Ethics in the Bible
|
|
Western philosophical works on ethics were written in a culture whose literary and religious ideas were based in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and the New Testament. As such, there are significant connections between the ethics of the Bible and the ethics of some of the great western philosophers.
| Contents |
Ethics in the Hebrew Bible
The books of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) cover a period of many centuries, reflecting a rich variety of conditions and beliefs, ranging from the culture of ancient nomadic shepherd tribes to the refinement of life and law of an urban population, from primitive clan henotheism to the ethical monotheism of the prophets. It is thus unwarranted to treat the ethics of the Bible as a unit; the ethical discussions contained therein do not all neatly flow from one dominant principle; there is no one set of clearly defined rules, conduct and obligation. Instead of one system of ethics, many systems have to be recognized and expounded. Nonetheless, the ultimate outcome of this evolution was ethical monotheism.
With these important qualifications kept in view, it is safe to hold that the principle underlying the ethical concepts of the Bible and from which the positive duties and virtues are derived is the unity and holiness of God, in whose image man was created. A life exponential of the divine in the human is the "summum bonum," the purpose of purposes, according to the ethical doctrine of the Biblical books. This life is a possibility and an obligation involved in the humanity of every man. For every man is created in the image of God (Gen. i. 26). By virtue of this, man is appointed ruler over all that is on earth (Gen. i. 28). But man is free to choose whether he will or will not live so as to fulfil these obligations.
From the stories in Genesis it is apparent that the Bible does not regard morality as contingent upon an antecedent and authoritative proclamation of the divine will and law. The "moral law" rests on the nature of man as God's likeness, and is expressive thereof. It is therefore autonomous, not heteronomous. From this concept of human life flows and follows necessarily its ethical quality as being under obligation to fulfil the divine intention which is in reality its own intention.
Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and other heroes of tradition, representing generations that lived before the Sinaitic revelation of the Law, are conceived of as leading a virtuous life; while, on the other hand, Cain's murder and Sodom's vices illustrate the thought that righteousness and its reverse are not wilful creations and distinctions of a divinely proclaimed will, but are inherent in human nature. The Israelites are under the obligation to be the people of God (, Ex. xix. 5 et seq.) that is to carry out in all the relations of human life the implications of man's godlikeness.
Hence, for Israel the aim and end, the "summum bonum," both in its individuals and as a whole, is "to be holy." Israel is a holy people (Ex. xix. 6; Deut. xiv. 2, 21; xxvi. 19; xxviii. 9), for "God is holy" (Lev. xix. 2, et al.). Thus the moral law corresponds to Israel's own historic intention, expressing what Israel knows to be its own innermost destiny and duty.
God is the Lawgiver because God is the only ruler of Israel and its Judge and Helper (Isa. xxxiii. 22). Israel true to itself can not be untrue to God's law. Therefore God's law is Israel's own highest life. The statutory character of Old Testament ethics is only the formal element, not its essential distinction. For this God, who requires that Israel "shall fear him and walk in all his ways and shall love and serve him with all its heart and all its soul" (Deut. x. 12, Hebr.), is Himself the highest manifestation of ethical qualities (Ex. xxxiv. 6, 7). To walk in God's ways, therefore, entails the obligation to be like God.
Ethics in the Apocrypha
Ethics in systematic form, and apart from religious belief, is as little found in apocryphal or Judæo-Hellenistic literature as in the Bible. However, Greek philosophy greatly influenced Alexandrian writers such as the authors of IV Maccabees, the Book of Wisdom, and Philo.
Much progress in theoretical ethics came as Jews came into closer contact with the Hellenic world. Before that period the Wisdom literature shows a tendency to dwell solely on the moral obligations and problems of life as appealing to man as an individual, leaving out of consideration the ceremonial and other laws which concern only the Jewish nation. From this point of view Ben Sira's collection of sayings and monitions was written, translated into Greek, and circulated as a practical guide. The book contains popular ethics in proverbial form as the result of everyday life experience, without higher philosophical or religious principles and ideals.
More developed ethical works emanated from Hasidean circles in the Maccabean time, such as are contained in Tobit, especially in ch. iv.; here the first ethical will or testamentis found, giving a summary of moral teachings, with the Golden Rule, "Do that to no man which thou hatest!" as the leading maxim. There are even more elaborate ethical teachings in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, in which each of the twelve sons of Jacob, in his last words to his children and children's children, reviews his life and gives them moral lessons, either warning them against a certain vice he had been guilty of, so that they may avoid divine punishment, or recommending them to cultivate a certain virtue he had practised during life, so that they may win God's favor. The chief virtues recommended are: love for one's fellow man; industry, especially in agricultural pursuits; simplicity; sobriety; benevolence toward the poor; compassion even for the brute (Issachar, 5; Reuben, 1; Zebulun, 5-8; Dan, 5; Gad, 6; Benjamin, 3), and avoidance of all passion, pride, and hatred. Similar ethical farewell monitions are attributed to Enoch in the Ethiopic Enoch (xciv. et seq.) and the Slavonic Enoch (lviii. et seq.), and to the three patriarchs.
