The Bible, Law and Ethics Today

Notes from the Inaugural Lecture by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks as Professor of Law, Ethics and the Bible at King’s College, London, on The Relevance of the Bible for Law and Ethics in Society Today

The historian Niall Ferguson quotes the verdict of a member of the Chinese Academy of the Social Sciences, tasked with finding an explanation for why the West overtook China in the sixteenth century and went on to industrial and scientific greatness. At first, he said, we thought it was because you had better guns than we had. Then we thought it was your political system. Next we thought it was your economic system. But for the past twenty years we have had no doubt: it was your religion.

What was it about the Judeo-Christian ethic that led the West to develop market economics, democratic politics, human rights and the free society? The lecture will look at seven aspects of biblical ethics, each of which played a part in this development: human dignity, freedom and responsibility; an ethic of guilt rather than shame; the family as the matrix of virtue, love as the basis of ethics and covenant as the basis of society. It will argue that all seven are currently under threat, and that the Bible remains an important voice in the public conversation about ethics and law.

Seven key distinctive of the Judeo-Christian tradition

1. the dignity of all human persons (not just royalty being in the image of God)
2. the emphasis on human freedom and choice (and responsibility)
3. the sanctity of human life
4. (observed by American anthropologist Ruth Benedict) a culture of righteousness and guilt (linked with hearing) more than a culture of honour and shame (related to seeing): distinction between sinner and sin -- what is wrong is the act, not the person; hence the possibility of repentance and forgiveness
5. the significance of marriage as the matrix for society: fundamental connection between monotheism and monogamy, fidelity to spouse and religious fidelity
6. the covenantal basis of society: first, we are collectively responsible; secondly, a free society is a moral not just political achievement, thirdly, fate of society is dependent on how it treats its most vulnerable members
7. all human power, all political authority, is subject to the transcending authority of the Divine: there are moral limits to power, right is sovereign over might

"Those are the seven features that I think make Biblical ethics different from any other ethical system. It is the only ethical system in which love and forgiveness are at the heart of the moral life. It seems to me that all seven of those beliefs are currently at risk."

‘Those are the seven features that I think make Biblical ethics different from any other ethical system. It is the only ethical system in which love and forgiveness are at the heart of the moral life. It seems to me that all seven of those beliefs are currently at risk.’ - See more at: http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/how_the_bible_has_shaped_the_west#sthash.vEvrMDpF.dpuf

now at risk in our society

1. evolutionary biologists argue that there is nothing distinctive about humanity
2. scientific accounts cannot make space for freedom
3. already lost in abortion, and will see it again lost in assisted dying
4. we have already moved to shame culture: trial by public shaming (“thou shalt not be found out”). "It is very difficult to create space for confession, repentance, forgiveness, rehabilitation. Once you have been shamed, that is the end of you."
5. half of children born outside marriage, half of all marriages end in divorce; effects already evident, e.g. child poverty
6. hard to sustain, now: society as a hotel where each can do what they like in their own room as long as they pay (taxes) and don’t disturb the neighbours
7. all too easy today to move from saying "I have a right to do x" to "I am right to do x": whatever is not forbidden by law is morally permissible and therefore morally reasonable

Marriage, Sex and the Government

Christopher C. Roberts on Wendell Berry's Marriage Reversal:

Consider: If marriage is grounded in the procreative potential of sexual difference, then it is grounded in something prior to the human will, and therefore prior to positive law. If marriage is the way we humanize and acculturate mammalian mating, then marriage has a rationale with which government interacts but which government does not invent.

By contrast, if marriage is grounded merely in legislative fiat”if government invents rather than recognizes marriage”then all marriages, heterosexual and otherwise, are premised on political largesse. When a government purports that the form of marriage is something it legislates rather than discerns or inherits, then that government is in everybody’s bedroom. In such a society, you are married only if Leviathan says you are.

Is this a correct observation? The new legal definition of marriage not only makes the connection with mating and biology optional but also seems to affirm that, as far as the government is concerned, any link between marriage and sex is incidental. This argues against the conclusion "that government is in everybody's bedroom." 

Nevertheless Christopher C. Roberts may be right to wonder why a quasi-libertarian like Wendell Berry should welcome government involvement in the making of marriages now that this has become quite unnecessary. 

The rightful allocation of children to responsible adults can happen via birth certificates and children's identity cards (parent 1, parent 2, maybe parent 3 - not all places need to be taken). There would be no need to specify the relationship the adults have with each other or the child, thus guarding against prejudice in favour of mixed-sex or committed relationships.

Couples can enter into open-ended (until further notice) committed partnerships with legal and financial implications which the state can recognise and regulate by way of civil partnerships which could be same-sex or mixed-sex and need not discriminate against siblings and other close relatives.

There is no need on this scheme for the government to have any interest in bedrooms, maybe except for taxing empty ones. The state could limit its interest in sex to enforcing the two rules on which most people agree: sex must be consensual and must not involve children.

