We are the lambs of God and therefore we must render our prayers to him and let God convert our souls to him. We render ourselves to him. These machines and systems that are created to control people are only going to change when we all render to him the prayers that allow God to truly take over all systems that we as humans create. For example there is a cross in the city that is on government property. There are millions of dollars used in defense of this cross but where is the conversion of heart that must do daily as Christians and people of God. What good is a cross when we do not carry our own cross with love and sacrifice for others. Let the atheist and non-believers take down the cross when our duty is to pray for those that do not believe. We give to God those prayers and the immersion of that love will over flow and over come those that do not believe. We get so stubborn about small issues when the bigger issue is flying away in front of our eyes. Our house is burning and we are worried about our possesions. Let us see beyond the possesion and pray that our Lord gives us the strength to carry our cross in a loving and sacrificial way as he did. Jesus saw how miniscule that coin was and thought, "If they only know how small this coin is compared to what I have in store for them." Lets give those coins to Caesar because God is a treasure that has an infinite amount of more importance. Sometime we see our children drop a candy and they cry. In our minds we sympathize with them but we know we have much more to give them and in the long run that piece of candy means so little. In the eternal love of God though he has compassion for us and tries to explain how meanless Caesar's thing are. God I love you and thank you for your love and the things that belong to you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by LOKOIN (talk • contribs) 00:59, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

"Prostitutes are notorious sinners"

I edited a line that says "Jesus showed compassion for tax collectors as he did to other notorious sinners, such as prostitutes." If a wikipedia article said "prostitutes are notorious sinners" or just "prostitutes are sinners," I think that would qualify as non-neutral POV, and that is what this sentence assumes. I changed "notorious sinners" to "vilified groups", which I think is less NNPOV and more accurate. Still, I'm not sure sentence adds anything at all to the article.98.192.38.248 (talk) 03:41, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Discuss major changes to the page here

ADM, before you go deleting big hunks of the page wholesale, please discuss your proposed changes here. Your "Religious views on tax resistance" page might be a good idea, and might well absorb some of the content on this page, but I'm not convinced of the wisdom of how you divided it up and I think it needs more thought. Have you looked into Robert McGee's cross-cultural/cross-religious studies of attitudes toward tax paying and tax resistance? That might help you expand your new page beyond its current Christian-only focus. —Moorlock (talk) 16:57, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I could expand it, it would not really be very hard to go beyond Christian perspectives. My point though is that it is wrong that the phrase render unto Caesar be understood exclusively in terms of tax resistance, because it is more than just that, it notably includes the concepts of civil allegiance, Church-State separation and political neutrality.

The part about resisting taxes is also fairly irrelevant to the article because the vast majority of Christians throughout history have accepted not what their own consciences tell them, like what the libertarians do, but what the Church teaches. The global Church has always supported paying taxes, because that's the majority position, and that's why most people have continued to pay taxes.

ADM (talk) 23:30, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't think there is such thing as "The global Church," and various Christian denominations have a variety of teachings about what constitutes a legitimate taxing authority, what taxes are legitimate, and when the obligation to pay a tax might be overridden by another obligation. Some, like the Mormons, tend to support tax-paying no matter what; while others, like the Mennonites & Quakers, believe that Christians must carefully weigh conflicting obligations before voluntarily submitting to taxation. This article tries, in part, to show how different Christians and different denominations have reconciled their understanding of Christian duties about taxation with this particular biblical episode. Please refrain from mass-deletions like the ones you have recently made. - Moorlock (talk) 01:25, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm excluding small sects and cults from my methodology, because those groups are the most likely to literally become outlawed in the real world, outside small rural regions of the United States, which is the only place where their views are given de facto attention. Also, I would like to add that if you don't like the article religious views on tax resistance, then you should propose it for deletion, because it is simply intolerable to have the same exact text in two separate entries. If you don't want it deleted, then you should accept the principle that the text should not be at two places at the same time. ADM (talk) 02:47, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Your methodology? Quakers and Mennonites being small sects and cults unworthy of interest? Whatever. If your new page does end up just being a duplication of the bulk of another page then, yeah, it probably should be axed. I was hoping you were just planning to use that information to get you started on something more substantial. I wish you luck on that project and hope it turns out well. — (talk) 03:33, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not against quoting Quakers and Mennonites per se, I'm just against presenting their views as if they were very important, extremely important. They are actually less than 1 % of all Christians, and we can only present their views after we take into account the other 99 % of Christians. The Caesar page is POV because it looks like a piece of unadulerated Quaker propaganda. ADM (talk) 03:38, 8 August 2009 (UTC)