"tikeda@sprintmail.com" wrote:
> George Murphy wrote:
............................
> > 2. How do we understand the role of natural law in view of the fact
> >that our understandings of what is natural
> > (a) may change with time, and
> > (b) may be culturally conditioned?
> [...]
>
> I think rabbis recognized long ago that laws and their applications
> may change with time. Perhaps not all laws, but Jewish legal history is
> both deep & old. New problems continuously arrive. For example, what
> are we to make of XXY-chromosomed individuals or those with "parts"
> that don't quite fit together within the expected norms? Previously,
> these individuals were brushed under the rugs; Now, we've got surgery
> and hormone treatments.
.............................................................
People often think of biblical legislation as consisting entirely of
apodictic "You shall" or "You shall not" statements like the 10 Commandments.
But there is also a good deal of case law in the OT & here we can sometimes
see the development of law over the course of time as different situations
come to light. An excellent example is Numbers 27:1-11 and 36:1-12. Case law
virtually has to change because it's impossible to list all possible cases.
But changes in our understanding of what is "natural" go deeper than
that. Here it's not just a matter of having to adapt a basic principle to a
new situation but of having to re-evaluate the principle itself.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
"The Science-Theology Interface"
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