Moral responsibility is one of the fundamental questions of philosophy. According to major philosophical theories, individuals are judged morally responsible for their own actions. In antiquity there was a major debate over this issue, and it is found in biblical texts from the OT through the NT. Establishing the biblical basis for the concept of collective responsibility is not easy. In Exod. 20; 34; Num. 14; Deut. 5 the concept of “visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children” is found, and it is interpreted as allowing for multigenerational divine punishment. The concept is also often found in Hittite texts.
The passage in Exod. 34 suggests that there are no conditions or mitigating circumstances for the visiting of the sins of parents on their children. The standard of collective responsibility is found in what modern biblical criticism identifies as early and later pentateuchal materials (ninth through eighth centuries BCE) and is also assumed in narratives and legal materials of the OT (e.g., Josh. 7:24-25; 2 Sam. 21:1-9). The standard of collective responsibility was challenged in prophetic and in late biblical texts. The challenge is found in Lam. 5:7 and also in Job 21:19-21 (and Job 27:14), where the book of Job takes collective responsibility as a matter of debate. The standard apparently was modified by the time of the sixth-century prophets Ezekiel (18:1-4) and Jeremiah (31:29), where the exile of the Judeans as punishment for all future generations of Judeans is challenged. In addition, Ezekiel (3:18-20) seems to be against what might have been a standing counterpart to intergenerational punishment: intergenerational merit, a concept that will reemerge in importance in the rabbinic period and early Byzantine Christian sources. Modern biblical criticism assumes that the debate over the idea of intergenerational punishment meted out by God took place by the end of the seventh century BCE (the Deuterono-mistic law code) because in Deut. 24:16 there is a standard of individual responsibility (similar to Ezekiel and Jeremiah) in the Pentateuch.
The mixture of the two positions (collective versus individual responsibility) continues from the period of the OT through the intertestamen-tal period (third century BCE through the first century CE). In Wis. 3:10-4:6; Sir. 41:5-7; Jdt. 7:19-20; 4 Ezra 7:118 the standards of both collective and individual responsibility mixed together and sometimes are presented in the same verse (as in 2 Bar. 54:15-19). An active continuation of the issue is found in various Dead Sea Scrolls. The Deuteronomy scroll 4QDeuteronomyn has the “visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons” citation, and other Dead Sea Scrolls texts contain references to a concept apparently derived from this biblical verse. The scrolls even refer to a time of HaPequdah, the multigenerational punishment or purification process. In addition, an eternal purification process is mentioned in the scrolls that stretches backward through the generations. It is found throughout the general rules of the community, but also in a liturgical text known as Words of the Luminariesa (4Q504). Intergenerational punishment is also found in 4QHosea Peshera (4Q166), and the Damascus Document contains multiple references, as do the Thanksgiving Hymns, the Wisdom Poems, and the 4QPurification Rules.
The first-century CE Jewish writers Philo and Josephus make little or no reference to the standard of collective responsibility despite having comprehensive interpretations of the biblical citations where the idea appears. In the same period, the Targumim (Aramaic renderings of the Hebrew texts) wrestle with the two conflicting concepts and resolve them in a variety of ways.
One clear first-century use of the concept of collective responsibility appears in the NT. The text is crucial to any discussion of the concept. Its appearance in the NT implies that the standard of “visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children” was still relevant in the time of the Gospel writers. Matthew, describing the events leading to Jesus’ crucifixion, reports, “When Pilate saw that he could do nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took some water and washed his hands before the crowed, saying, ‘I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves.’ Then the people as a whole answered, ‘His blood be on us and on our children’ ” (Matt. 27:24-25). This verse in Matthew gains importance because it does not appear in the other Gospel accounts of the crucifixion, and the fact that this scene is paralleled in Luke and Mark without this exchange between Pilate and the crowd is relevant. The verse in Matthew is often cited in church literature and sermonizing starting in the Byzantine period as part of anti-Judaic arguments (and even in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century anti-Semitic polemics) justifying ill treatment of Jews living in later periods. It is important to note that the Ante-Nicene church fathers (first through the third centuries CE) cite the two biblical standards from the OT of divine punishment of the individual and multigenerational punishment in different ways in discussing the concept of theodicy.
See also Anti-Semitism; Covenantal Ethics; Moral Agency; Punishment; Reparation; Responsibility
Richard Freund
Although the most immediately relevant colonial period that shaped our times is the era of European expansion into the world (1492-1960), the practice is linked to empire, and empire has a long history, both in Scripture and in the world. Colonialism involves exploration, conquest, suppression, and exploitation, though the colonialist ideology is often more positive (for a helpful distinction between hegemony and ideology, see Comaroff and Comaroff). In the period of European expansion colonial ideology was often cast in biblical language in order to provide an ethical justification for colonial practices.
