I am currently exploring how we can use the Old Testament[1] to help form our ethics. This is more complicated than I first thought, and there are several books which all seem to give slightly different views. The problem is, there is a whole variety of writings in the Old Testament—from narratives about genocide, to commandments, to prophecies, to love poems—and to apply it all literally today would involve stoning rebellious teenagers and slaughtering the pets of our enemies. So what do you think? Does the Old Testament have any relevance today, and if so, how should it be used?
One useful book has been The Immoral Bible by Eryl W. Davies.[2] He basically puts the various views into categories, and then says what he likes/dislikes about each one. He starts by considering some of the 'difficult' texts in the OT—mainly Joshua 6-11, which describes the conquest of Canaan. This has parallels with what I'm seeing on the news at the moment, but I don't want to link the two because there are lots of complicated issues that I want to avoid discussing—so this post will only focus on the ancient world.
I find Davies' book interesting because he forces me to consider things from a new angle. As a child, I learnt the story of 'Joshua and the city of Jericho', how God told him to march round the city, and then the walls fell down, and the Israelites killed everyone, and we all cheered and thought it was brilliant because we were, after all, on the side of the Israelites. But wait. If you engage your moral brain for a minute, is it really okay? The people were all killed—old people who were nearing the end of life, young people, almost certainly some babies and toddlers, as well as all their animals—just because they happened to live in the wrong city. I think, actually, it was not okay. I am uncomfortable with toddlers being crushed under city walls. So what do we do with stories like this one? Is there anything we can learn? Do we give the Old Testament authority when some (many) texts seem just plain wrong?
This is never okay.
(See below for credit.)
One approach is what Davies calls 'the evolutionary approach.' This says that people have evolved, and God's revelation has been appropriate through history—in the less sophisticated ancient world, where slaughter was commonplace, the rules were different to those of today. Basically, it says that people today know better. The trouble with this is it makes the Old Testament pretty obsolete other than as a background history lesson for the New Testament. It is also rather disproved by things like the holocaust, which indicates that actually, people today are just as cruel/violent as the ancient world. However, whilst I don't think people are getting better, I do think that perhaps God revealed himself and his plan for the world gradually—so ideals like 'love your enemy' were introduced at a time when this was an achievable goal for people.
Another approach is labelled by Davies as 'the cultural relativist approach.' (I feel this one overlaps with the previous one a bit.) This says that you need to look at the culture of the ancient world, and judge according to those standards. So we can tell ourselves that 'this happened in the olden days' and that was okay, but it wouldn't be appropriate now. Scholars call this a 'historical-critical' view, and they enjoy digging around, discovering how ancient cultures lived and thought, putting texts into context. (I enjoy doing this too!) The problem is deciding what, if anything, is relevant today. If you take the 10 commandments, they were applicable to Israelite married males, rich enough to own property and important enough to give evidence in a lawsuit.[3]
Therefore, when we read the Bible, we should be aware of the difference between the ancient culture and our own. Which means those translations which change things like the patriarchal wording of 'brothers' to 'brothers and sisters' are (I think) making a mistake. We ought to recognise the biblical times were different, and treat them accordingly, not pretend that everything then still applies today. People who take this approach (do you?) would say that whilst the culture was different, some principles are timeless, and these are what we should learn from—whilst leaving other bits as historical. But I don't know how you decide what to keep and what to put into the 'historical' bucket. I also fear it takes authority from the Bible, and allows the reader to disregard uncomfortable texts as 'irrelevant for today.'
The next approach is 'the Canonical approach.' This says that we need to look at all the Bible, all the time, and only read texts in the light of all the others. So yes, the poor children of Jericho were slaughtered, but later Jesus taught things like kindness and mercy, and one thing balances out the other. Again, I'm not sure who decides what is important, and what is not. No one treats every text as having equal authority (even if they say they do) but the whole issue can become very subjective, and easily abused. Slave traders definitely took different passages as authoritative, as did men who wanted to oppress women. I personally like comparing different texts in the Bible as a way to understand them better (and have just returned from a conference on intertextuality, which spent whole days doing this). But as Davies points out, it's not very practical (because who knows the whole Bible, in Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic, so that all the texts can be properly compared?) Plus what happens with the texts that contradict each other? And who decides what is the 'Canon' when Non-Conformists and Anglicans and Catholics disagree?
Next is 'the paradigmatic approach.' I like this one (though it still isn't perfect). You will know about 'paradigms' if you have studied a foreign language. You take a bit of grammar ('want' becomes 'wanted' in the past tense) and then you apply it to other situations (so 'look' becomes 'looked' in the past tense). The 'rule' is applied in different situations.[4] With the Old Testament, we look at the principles behind the text, and then apply those. So not harvesting a field to the edges was a commandment, the principle was to 'give some help to poor people'—and that can be applied today (even if you don't happen to have a field). Also, just as you must learn not to apply the 'paradigm' to every word ('run' does not become 'runned') nor do all Old Testament principles apply to the modern world. The problem is that it can be subjective, and if you look hard enough, you can probably find an 'underlying principle' that makes the Bible say whatever you want it to say.
The final approach is 'the reader-response approach.' (This is the one Davies seems to prefer.) This states that the Old Testament 'says' nothing unless someone is reading it, and it is the response of the reader that brings the message. The reader should read it with a conscience, noting that some behaviour is wrong, being prepared to be critical. (Scholars like to use the phrase 'a hermeneutic of suspicion' which basically means not switching off your brain when you read the Bible, and not accepting everything as 'right'.) However, it should be a two-way process, so the Old Testament texts will also criticise the reader, and speak to contemporary culture.
My problem with this approach is that it seems to remove all authority from the Bible. I do think it's good to pause, and to question whether an action in the Bible was correct, but I think we should be careful. I believe there is a time to simply admit we don't understand—that a narrative seems cruel or an action commended by the Old Testament author seems evil—but I am uncomfortable making judgement. I believe the Bible, including the Old Testament, is used by God to change people. Therefore the texts within it, can teach us something, even if we don't understand what they say.
The Old Testament does not claim to be infallible, it was not dictated by God, it was written by men. I think we need to rely on God, and allow him to change us as we read the ancient texts. There is perhaps something helpful in all the above approaches, and certainly the Old Testament can still shape our thinking today—but I think no approach is perfect. What do you think?
anneethompson.com
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[1] By 'Old Testament' I mean the texts in the Hebrew Canon which have been selected for inclusion in the Christian Bible.
[2] Eryl W. Davies, The Immoral Bible (London: T&T Clark, 2010). Another helpful book is Pieter J. Lalleman, Enduring Treaure (London: Apostolos Publishing, 2017) though I personally find the method of putting texts into categories too subjective.
[3] David Clines, Interested Parties: The Ideology of Writers and Readers of the Hebrew Bible (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995).
[4] Christopher J. H. Wright, Walking in the Ways of the Lord (London: InterVarsity Press, 1995)
Photo credit: Mandatory Credit: Photo by Sipa USA / Rex Features (1894273a)
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