Theory And Practice In Old Testament Ethics

166 Pages·2004·3.22 MB·English

by  J. W. Rogerson

JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
SUPPLEMENT SERIES
405
Editors
Claudia V. Camp, Texas Christian University
and
Andrew Mein, Westcott House, Cambridge
Founding Editors
David J.A. Clines, Philip R. Davies and David M. Gunn
Editorial Board
Richard J. Coggins, Alan Cooper, John Goldingay,
Robert P. Gordon, Norman K. Gottwald, John Jarick,
Andrew D.H. Mayes, Carol Meyers, Patrick D. Miller
This page intentionally left blank
Theory and Practice in
Old Testament Ethics
John Rogerson
edited and with an Introduction by
M. Daniel Carroll R.
T&.T CLARK INTERNATIONAL
A Continuum imprint
LONDON • NEW YORK
Copyright © 2004 T&T Clark International
A Continuum imprint
Published by T&T Clark International
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15 East 26th Street, Suite 1703, New York, NY 10010
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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Typeset and edited for Continuum by Forthcoming Publications Ltd
www.forthcomingpublications.com
Printed on acid-free paper in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd
ISBN 0-8264-7165-X (HB)
ISBN 0-5670-8259-8 (PB)
CONTENTS
Preface vii
Acknowledgments xi
Abbreviations xii
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE ETHICS OF JOHN ROGERSON
M. Daniel Carroll R. 1
Part I
THE OLD TESTAMENT AS A SOURCE
FOR CHRISTIAN ETHICS
Chapter 1
THE OLD TESTAMENT AND SOCIAL AND MORAL QUESTIONS 13
Chapter 2
CHRISTIAN MORALITY AND THE OLD TESTAMENT 21
Chapter 3
THE OLD TESTAMENT AND CHRISTIAN ETHICS 29
Part II
THE CONTRIBUTION OF PHILOSOPHICAL ETHICS
TO THE STUDY OF OLD TESTAMENT ETHICS
Chapter 4
LIFE AND DEATH BETWEEN CREATION AND FALL:
SOME THEOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS ON LIFE ISSUES 41
Chapter 5
'WHAT DOES IT MEAN To BE HUMAN?' :
THE CENTRAL QUESTION OF OLD TESTAMENT THEOLOGY? 50
Chapter 6
DISCOURSE AND BIBLICAL ETHICS 60
Chapter 7
ETHICAL EXPERIENCE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT:
LEGISLATIVE OR COMMUNICATIVE RATIONALITY? 68
vi Theory and Practice in Old Testament Ethics
Part III
THE RELEVANCE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
FOR MODERN SOCIAL ISSUES
Chapter 8
THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE DEBATE ABOUT
NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT 81
Chapter 9
USING THE BIBLE IN THE DEBATE ABOUT ABORTION 88
Chapter 10
THE USE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT, WITH REFERENCE TO
WORK AND UNEMPLOYMENT 100
Chapter 11
WELFARE: SOME THEORETICAL REFLECTIONS 109
Chapter 12
THE ENEMY IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 113
Chapter 13
THE FAMILY AND STRUCTURES OF GRACE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 121
Part IV
OLD TESTAMENT ETHICS AND CHRISTIAN FAITH
Chapter 14
EXEGESIS AND WORLD ORDER 13 5
Chapter 15
JOHN ROGERSON: PERSONAL REFLECTIONS ON THE CHRISTIAN
FOUNDATIONS OF OLD TESTAMENT ETHICS 144
Index of References 148
Index of Names 152
PREFACE
Professor John Rogerson is one of those rare individuals who passionately tries to
live out what he writes. For him, biblical ethics is not just an academic exercise; it
is a call to a certain kind of lifestyle and to concrete social and political commit-
ments. This is not true of all who write in the field of Old Testament ethics.1
Professor Rogerson lives without a car because of a concern for the environment
and as a protest against the fact that the daily loss of life and serious injuries in road
accidents on British (and other!) roads is accepted as a normal fact of modern life.
From 1964 until five years after his arrival in Sheffield in 1979 he was an active
leader in the (Boy) Scout Association in order to work with young people; for him,
these organizations are upholders of the moral values 'of my station' within British
society. He himself was a member of the scouts as a boy and young adult. Professor
Rogerson and his wife Rosalind are vegetarians and use 'green' electricity, since it
is generated by renewable natural resources. Some years ago they purchased a
larger home in order to care for aging parents and another ailing family member;
they now house university students and make them part of the family. They also are
members of the Green Party and volunteer for activities as time permits.
These and other commitments have grown out of his life experience and Chris-
tian faith. In this volume's final chapter Rogerson recounts a bit of that pilgrimage.
This Preface supplements what is told there with more details in order to gain
greater insight into his interdisciplinary interests and his desire to integrate biblical
study with theological and ethical concerns. What follows is not intended to lift
Professor Rogerson up as a moral exemplar—something with which he would be
very uncomfortable—but rather to reveal the origin of several features of his think-
ing that are foundational to the essays reproduced in this book.2
1. Rogerson's Ethics in Personal Context
Having discovered Christian faith as a young man and being interested in dedi-
cating his life to church ministry, Rogerson started the ordination process at the
1. One of the most extreme examples of this incongruence was the German scholar J. Hempel,
author of Das Ethos des Alien Testament (BZAW, 67; Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 2nd edn, 1964), who
supported the Nazi regime. Note C. Weber, Altes Testament undvolkische Frage: Der biblische
Volksbegriffin der alttestamentlichen Wissenschaft der nationalsozialisteschen Zeit, dargestellt am
Beispiel von Johannes Hempel (FAT, 28; Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000).
2. This information comes from an extensive interview with Professor Rogerson in his home
in Sheffield in late August, 2003.
viii Theory and Practice in Old Testament Ethics
University of Manchester. In those days (the 1950s-60s) the usual process was to
go to university and then move on to two years at theological college. Rogerson
first became interested in ethics during his studies for the B. D. at Manchester, and
in his second year he took a course in moral philosophy. From Manchester he went