The colonial practices of Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, the Medeo-Persian Empire, the Greek Empire, and the Roman Empire are referenced in Scripture, with appropriate chastisements for excesses (e.g., Exod. 14:23; Jer. 50:18). But Walter Brueggemann has suggested that Israel itself took on the practices of empire as he contrasts the Mosaic community with the Solomonic community. The warnings of the prophets against the oppression of the alien and the poor of the land have as their setting the tendency for Israelites to act as colonialists in a colonial world (e.g., Exod. 22:21; Lev. 19:33-34; Jer. 7:5-6; Ezek. 22:29).
The European colonialists, beginning in the sixteenth century, took up the same justifications for colonial expansion and exploitation. The colonizers thought that they had a mandate from God, similar to the mandate that they understood Israel to have had in the conquest of Canaan. The narrative assumed that the colonizers were Christians and thus, like Moses and Joshua, were more righteous and deserving than the colonized, who were considered to be heathens deserving punishment or extinction (for discussion of the identification of the colonized with Canaanites, see Warrior). These arguments were used to justify practices such as confiscating land, enslaving inhabitants, removing children from their parents, destroying culture and tradition, and reforming society along European lines.
Colonial critique grew from the 1930s on through the 1960s with writers such as Cesaire, Fanon, and Memmi, while the postcolonial critique began with the identification of neocolonialism as a stage of economic dependence, following Marx, masked by the appearance of political independence (Nkrumah). In the field of literature, the postcolonial critique began to expose the hegemony of the West in its attempt to define the other (Said), revealing a colonization of the mind (Thiong’o) more insidious than the colonization of the land and the body. At the time that the colonized, or even the formerly colonized, accepts the terms and logic of the colonizer, the hegemony (in the scheme of Comaroff and Comaroff) is already in place.
“Decolonizing the mind” involves exposing the hegemony, resisting the ideology, and finding a voice and a venue for an alternative point of view, primarily through colonial discourse analysis. One ethical issue is representation; that is, who is speaking for the subaltern (Spivak)?
Postcolonial critics resist the continuing hegemony of colonialism by writing against, reinterpreting, and rewriting colonial literature. Instead of writing from the perspective of the conquering colonizer, critics began to write from the perspective of the victim. But this “victims of progress” perspective was quickly discarded in favor of imagining the oppressed as agents in their own right who are actively resisting, subverting, and modifying flows of colonial goods, ideas, and persons.
The ethical question, framed by Albert Memmi, is one of identification. On whose side does one stand: with the colonizer or with the colonized? Memmi argued that only by choosing to be on the side of the colonized can the colonizer find liberation. To pretend to make no choice is to benefit from the privileges of the colonizer without taking responsibility for the enduring consequences.
See also Conquest; Cross-Cultural Ethics; Culture; Dissent; Exploitation; Imperialism; Political Ethics
Bibliography
Ashcroft, B., G. Griffiths, and H. Tiffin. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literature. Routledge, 1989; Bhabha, H. The Location of Culture. Routledge, 1994; Brueggemann, W. The Prophetic Imagination. Fortress, 1978; Cesaire, A. Discourse on Colonialism. Trans. J. Pinkham. Monthly Review Press, 1972 [1950]; Comaroff, J., and J. Comaroff. Of Revelation and Revolution: Christianity, Colonialism, and Consciousness in South Africa. Vol. 1. University of Chicago Press, 1991; Fanon, F. Black Skin, White Masks. Trans. C. Markmann. Grove Press, 1967 [1952]; idem. The Wretched of the Earth: The Handbook for the Black Revolution That Is Changing the Shape of the World. Trans. C. Farrington. Grove Press, 1963; Memmi, A. The Colonizer and the Colonized. Trans. H. Greenfeld. Beacon Press, 1965 [1957]; Nkrumah, K. Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism. Nelson, 1965; Said, E. Orientalism. Pantheon Books, 1978; Stanley, B., ed. Missions, Nationalism, and the End of Empire. Eerdmans, 2003; Spivak, G. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” Pages 271-313 in Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, ed. C. Nelson and L. Grossberg. University of Illinois Press, 1988; Thiong’o, N. Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature. Heinemann, 1986; Warrior, R. “Canaanites, Cowboys, and Indians: Deliverance, Conquest, and Liberation Theology Today.” ChrCr 29 (1989): 261-64; Young, R. Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction. Wiley, 2001.