The Bronze Serpent in Numbers 21

NB: The correct translation is uncertain. The serpent may have been of unalloyed copper like the one found in Timna.

Excerpts from David L. Stubbs, Numbers (SCM Theological Commentary; London: SCM Press, 2009):

serpent imagery elsewhere in the Bible leads one to see the serpent as a symbol associated with evil and sin. Thus the sending of the serpents and the lifting up of the bronze serpent become revelations or symbols of Israel’s sin. This basic meaning opens up the episode in a  different way, ultimately showing that God’s healing occurs in conjunction with the people’s confession and repentance of their sinful ways. (166)

Elsewhere in the Pentateuch, serpents appear in two other crucial passages, both of which give the serpent a more-than-physical sense. In the confrontation between Moses and Pharaoh (Exod. 4:3; 7:9, 10, 15), the serpent likely symbolized Egypt and its gods. In that episode, the power of God triumphs over the power of the gods of Egypt. In our passage, then, perhaps snakes represented God’s punishment of Israel by a symbol of their object of desires – life back in Egypt under the rule of the snake, Pharaoh, and the gods of Egypt. “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt?” is part of the people’s complaint. They seem to prefer life under the power of Egypt, the serpent rather than life under YHWH. (167)

The other key reference in the Pentateuch is to “the serpent [who] was more crafty than any other wild animal,” who tempts Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden (Gen. 3:1,2,4,13,14). God’s judgment and punishment of Adam and Eve is a result of their failure to resist the temptation of the serpent. The punishment of Israel by God in Numbers might also reveal that they have succumbed to the poisonous lies of the deceiver, who tempts them to both doubt that God’s provision and ordering are really for their good (as seen in this passage) and creates envy in them for the power of God to morally order the world (as evidenced in the other rebellions.) … In sum, the serpents can be seen to be a judgment upon Israel that reveals and symbolizes their sin. (168)

The bronze serpent represents to the people all that the fiery serpents represent. In it they can see the sufferings of their journey. But in it they can also see the judgment of God about them. Like the raising of a battle standard, this action ironically represents who the people are truly following: the serpent, rather than God…It is a fitting symbol for all the rebellions of the people.

     But the raised serpent is more than a sign of judgment. It is also a sign of God’s victory over the serpent. Like the head of an enemy placed on the tip of a spear and shown to the people, the serpent lifted up shows that God is more powerful than the serpent. God is able to cure the physical effects of the serpents’ poison. By offering to the people this symbol of victory over the serpent, it also becomes a symbol of God’s compassion and desire to heal them and do them good. It is a symbol that God did not send Moses to his people in Egypt to condemn them, but to save them and bring them to life…The bronze serpent lifted up suggests that, for those bitten by the serpent in the wilderness, the way to the promised land is one of confession, repentance, faith, and recommitment to God’s difficult yet healing ways. (169)

Messiah’s Return Clause

In Jerusalem, some have a Messiah’s Return clause in their rental contracts:

Many Jerusalem residents believe not only that the Messiah will return, but that his arrival is imminent – so imminent they have taken legal precautions to ensure they can return to Jerusalem immediately upon his return.

In apartment contracts around the city, there are clauses stipulating what will happen to the apartment if or when the Jewish Messiah, or mashiach, comes. The owners, generally religious Jews living abroad, are concerned that he will arrive, build a third temple, and turn Israel into paradise – and they will be stuck waiting for their apartment tenants’ contracts to run out before they can move back.

It is prophesied in the Jewish scriptures that there will be no more war, murder, or theft, the Jerusalem Temple will be rebuilt (all that remains today is the Western Wall), and all the Jews will return to the land of Israel upon his arrival. This period is known as Olam Haba, or the World to Come.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2014/02/14/writing-the-messiahs-return-into-law/

Moses and Elijah at the Transfiguration

Did Moses and Elijah appear at the transfiguration to represent Law and Prophecy?

"Moses is more than the lawgiver; for he is also prophet prefiguring Him to whom the people will hearken (Deut. xviii, 15), and he is one whose converse with God was mouth to mouth (Num. xii, 8) and face to face (Deut. xxxiv, 10). Elijah is more than the prophet: he is the final precursor of the Messiah, with a unique mission of restoration. Thus by appearing together Moses and Elijah sum up the entire drama of the old order from its beginning to its end: the one is the predecessor, the other is the precursor of the Messiah...But 'mere representativeness is not enough', as Miss Maisie Spens has said. Moses and Elijah were men alive unto God; they had conversed with Him on a mountain; they had served Him and suffered with Him on a mountain; they had served Him and suffered for Him in history, and they had not ceased to be His servants. So now 'they come not as dumb apparitions, but are with Jesus in living intercourse and speak with Him; their presence shews His communion with the heavenly world' (Schlatter)."

Arthur Michael Ramsey, The Glory of God and the Transfiguration of Christ (1949; Eugene: Wipf & Stock reprint), pages 114-115.

Later on (pages 130-131) Ramsey points out that a "constantly recurring theme" in patristic homilies and expositions is "the unity of the scriptures."