to Ripon Hall at Oxford. There he did two years of theological studies, but he also
was fascinated with languages and took classical and medieval Hebrew, classical
Arabic, as well as Ugaritic as a special subject.
At that time he should have been ordained, but his tutor, G.R. Driver, was able to
secure him a scholarship to spend a year at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem
(1963-64). While there Rogerson did a lot of exploring of the land, an interest that
is evident in the publication of an atlas.3 It was a much less violent place then, so he
was able to travel freely all over the countryside (putting to use his background as a
scout in all kinds of unforeseen ways!). While in Jerusalem he studied linguistics
with Chaim Rabin, and this led to an interest in social linguistics and eventually to
social anthropology. He quickly recognized that these disciplines could help him
and others understand the context of the Old Testament world. In particular, his
reading of the social anthropologist E.E. Evans-Pritchard showed him how it is
possible to go to a totally different culture and mediate it into one's own. In other
words, background studies of the Bible, which would need to be informed by these
and other disciplines, were clearly important.
While in Jerusalem he was appointed to a post at the University of Durham.
Rogerson returned to England and was ordained in September 1964, just before he
began his first term of teaching there. Various strands of his experience during the
years at Durham helped him to begin to formulate an approach that would wed a
pastoral and theological focus with a critical methodology. To begin with, for the
first three years he was a lecturer in theology and a curate of a local congregation of
the Church of England. In time, Rogerson became a full-time lecturer, but he main-
tained (and continues to maintain) his commitment to preaching and church
involvement. Second, during his tenure at Durham Rogerson was able to put into
practice what he had learned from a writer who had earlier deeply influenced his
passage into Christian faith, the Methodist Leslie D. Weatherhead. Weatherhead
saw the importance of clarity in method and recognized the value of interdiscipli-
nary work (he appealed to psychology and English literature). Weatherhead also
held to some of the critical views of his day, but was at the same time a great
preacher and evangelist. Here, in other words, was an example of the possibility of
combining Christian piety and ministry with intellectual integrity. Third, while he
was researching his book on myth (1968-69),4 Rogerson came upon the nineteenth
century German Old Testament scholar W.M.L. de Wette. At this time he was also
travelling regularly to Germany to do research and attended some Lutheran ser-
vices. Within that tradition Rogerson discovered a theological perspective not well
known in England: the special emphasis on the Fall and the grace of God and the
Law-Gospel distinction. The latter allows for holding together in healthy tension a
3. The New Atlas of the Bible (London: Macdonald, 1985).
4. Myth in Old Testament Interpretation (BZAW, 134; Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1974).
Preface ix
critical perspective of the Bible and Christian faith, a tension embodied in de Wette
and others. This contact also spurred him on in his study of German. He realized
that to be a first-rate Old Testament scholar he would need to be as fluent in
German as he was in English. This conviction would soon bear fruit for his ethics
in another unexpected turn of events.
With the move to the University of Sheffield to be Professor and Head of the
Department of Biblical Studies in 1979, the concern for ethics sprang up again. At
that time, Rogerson belonged to a German academic book club and acquired coin-
cidentally a volume by E. Meinberg titled Das Menschenbild der modernen Erzie-
hungswissenschaft.5 This book, along with the work of Jiirgen Habermas, triggered
for him the key question for Old Testament ethics: What does it mean to be human?
The thinking of Habermas and others of the Frankfurt School have continued to
inform his thinking in ethics.
These various brief vignettes, along with the opening list of moral stances, help
explain the multi-dimensional and interdisciplinary nature of Professor Rogerson's
Old Testament ethics. It strives to be grounded in the exegesis of the biblical text
(the interest in languages), informed by the realities of the ancient and modern
worlds (background studies, the social sciences), articulated in a way that can
engage broader ethical discourse (philosophical ethics), and deeply theological,
pastoral, and practical.
2. Concluding Remarks
The work in Old Testament ethics by John Rogerson has been extensive, but scat-
tered. This volume was conceived as a means to gather these materials in order to
enrich the discourse that is now going on in the field. The selection represents a
timeframe spanning from 1982 to 2001, and the essays in each major part are
arranged chronologically. The dates of previously published pieces are available in
the Acknowledgments; the dates and places of presentation for each unpublished
piece is noted in an initial footnote to the title.
I would like to thank the secretary to the Biblical Studies Division at Denver
Seminary, Jeanette Freitag, for her tireless work in transcribing several essays to
disk. One of my students, Jonathan Jameson, has been a wonderful help in carefully
proofreading the chapters. A word of thanks also is extended to Philip Davies, a
former member of the faculty at the University of Sheffield and head of Sheffield
Academic Press, who was a great encouragement in the conception and develop-
ment of this project.
Finally, I am, of course, especially grateful to Professor John Rogerson. He was
an exceptional advisor during my days as a doctoral student at Sheffield, where he
introduced me to the necessity (and the fascinating adventure) of interdisciplinary
study for Old Testament ethics. Professor Rogerson has been supportive of my own
work over the years, but, more importantly, he has always been open to share his
5. E. Meinberg, Das Menschenbild der modernen Erziehungswissenschaft (Darmstadt:
Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1988).