Michael A. Rynkiewich
The Letter to the Colossians addresses a church troubled by teachers who argue that salvation is not secure without a visionary experience in which believers observe and participate in the angels’ worship of God. They urge the Colossians to adopt a regime of rituals and practices that produce such experiences. In response, the letter assures its readers that those “in Christ” have all spiritual blessings and that no imitation of, or deference to, angels can enhance one’s relationship with God.
Ethics is central to the message of Colossians. Near the beginning, the letter says that the purpose of receiving knowledge of God is to live a life worthy of God (1:9-10). This letter focuses on both the status that baptism confers and the demand to live in a particular way it imposes. The image of “putting off” the old way of life and “putting on” a new life conformed to Christ echoes baptismal language (3:8, 12). Thus, Colossians inseparably links the blessings received in baptism with ethical living. Proper living is not simply a consequence of receiving salvation; it is a gift that believers receive in baptism.
Colossians 3:1-4 defines “seeking the things above” as ethical living. This introduction to a section on ethics tells believers that they “have been raised with Christ.” Here, being raised with Christ does not signal exaltation but rather indicates that believers must pattern their lives after Christ because God has given them new life in him. Therefore, all aspects of life should conform to being in Christ.
Colossians’ explication of this new life is consistent with some elements of first-century ethical thought but opposes other elements of it. Many contemporaneous moralists condemned most of the vices listed in 3:8. Some of the virtues mentioned in 3:12 (particularly humility), however, run counter to cultural values. Colossians evaluates all ethical values by whether they are consistent with being “in Christ.”
The household code of 3:18-4:1 gives direct instructions to wives and husbands, children and parents, slaves and owners. Similar registers of instructions appear in Ephesians, 1 Timothy, Titus, and 1 Peter. The concerns reflected in them go back to Aristotle’s comments on household management (Pol. 1.3), but probably there was no precise literary form that these tables imitate.
The household code of Colossians is problematic because its apparent support of slavery and hierarchy within marriage seems to violate its previous ethical instructions. Unlike most moralists of the first century, the author of Colossians assumes that men and women in Christ should adopt the same virtues. Furthermore, in 3:11 the author proclaims that status markers make no difference in the church, but the code seems to reestablish them. The solution to this tension lies in recognizing the first-century church’s position in relation to the broader culture. This code addresses wives, children, and slaves in households that have unbelievers as their heads. In such circumstances these subordinates had no choice but to fulfill their expected roles. All Colossians can do is redefine the meaning of their submission in ways that point to the incongruity between this ordering of relations and life in Christ. For example, wives are to submit “as is fitting in the Lord” (3:18). This phrase redefines submission so that it is proper for everyone, not just wives (if we take 3:11 seriously). This reading gains support from 3:19, which tells husbands not to be embittered toward their wives (the NRSV translation “never treat them harshly” is incorrect). Similarly, slaves are designated as heirs, and masters are told that they are slaves.
Such statements counter the code’s apparent call for conformity to first-century expectations. Thus, it enjoins those required to conform to do so but also to know that their forced subordination does not reflect God’s will.
Colossians’ treatment of ethics suggests that believers should look to the identity that they have been granted in Christ and the character of God
for criteria to evaluate all the values, structures, and expectations of their culture.
See also Household Codes; New Testament Ethics; Vices and Virtues, Lists of
Bibliography
Bevere, A. Sharing in the Inheritance: Identity and the Moral Life in Colossians. JSNTSup 226. Sheffield Academic Press, 2003; Meeks, W “ ‘To Walk Worthily of the Lord’: Moral Formation in the Pauline School Exemplified by the Letter to Colossians.” Pages 37-58 in Hermes and Athena: Biblical Exegesis and Philosophical Theology, ed. E. Stump and T. Flint. University of Notre Dame Press, 1993; Standhartinger, A. “The Epistle to the Congregation in Colossae and the Invention of the ‘Household Code.’ ” Pages 88-121 in A Feminist Companion to the Deutero-Pauline Epistles, ed. A.-J. Levine and M. Blickenstaff. FCNTECW 7. T&T Clark, 2003; Sumney, J. Colossians. NTL. Westminster, 2008.
Jerry L. Sumney
Coma See Bioethics
Commandments See Ten Commandments
The notion of the common good has long been central to Catholic social teaching and has had several connotations.
