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Notes -
I largely agree. I quibble about "Scott and those agreeing with him are willing to say pretty much anything if they perceive tactical utility in doing so". I think he typed out what felt like a witty clap back. It is not as deep as willing to say anything if tactically helpful. He's not think that hard or scheming that cleverly.
On an unrelated note there's not a lot of mentions of Jesus with prostitutes in the Bible. Mary Magdalene is never described as a prostitute. There's a prostitute who anointed Jesus and he forgave her sins and to my knowledge that's it. I dispute that a plain reading of the Bible tells us Jesus 'consorted with prostitutes'. He also saved the adulteress from stoning, but this message to her was go forth and sin no more. He didn't "associate" or "consort" with that so much as say to stop it.
There's also Matthew 25:
So those are the people hearing and responding to the Good News - the outcasts and despised of society.
They had ceased from their previous lifestyles, though, as clarified in the preceding passage:
The word for “changed their mind” is similar to regret or repent. They are praised because they left their old way of life to follow John; the high status elites are condemned because they did not opt to follow John, though they implicitly vowed to in their weekly prayers. The prostitute’s past is essentially blotted out by God’s mercy and totally unrelated to what Jesus thinks about them, because that’s what mercy is, acknowledging that a person can change and should no longer be judged for their past which no human change.
I think the softness of Jesus toward former prostitutes makes more sense when you note that the prostitute was despised in antiquity. They were despised by both the elites and the righteous. The prostitute and the tax collector belonged in the categories of “sell out” and “lover of money”, truly two of the worst things a person can be. The prostitute sells out her neighbor and her own God-given gifts in order to live in comfort; the tax collector sells out his neighbor for the benefit of an enemy. Today, the prostitute can be famous and the sell-out can get a podcast, so the moral math is totally different. The mercy of Jesus is the offer of a clean slate for those who change, not a new morality where we tolerate prostitutes and moneylovers.
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Not even a prostitute, merely a 'sinful woman'. There's a lot of sins and Luke could have just used the word for prostitute if he wanted to say that (see 15:30).
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The bigger deal would be Matthew (of Matthew Mark Luke and John fame) being a tax collector for the Romans. But modern society usually doesn't quite comprehend why that was such a big deal in Christ's time.
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