The Hellenistic propaganda literature made the propagation of Jewish ethics taken from the Bible its main object for the sake of winning the pagan world to pure monotheism. It was owing to this endeavor that certain ethical principles were laid down as guiding maxims for the Gentiles; first of all the three capital sins, idolatry, murder, and incest, were prohibited (see Sibyllines, iii. 38, 761; iv. 30 et seq.). In later Jewish rabbinic literature these "Noachide Laws" were gradually developed into six, seven, and ten, or thirty laws of ethics binding upon every human being.
Ethics in the New Testament
Jesus said, "Don't think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I didn't come to destroy, but to fulfill." (Matthew 5:17) It is, however, apparent that his ethical views were not based solely on the Old Testament laws.
According to the authors of the New Testament, in some ways, the laws put forward by Jesus are easier to follow than those in the Old Testament, while in some ways they are harder. They are always simpler. Jesus disliked complex, legalistic laws, perhaps because he believed that the Jewish hierarchy of the time were using them to conceal their hypocrisy. Like Julia in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, they kept the small rules in order to break the big ones.
Jesus appears to abolish all the Old Testament dietary laws. "Don't you perceive that whatever goes into the man from outside can't defile him, because it doesn't go into his heart, but into his stomach, then into the latrine, thus making all foods clean?" (Mark 7:18)
In some translations, the final phrase ("thus making all foods clean") is shown as a separate note added by the author, and not as direct speech by Jesus himself. In many Christian traditions, all the text of the Bible is considered to be divinely inspired. In this case, it makes little difference whether it was said by Jesus or added by a divinely inspired writer. However, if the alternative view is taken, a more interesting situation arises. We know that the Jewish laws were controversial in the early church; see Acts 15 for example. It is possible that the author was taking Jesus' words slightly further than Jesus had intended, in order to make a point on one side of the debate.
Jehovah's Witnesses claim that blood is not a food, and so Jesus did not make it lawful for a Christian to eat blood products such as black pudding—or receive a blood transfusion.
In some ways, Jesus' ethical standards were more stringent than those of the Old Testament laws. The Old Testament rules on divorce were simple from the point of view of the man. He was required to give his ex-wife a certificate of divorce. Apart from a few special cases, this was the only requirement. Jesus altered this completely: "I tell you that whoever puts away his wife, except for the cause of sexual immorality, makes her an adulteress; and whoever marries her when she is put away commits adultery." (Matthew 5:31)
Interestingly, this change does not seem to have been made purely for women's benefit. The Old Testament law was harsh on divorced women, but they were permitted to remarry. Jesus appears to be telling them that they must not remarry. It is not clear whether the woman becomes an adulteress even before she remarries. One view would be that a divorce dissolves the marriage as though it had never existed. Then the ex-wife, and presumably the ex-husband too, would already have committed adultery.
The distinction is important because it reveals something about the status of women in the New Testament ethical system. If divorce had consequences only for the woman, in that she was cast out and no one was permitted to marry her, she would be in a desperate situation. Unable to work in that society, she would have no way of supporting herself. Alternatively, if Jesus is telling husbands that they must take responsibility for their wives, we can see movement towards a more modern society which regarded women as people and not possessions.
One of the Pharisees asked Jesus, "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?" (Matthew 22:36) The author of Matthew believed that this question was asked in order to trap Jesus into a heresy for which he could be punished. Jesus answered the question saying "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the first and great commandment. A second likewise is this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' ..."
This reply was, in context, conservative. Jesus' first commandment is actually the second line of the Shema, a passage from the Torah that priests recited in the Temple, and that other Jews recited in their prayers, twice a day; the Pharisees, like most Jews, considered this to be the most important principle in Judaism. Jesus' second commandment echoes the principle of Hillel, one of the most important Pharisees in the decades prior to Jesus' birth. In short, Jesus answers the Pharisee by quoting the two most important Pharisaic principles.
The ideals expressed in the New Testament (as well as the Old) are impossible to attain completely. Indeed, to Augustine of Hippo, it was impossible to live a life which was free of sin even in theory. "Human nature was originally created blameless and without any fault; but the human nature by which each one of us is now born of Adam ... is not healthy." (St Augustine, "De natura et gratia", 415 AD)
We see that Augustine believes us to be in some way tainted by Adam's sin. In other words, ethics were not just rules. Unethical behaviour was something almost physical, which could taint a person and his children. For this reason, if we were somehow able to live a life without sin, we would still be condemned by our "inherited sin". This is the origin of the modern doctrine of grace; that salvation is an undeserved gift from God. (It is interesting to speculate about what would have happened if Adam and Eve had not sinned, but Cain still had. Would we then have had a race of sinners living alongside a race which was perfect?)
One of the controversies in Christianity asks which people will actually receive this undeserved gift. Virtually all possible positions have been taken. At one extreme, some believe that only a subset of Christians will be saved. At the other, some believe that everyone will be saved.
If some people will not be saved, the question arises as to whether condemnation is an undeserved punishment, just as salvation is an undeserved gift. If Hitler was condemned to Hell for his crimes, would there eventually be a point at which he had paid his debt, and would deserve release?
This is probably not a question which can be answered, though Karl Barth had an ingenious way of avoiding the problem. His view was that the door to repentance and salvation was never closed. People who were condemned still had the option of repenting. This meant that salvation was not forced on anyone who did not wish to be reconciled to God, which is a rather strange effect of universal salvation. Rather, people could choose between God and Satan at any time.
(The scripture quotations in this section are taken from the World English Bible (http://ebible.org/bible/web/), a modern public domain translation.)