Talk:Physician, heal thyself

Interpretation

The interpretation of this saying is wrong. If you look at the context: Jesus saying his people will tell him this, but in the same way they would assume that Israel would have been favored during the mentioned famine and Israeli leppers were in need of healing, God chose to help the Sidonian widow and to heal the Syrian Naaman.

The phrase "Physician heal thyself" is similar to our modern saying: "Charity begins at home." Just as our saying means that one should first take care of his own family before helping those outside they believed that Jesus should concentrate his healing ministry on his hometown. They felt as a good member of the community he should works miracles among them out of civil duty and duty to family. Jesus lets them know that God's blessings are for those God chooses to bestow them on.

We can see their response when he doesn't heal they decide to kill him. In a way saying: "If the Physician won't heal us then he'll heal no one."

I would like to change this in the main page but want to give a chance for people to consider my argument before the change is made.[1] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kcluck (talk • contribs) 14:25, January 6, 2009 (UTC)

The article needs to comply with WP:OR. None of your ideas should be included at all unless you can find reliable sources that make these assertions.  —Chris Capoccia ^T⁄_C 14:29, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Attribution

Funny thing, I keep hearing this proverb attributed to Jesus, and at the most modest, to William Tyndale's original English translation of the Latin Vulgate. (itself a translation of the original Greek) However, note that Jesus refers to it as a proverb, implying he didn't make this saying up; he may have very possibly neglected to attribute it to Aesop and his fable of the "quack frog". (http://laudatortemporisacti.blogspot.com/2006/05/physician-heal-thyself.html) Aesop, as you may well read in these hallowed pages, "is said to have lived as a slave in Samos around 550 B.C" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesop) thus, considerably prior to the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. It should be noted that the Gospel author Luke was most likely Greek, (and a physician) and probably had a background in classic Greek literacy. Thus, he might have found Jesus's use of this proverb rather funny and a propos.

I've changed the Version quoted to the NIV as a more readable version for the general public. Ryan Sallis (talk) 20:18, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Minor point. In the Egyptian pantheon, Thoth and Isis were the patrons of magic, which, especially by Thoth, was merged with the healing arts (and emphasized in this sense by the Greeks I believe, Ryan). Thus interestingly, In the sixth plague of boils in Exodus, "the magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils, for the boils were on the magicians". Thus the God of the Hebrews is saying to the representatives of Thoth, Physician, heal thyself. Bob Enyart, Denver KGOV radio host (talk) 17:23, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Merge from Cura te ipsum

I see no reason why there should be a separate page at Cura te ipsum, which is simply the Latin equivalent of this Biblical proverb. I think the English version is more known to English speakers, so I would argue that they should be merged here. Anyone disagree? Lesgles (talk) 18:10, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Support merge, leaving Cura te ipsum as a redirect. Richard Keatinge (talk) 15:52, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Done, including history merge. (My god, it seems to have worked, I can't believe it!) Bishonen | talk 17:58, 23 June 2015 (UTC).