Does Luke 14:26 teach literal hate?

Luke 14:26:If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.

Many Christians are often confused by this verse and wonder how Jesus can say to hate anyone rather than love.The subject here is the word for hate, which is the Greek miseo.One Skeptic is typical of critics when he writes:Most Christians feel obligated to soften the face meaning of the word ‘hate’ to something like ‘love less than me,’ even though the Greek word miseo means ‘hate.‘In line with this comment, Skeptics will stress the meaning of the word “hate” and insist that the word must be read literally, and that Jesus is truly preaching hate.

But in fact, the “softening” is correct to do — and is perfectly in line with the context of the ancient world, and the Jewish culture in particular.For a background on the use of extreme and hyperbolic language in the Bible, I direct the reader first to my foundational essay on this subject. Abraham Rihbany (The Syrian Christ, 98f) points to the use of “hate” in the Bible as an example of linguistic extreme in an Eastern culture. There is no word, he notes, for “like” in the Arabic tongue. “…[T]o us Orientals the only word which can express any cordial inclination of approval is ‘love’.” The word is used even of casual acquaintances. Extreme language is used to express even moderate relationships.

Luke 14:26 falls into a category of “extreme language,” the language of absoluteness used to express a preference, and may refer to disattachment, indifference, or nonattachment without any feelings of revulsion involved. To seal this matter completely, let’s look at some parallel materials which prove our point. The closest example comes from

Genesis 29:30-1:And he went in also unto Rachel, and he loved also Rachel more than Leah, and served with him yet seven other years. And when the LORD saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb: but Rachel was barren.

Here, “hated” is clearly used synonymously with one who is loved less. Let it be added that if Jacob hated Leah in a literal way, it is hardly believable that he would consent to take her as his wife at all. (See also Judges 14:16 and Deut. 21:15-17.)

Now here is another example from Jesus,

Luke 16:13:No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other.

Such extremes of feeling would be atypical, but the extremes are not meant to be taken literally; the point is that one master will get more dedicated labor than the other.Now let’s move into some secular works with the same sort of hyperbolic language. Fitzmeyer’s Lukan commentary offers this example from

Poimandes 4:6:If you do not hate your body first, O child, you will not be able to love yourself.

Would critics suppose that this teaches literal hatred of the physical body? It does not — it emphasizes the need to give preference to the whole self before the body alone. Literal hate of the body would have us cutting it with razors or hitting it with blunt objects — an extreme practiced in some Eastern faiths, but not among the Greeks.

So in conclusion Luke 14:26 is in no way is teaching literal hate but means that we cannot be Jesus’s disciple unless we love Him more than anyone else.

Sources:Extracts from tektonics.org