First, there is reference to the good of all people, all classes, and of each individual (Korzen and Kelley xxi, 4-18). The most influential papal encyclical for social teaching, Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum novarum (1891), on justice for workers, says, “Civil society exists for the common good, and hence is concerned with the interests of all in general, albeit with individual interests also in their due place and degree” (§51). The common good is referred to twenty-five times in Pope John XXIII’s Mater et magistra (1961), and forty-eight times in his Pacem in terris (1963), often as the “common good of all” (§§48, 56, 58) and the “universal common good” (§§7, 100, 125, 133, 134, 135, 137, 138, 139, 140) of all persons (see McCann in McCann and Miller). Its clear meaning for social justice is seen in the United States Catholic Bishops’ Economic Justice for All, which cites “common good” thirty-four times. This is echoed by the climax of the
US Pledge of Allegiance, “with liberty and justice for all.”
The human dignity of all persons in Genesis reverberates throughout the encyclicals as a basis for the common good. Pacem in terris (§3) begins by quoting two psalms (8:1; 104:24) and Gen. 1:26, which states that God created humankind in his own image and likeness, endowed them with intelligence and freedom, and made them lord of creation. The document’s first pronouncement is “Peace on earth . . . can be firmly established only if the order laid down by God be dutifully observed” (§1). This is both biblical and natural-law basis for the “universal common good.” Additional support for the common good from the Ten Commandments, the book of Jonah, and the letters of Paul is developed by McCann and Miller.
Workers and all humans, body and soul, with special attention to less fortunate persons, including immigrants and political refugees, and underdeveloped countries should share in the common good (Pacem in terris §§91-108, 12125) (see Hollenbach, esp. 93). Gaudium et spes (1965), promulgated by Pope Paul VI, emphasizes a special obligation to make ourselves neighbors to abandoned elderly persons, underpaid foreign laborers, refugees, suffering children, and hungry persons, quoting Jesus’ words in Matt. 25:40: “Just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” Mater et magistra (§§43, 78-80, 139) associates the common good with economic rights of all citizens, especially the weaker—workers, women, and children. Public and universal authority “must have as its fundamental objective the recognition, respect, safeguarding and promotion of the rights of the human person” (Pacem in terris §139). Pope Benedict XVI writes, “Anyone who needs me, and whom I can help, is my neighbor. . . . Jesus identie fies himself with those in need, with the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick and those in prison. ‘As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me’ (Mt 25:40)” (Deus caritas est §15).
Therefore, the common good requires government intervention, incentive, and regulation to stop the powerful from aggrandizing far more than their fair share for themselves. It requires that governments “increase the degree and scope of their activities in the economic sphere” and “devise ways and means and set the necessary machinery in motion for the attainment of this end”; otherwise, there occurs “unscrupulous exploitation of the weak by the strong” (Mater et magistra §§54, 58 [see also Pacem in terris §§63-66]). John Paul II says that we need to pay attention to the universal common good because of “the structures of sin” in the world (see McCann and Miller 142-43).
Nations need to provide employment for as many workers as possible, to maintain a balance between wages and prices, to make the goods and services for a better life accessible to as many persons as possible, to limit the inequalities between different sectors of the economy, to have regard for future generations, and to give effectively to the economically underdeveloped nations (Mater et magistra §§79, 150-65). However, this must be balanced by freedom and private initiative of individuals (Mater et magistra §§57, 66).
The good is “common” in the sense that we are created to share it, as by nature social beings, in solidarity, with interpersonal communion, unable to live or develop human potential unless related to others (Gaudium et spes §§12 [based on Gen. 1:26-27, 31; Ps. 8:5-6], 25).
The common “good” includes the sum total of those conditions of social living whereby people are able to achieve the kind of life that God has created us for, including bodily, economic, moral, and spiritual development, our own perfection, human dignity and development, with individual members encouraged to participate in the affairs of the group (Mater et magistra §§65, 149). The perfectionist teleology of Mater et magistra shifts to an invocation of dignity and human rights in Pacem in terris, Gaudium et spes, and Dignitatis humanae (O’Neill 173).
Catholic moral theologian David Hollenbach argues in The Common Good and Christian Ethics that we will not solve the glaring injustices to the poor and their children in inner cities and we will not act justly toward the hungry of the world unless we identify with them as our children and members of our human family. He also commends the public role of black churches in advocating civil rights and economic justice for all, and the inclusive understanding of the common good in the activities of evangelical Christian groups such as the Sojourners community and leaders such as Richard Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary. Hollenbach is right that evangelicals are increasingly emphasizing the common good. The recent book Toward an Evangelical Public Policy is replete with references to “the common good,” and its summary, “For the Health of the Nation,” strikingly resembles the 2003 statement by the United States Roman Catholic bishops, The Challenge of Faithful Citizenship: A Catholic Call to Political Responsibility. Other Christian traditions are increasingly adopting the “common good” because they sense its helpfulness for healing the politics of division and injustices caused by ideologies of private self-interest that divert normal human compassion from caring for other humans (Korzen and Kelley).
