Re: bible ethics

George Murphy (gmurphy@raex.com)
Sun, 12 Dec 1999 12:13:46 -0500

dfsiemensjr@juno.com wrote:
>
> On Fri, 10 Dec 1999 08:21:49 -0500 George Murphy <gmurphy@raex.com>
> writes:
>
> > But note that Israel is commanded to care for strangers and
> > aliens (e.g.,
> > Ex.23:9, Lev.19:33) who, if not "enemies", are not people with the
> > immediate potential
> > to do the helpers any good. Also - the words "and hate your enemy"
> > are NOT a citation
> > of torah but (apparently) the interpretation of the Qumran "Manual
> > of Discipline" - an
> > interpretation which Jesus, of course, is rejected.
>
> I wonder if the strangers and aliens were as neutral as you suggest.
> Some, of course, would be the conterpart of Naomi in Moab, a refugee
> perhaps not doing much to benefit the community. Still, when the husband
> and sons were alive, they probably hauled their weight. But more would be
> traders, providing an important service to the sedentary community.
> Others would be craftsmen. I doubt that the only ones of the last
> category in Israel were those that Solomon employed. In any case, they
> would not be injurious, and might provide benefits, so they would at
> least somewhat fit into the "neighbors" category of the Jewish
> interpretation. As to hating the enemies, since Torah was silent on them,
> the addition, whatever its source (I suspect it was much earlier than the
> Qumran community), did not contradict any of the explicit commandments. I
> don't think there is any basis for reading Jesus' message back into the
> Law.

First, it's clear that a great deal of Jesus' teaching _is_ in torah, explicitly
or implicitly. E.g., what may appear to be an expanded definition of adultery in
Mt.5:27 is already anticipated in the prohibition of coveting your neighbor's wife.
I don't want to suggest that we can find everything in the ethics of Jesus
in the full extent in the OT - there certainly is what I called "deepening" &
"intensification" of the law. Samuel hewing Agag in pieces before the LORD in Gilgal is
part of the OT as well as the "nice" parts. But there is also a "trans-kin altruism"
there - "You shall not oppress a stranger" is unqualified. So the concept of neighbor
given in the story of the Good Samaritan isn't completely ex nihilo.
Vengeance against specific enemies (& here remember that the "enemies" in the
Psalms in the original situation of the psalmist would have been real enemies, not
abstractions) "war with Amalek from generation to generation" &c is part of the OT.
There may indeed be general statements about hatred for enemies earlier than Qumran but
I don't know of them.
(The Manual of Discipline requires members of the community "to love all the
children of light, each according to his stake in the formal community of God; and to
hate all the children of darkness, each according to the measure of his guilt, which God
will ultimately requite." Gaster, _The Dead Sea Scriptures_, p.46.)
Shalom,
George

George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/