The Gospel of Transfiguration

Excerpts from chapter xiv of Arthur Michael Ramsey, The Glory of God and the Transfiguration of Christ (1949; Eugene: Wipf & Stock reprint):

“The Transfiguration does not belong to the central core of the Gospel. The apostolic Kerygma did not, so far as we know, include it; and it would be hard for Christians to claim that the salvation of mankind could not be wrought without it. But it stands as a gateway, to the saving events of the Gospel, and is as a mirror in which the Christian mystery is seen in its unity. Here we perceive that the living and the dead are one in Christ, that the old covenant and the new are inseparable, that the Cross and the glory are of one, that the age to come is already here, that our human nature has a destiny of a glory, that in Christ the final word is uttered and in Him alone the Father is well pleased. Here the diverse elements in the theology of the New Testament meet.” (144)

"So great is the impact of theology upon language that the word 'transfigure', drawn from a Biblical story to which scant attention has often been paid, has entered into the practical vocabulary of the Christian life: 

1.To The Christian suffering is transfigured...

2.To The Christian knowledge is transfigured...

3.To The Christian the world is transfigured..." (145)

"Analysing the possibilities open to those who are aware that they are live in a 'declining civilization' Dr. Toynbee distinguishes four principles: archaism, futurism, detachment, transfiguration. Archaism is the yearning for a past golden age; futurism  is a phantasy of a new age utterly unrelated to that which now exists, and the quest of it is often pursued by violent means; detachment (for which 'escapism' would be a better word, since Christians know detachment in a good sense) is an escape into contemplation; but transfiguration is a faith whereby 'we bring the total situation, as we ourselves participate in it, into a larger context which gives it a new meaning.' Of such a faith, so the contention of this book has been, the Biblical doctrine of the GLORY provides the pattern and the event of the Transfiguration provides the symbol." (146)

 

"Confronted as he is with a universe more than ever terrible in the blindness and the destructiveness of its potentialities, mankind must be led to the Christian faith, not as a panacea of progress nor as an other-worldly solution unrelated to history, but as a Gospel of Transfiguration. Such a Gospel both transcends the world and speaks directly to the immediate here-and-now. He who is transfigured is the Son of Man; and, as He discloses on mount Hermon another world, He reveals that no part of created things, and no moment of created time lies outside the power of the Spirit, who is Lord, to change it from glory to glory.” (147)

Glory, Humiliation and the Christian Faith

Quotes and excerpts from chapter xviii: "The Glory and the Christian Faith" of Arthur Michael Ramsey, The Glory of God and the Transfiguration of Christ (1949; Eugene: Wipf & Stock reprint):

"The conception of glory illuminates every part of the structure of the Christian faith." (83)

"To glorify God is both to rejoice in His works, and to own their absolute dependence upon the Creator." (83)

"It is...in the revelation of the Son and in the gift of the Spirit that the Father's glory is fully disclosed...The obedience of Jesus to the Father in His life and death and the vindication of Jesus by the Father in the Resurrection are the disclosure within time of a glory of self-giving love which belongs to God from all eternity." (84)

"It was in humiliation that the glory was revealed on earth." (84) - the humiliation of the eternal Word in the incarnation, the humiliation involved in the 'messianic secret', and the humiliation in the completion of His mission in suffering and death.

"This paradox of the Incarnation is apparent in the Johannine language. On the one hand the Son retains on earth the glory which He ever had with the Father: 'the heavenly Word proceeding forth, yet leaving not the Father;'s side' On the other hand the Son prays that the Father will bestow glory upon Him in the Passion and in the exaltation which will follow. There has been no abandonment of glory: yet the Son prays for glory and awaits the day when He will receive it. The right solution...seems to be that it is in His human nature that the Son receives glory from the Father, and He asks that through Passion and the Resurrection the human nature may be exalted into the eternal glory of the Godhead." (85)

"It is by the humiliation of the Son's winning of glory in the toils of history that the eternal glory of the divine self-giving is most signally disclosed." (86)

"Primarily and obviously glory suggests that aspect of the Atonement which is described in the phrase Christus Victor... But the Christus Victor doctrine does not stand alone: it includes, in the Fourth Gospel, the doctrine of a godward offering whereby sin is expiated...the glory of Christ's self-giving breaks the power of men's sinful glory of self-esteem." (86-87)

The meaning of the Church lies in "the mystery of the participation  of men and women in the glory which is Christ's." (87)

Two apostolic warnings: "the glory in the church is an invisible  glory...hidden from the eyes of the unbelieving world" (88) and it is "but a foretaste of the glory that is to come, and therefore the Church's sense of possession is mingled with the Church's sense of incompleteness." (89)

"The Christian hope is...far more than the salvaging of human souls into a spiritual salvation: it is the re-creation of the world, through the power of the Resurrection of Christ.
        Thus the hope of the beatific vision is crossed by the hope of the vindication of the divine design not only in man but in all things." (90)