stardust
The Myth of Breaking the Sheep's Legs, its not Biblical
Posted on: 01/16/2014 23:33
Here's another old story we've all heard quite often, probably in church. Its another one from paperthinhymn who wrote on the United Future forum.. Due to the popularity of the widow's mite story maybe ya'all will enjoy hearing an interpretation of this one. I may have read somewhere on the net that its not a bible story, but it does happen? I wonder? It sounds rather gross if you really think about it. What say you?
The Story: quote
The story has several different variations and applications, but the long and short of is that if there is a sheep that is constantly running off and being chronically disobedient, that the shepherd will break the legs of the sheep so that it can no longer run off, and then the shepherd will nurse the sheep back to health so that the sheep will come to love and trust the shepherd.
There are multiple problems with this concept, chief among them the lack of any documentation or primary sources whatsoever that suggest such a thing even happened. It is certainly not a biblical practice and has no scriptural attestation, and yet it is often repeated by pastors and teachers wanting to offer insight into the sheep/shepherd relationship.
The earliest record of it I could find [and seemingly the origin] was in the 1955 book “What Jesus Said” , written by Robert Boyd Munger. The illustration was popularized in 1979 when Paul Lee Tan included it in his book for pastors Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations. It appears in Munger’s book, verbatim:
“A Foreigner traveling in Syria who became acquainted with a shepherd. Each morning he noticed the shepherd taking food to a sheep that had a broken leg. As he looked at the animal, he asked the shepherd, “How did the sheep break its leg? Did it meet with an accident, fall into a hole, or did some animal break its leg?”
“No,” said the shepherd, “I broke this sheep’s leg myself.”
“You broke it yourself?” queried the surprised traveler.
“Yes, you see, this is a wayward sheep; it would not stay with the flock, but would lead the sheep astray. Then it would not let me near it so I had to break the sheep’s leg so that it would allow me, day by day to feed it. In doing this it will get to know me as its shepherd, trust me as its guide, and keep with the flock.”
Comments
stardust
Posted on: 01/16/2014 23:35
part 2 quote
That’s it. No primary or secondary sources. In fact it doesn’t even claim to be factual or historical, but rather is recounted as a quaint vignette. Perhaps the illustration appears earlier than that, but I’ve yet to be able to find it.
Other problems are those that involve biological practicality and theological accuracy.
The scriptures doesn’t insert somewhere in there that after he finds his sheep, lays it on his shoulders, and rejoices “Then the almighty graspeth the forelegs of the naughty sheep and snappeth them.“ Instead we see love and tenderness and joy. Breaking a four footed creatures leg is a risky thing. The animal may well die from the trauma of the injury, and if not trauma then infection can set in and kill it that way. Or the sheep could very well be crippled for life, or have his legs heal in a deformed manner.
One variation of the story is that the shepherd carries around the sheep on its back until it is ready to walk again. That works in a story where a shepherd leaves the rest to find one, and then carries it back home. But carrying a 50-75 pound weight on your shoulders is extremely impractical to do for weeks if not months at a time while you wait for the leg to mend.
And what if there are two sheep that go astray? Or six? Will the shepherd break all their legs and carry them all? The story presupposes that there is only one sole solitary bad sheep in the flock, but with flocks capable of being up there in the hundreds or thousands, it doesn’t seem likely.
http://thepaperthinhymn.com/2011/09/11/the-myth-of-breaking-the-sheep-legs/
WaterBuoy
Posted on: 01/17/2014 09:03
Does keep them at a certain stage in a greater spectrum though ... and it will not then learn to outsmart the shepherd that will eat him in the end of the myth!
Did the "break a leg ind' rhama come from that ... fixation of sheepish thoughts? The few get beyond the Wahl in the story ...
spiritbear
Posted on: 01/17/2014 14:51
Stardust - you story makes use of a poor analogy. A better analogy would be to recognize that in venturing away from the flock the wayward sheep is more likely to break its leg falling down a ravine or being set upon by wolves. (That's why flocks and herds stick together - for mutual safety). So there is real danger leaving the flock. Yet once the sheep is injured, the shepherd does not say "this is damaged goods and not worth the effort to nurse back to health". On the contrary, the shepherd must invest additional time and effort for very little "payback" - it's just one sheep after all. The moral of the original parable is that each individual matters, not how to nurture dependency. That's a different point of view than the prevailing one where the individual is sacrificed all too readily to the benefit of a larger group, ie. individuals are disposable, and only matter if the numbers add up.
revjohn
Posted on: 01/17/2014 12:11
HI stardust,
Here's another old story we've all heard quite often, probably in church.
Speaking personally. I have never heard this story before. I have never even heard it alluded to.
Grace and peace to you.
John
waterfall
Posted on: 01/17/2014 12:21
I haven't heard this story before either. It seems to suggest captivity equals love. Reminds me of a form of Stockholm Syndrome.
stardust
Posted on: 01/17/2014 22:08
Thanks for your responses. I'm surprised. It seems that many people are familiar with this story and have various opinions. Google shows 60,000 some entries, I skimmed through 4 Google pages. I'm posting this result that I hadn't heard before. I agree with spiritbear, the moral of the story generally being that God cares for each individual.
Google Quote:
(p.46) that on one of his visits, on the road down from Jerusalem through
the Judean wilderness to Jericho, they met a shepherd carrying
one of his sheep with a splint and a bandage on its leg.
