Sunday, February 3, 2008
Moral Questions
I want to hear people's opinion on Holtz's claim that "Biblical narrative rarely moralizes. It explores moral questions, to be sure, but it is in the wit and nuance of the specific moment that one is to find the narrative's intelligence most concentrated" (63). What does this mean for modern followers of the Bible. Can we take away "morals" from the Bible? I just think this is so interesting because people usually look to the Bible for these values, and justify lifestyles based on these so-called morals.
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5 comments:
I think the Bible wants its readers to moralize, but it frequently doesn't spell things out so clearly, despite what many readers think when they draw out quick moral conclusions. For example, if the Bible is against intermarriage with non-Jews, as it seems to state many places, why does it tell so many positive stories about intermarriages , e.g., Judah and Tamar, Moses and Zipporah, Ruth and Boaz, Esther and Ahashverous?
I want to respond to Jackie's question about morals from the Bible. I agree with Professor Brumberg-Kraus that the Bible needs its readers to moralize. As student of anthropology and a Christian, I found this question more interesting. In anthropology, we talk about culture’s morality by describing what a group of people believes is right and wrong or good and bad. As a Christian I see morals from the Bible as a part of human nature and they should not be taken away. Generally, I think the Bible is a moral guideline employed to help teach what is objectively moral.
I know that in theory God is also supposed to be the moral authority but at times, even He seems to make some morality faux pas. At times He even contradicts himself. The 10 commandants say not to covet anything that belongs to anyone else but God Himself admits to being a "jealous God," when concerning the worship of other gods. God commands us not to kill then demands that Jews kill all tribes living in Canaan. It seems that even the laws we all take as definitive don't even apply in every situation...
Jessie,
From the Torah's perspective, God is the standard for good (i.e., "morality"), since it's God who in the first week of Creation determines what is good ("And God saw it was good..."). Thus for most traditional Jewish Biblical commentators, the moral faux pas you see God making are only apparently faux pas. God is given the benefit of the doubt, and it's up to the interpreter to figure out how how this apparent moral lapse is really not God behaving badly. That's what I think it means to say the Bible doesn't moralize. The Bible doesn't moralize by itself, but rather engages its readers to draw the moral conclusions, to which the Bible indirectly points them. The Bible definitely has a moral standard, but it seems to want its readers to do the work of figuring it out - with lots of heavy-handed hints!
I agree with what we talked about in class, what JBK has summarized in his comment, that the bible "engages its readers to draw moral conclusions." I see how this is true through stories- biblical parables don't necessary tell the reader what is "correct," the reader must figure this out him or herself. When I was reading the section on Ethics in Judaism, however, I wondered about things like the 10 commandments, or the 613 mitzvot (page 285). Rather than suggesting that the reader figure it out for him or herself, these rules seem pretty straight forward. Do we distinguish between these commandments and the lessons we take from parables? How can we interpret a commandment that instructs not to kill? I think some of these commandments don't really leave room for interpretation.
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