Said their guide, who'd lived nearly fifty years in that area,
"The shepherd broke that sheep's leg himself."
And it was true! It was explained that this was a sheep that was always wandering
off, and in the process leading other sheep astray. So to cure this sheep of
its self-willed ways, the shepherd had broken its leg, and then
hand fed and carried it till the bone was mended. . .
What they sometimes do in certain sheep-raising nations is to "brake" a leg. This means they attach a clog or weight to the animal's leg, which keeps certain "rogue" sheep from getting too far from the shepherd until they learn their names, and not to be afraid of the shepherd.
Rogue sheep are those that won't stay with the flock--important to their safety. A single sheep that constantly moves out and away from the others is the certain target of predators, and often is at risk of wandering out of sight (over a hill, into the brush, etc.) in terrain where the shepherd is unable to count the sheep properly. Then the sheep would be surely lost.
Each shepherd looks after from about 1200 to 3000 sheep. When they're constantly moving, such large numbers are impossible to count with precision.
To keep track of such large numbers of sheep, they must be corralled, and then "passed under the rod," which means the shepherd has them in a narrow chute that enables each sheep to be counted one by one, and even marked with paint, charcoal, etc., for further work if necessary.
The leg brake is a temporary measure; a lamb with a braked leg (it's not a "broken" leg!) is still easy pickings for predators at night, because it can't run as fast as the flock when under attack, and shepherd usually can't see predators in the dark.
Sheep! Magazine
I have to yield to the authority on such things.
So the truth is this:
Good Shepherds do not “break†the leg of a rogue sheep.
They do however “brake†the leg of a rogue sheep in order to keep it from wandering off.
stardust
Posted on: 01/17/2014 22:04
Here's another opinion that I'm quite familiar with too. I've read a lot of the stories about the Catholic saints of old. They loved suffering and hardship. They believed it brought them closer to Jesus in his sufferings.
Sticking with the “keep it simple, stupid” principle, I turned to a saint who lived and wrote very simply: my patron saint, St. Therese of Lisieux. More specifically, I looked up something taken from her writings that I had scribbled into a blank page at the front of my Breviary.
“Everything is a direct effect of our Father’s love…difficulties, contradictions, humiliations, all the soul’s miseries, her burdens……her needs…..everything, because through them she learns humility and realizes her weakness. Everything is grace because everything is God’s gift. Whatever be the character of life or its unexpected events….to the heart that loves, all is well.”
St. Therese certainly had her share of trials and suffering but through everything she never lost sight of God, never wandered away. Through all her difficulties and burdens, she listened to His voice and learned to love more and more. Did God break her legs, so to speak? I guess you could say that, although she could have chosen to listen to His voice or she could have chosen to turn away. I’m sure that even an actual sheep that has its legs broken could go off again once its legs healed.
So, where am I going with this?
I think God allows humiliations, contradictions, suffering in our life, but He gives us the grace to bear them. He also gives us free will. It’s up to me how I respond to the burdens He sends.
But, this story is not in the Bible, you say. Well there is a verse that runs parallel:
SG
Posted on: 01/17/2014 22:51
Stardust, most sites (if they are reputable) seem to also state very clearly that it is not biblical.
stardust
Posted on: 01/17/2014 23:20
SG
I agree.
Serena
Posted on: 01/18/2014 01:43
I don't like the story at all. It reminds me of a Stephen King movie Misery. The woman broke the man's legs so he had to stay with her. As soon as he could walk he hit her over the head and (maybe he killed her) and left.
unsafe
Posted on: 01/18/2014 09:53
Hi stardust
The moral of the story of the lost sheep to me is this --when we are born we are away from God --our goal in life is to reconnect to our Father in Heaven ---we are lost sheep until we reconnect ---we will stray away constantly ---God loves all His Sheep and is forever tugging at the lost to reconnect but this is a free will decision so we sheep are relying on ourselves to get by in this world where Satan can lead us astray ----When we accept Jesus we are reconnected to God and it is Jesus who carries us on His shoulders ---Hence the shepherd carrying the lost sheep on his shoulders back to the flock ----
Jesus carrying His sheep ---
Peace
WaterBuoy
Posted on: 01/18/2014 11:14
How many really tough Christians do not realize the essence of the bible is larger ... that the myth goes on ...?
Reflect on that last verse of the Common (Koine. John) Gosple again ... and relate to some great philosophers like Charles Dickens, CS Lewis, Joseph Campbell and others that knew you couldn't tell an emotional person derilect of knowledge anything ... but a good myth in which they'll believe anything and everything ... unconsciously they absorb the humbler parts as the tough guy is too proud to admit to and thus the vanity of vanities causing a great storm within ...
Once you open up that unknown ... well!
stardust
Posted on: 01/18/2014 19:19
unsafe
That's a nice interpretation.
unsafe
Posted on: 01/18/2014 20:00
Hi stardust
Thanks ----
WaterBuoy
Posted on: 01/19/2014 08:13
You didn't take note that it was an obscuresheep ... quite dark ... then Jah Zues did speak in parables did Heh not? That is metaphorical for allah gory ... godly plasma, or as the English spin would have it Dark Humis ... po'lye understoof crap ...
It is a challenge causing a person to think ... the great human virtual conflict! Something that isn't quite the way the appearance suggests.
Could leave a somnolent soul blinking ...