See also Government; Image of God Bibliography
Hollenbach, D. The Common Good and Christian Ethics. NSCE 22. Cambridge University Press, 2002; idem. The Global Face of Public Faith: Politics, Human Rights, and Christian Ethics. Georgetown University Press, 2003; Kor-zen, C., and A. Kelley. A Nation for All: How the Catholic Vision of the Common Good Can Save America from the Politics of Division. Jossey-Bass, 2008; McCann, D., and P Miller, eds. In Search of the Common Good. T&T Clark, 2005; O’Brien, D., and T. Shannon, eds. Catholic Social Thought: The Documentary Heritage. Orbis, 2006; O’Neill, W. “Babel’s Children: Reconstructing the Common Good.” ASCE 18 (1998): 161—76; Sider, R., and D. Knippers, eds. Toward an Evangelical Public Policy: Public Strategies for the Health of the Nation. Baker, 1995.
Glen H. Stassen
Divorce
Common Ownership See Property and
Possessions
Comparative religious ethics as an academic discipline arose in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as scientific and intellectual disciplines became increasingly specialized. A branch of comparative religion—more specifically, comparative theology—comparative religious ethics systematically reflects on differences and common values across religious traditions that have an impact on the treatment of moral concerns by various religions.
Comparative religious ethics as a biblical practice has a much longer history, one that must be teased out from biblical texts quite foreign to modern ethical discourse. Using the Bible in comparative religious ethics today presents a host of challenges—contextual, methodological, and theological.
Today, a new form of comparative religious ethics is emerging. This new form is based on the realities and demands of globalization and cultural relativism. That emerging systematic study of ethics across religions seeks application to global moral issues and practical results in society.
History of Comparing Values across Religions
As new religions developed, they drew from older religions for values. For example, Buddhism drew from Hinduism, Christianity from Hebrew religion, and Islam from Christianity. Those values were inextricably linked to the cosmic, philosophical, theological framework of the religion and the society in which the religion thrived. Hinduism and Buddhism sourced their ethical systems in reincarnation, karma, and a cosmology of cyclical time in a world of illusion. Chinese religions drew from a basis of relational and familial responsibilities operating within a cosmology of cosmic forces that included ancestors. Many indigenous religions linked natural events to human behavior in a world animated by spirits at every level. Monotheistic reli-gions—Judaism, Christianity, Islam—focused ethical discourse in revelation, individual responsibility, and a cosmology of linear time in a world created by an all-powerful God. Greek ideas of practical reason and a hierarchy of matter and spirit also influenced Christian theologies in the West. As religions changed, older traditions adapted to fit new social and religious locations.
During the seventeenth century, the European Enlightenment’s rejection of church authority moved the discourse around values from Christian theology to the spheres of reason and law. Human reason could evaluate values, and human law could establish precedents that adjudicated between good and evil. An emphasis on human freedom to choose the good ends moved the focus of ethics onto the means of accomplishing those ends. With the subsequent development of scientific disciplines, religious studies established a niche for theological, philosophical, and ethical comparison across religions. As modern science gained influence, an evolutionary understanding of development led to the construction of a hierarchy of religions from primitive to modern, a hierarchy that influenced comparative religious ethics as it developed as an area of study.
During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as Western missionaries took Christianity across the globe along with European colonization, discourse among Christians and those of the religion of the society that they entered became common in some places and remained impossible in others. In Sri Lanka, Christian missionaries debated Theravada Buddhists in public forums. In South America, by contrast, the native peoples were not considered fully human by the Spanish invaders, so comparing values was not possible. Exceptions such as the arguments of Bartolome de las Casas for the humanity and freedom of choice of the natives were rare. Generally, the natives were considered subhuman, needing to be conquered so that Christianity could be imposed upon them.
In 1893, at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago, some debate among participants from various religions occurred. Comparison of religions on moral issues and values began to be brought into courses on world religions as they developed in universities during the first half of the twentieth century. Courses in comparative religious ethics per se became part of university curricula in the second half of the twentieth century in Europe and the United States. Those courses systematized ethics among religious traditions in Christian theological frameworks. Categories of God, sin, creation, soul, salvation, and others were applied to all religions for analysis.
Three Stages of Comparative Religious Ethics
The development of comparative religious ethics went through three stages with distinct differences in content, objectives, and methods.
Stage one. As Western expansion brought religions into close proximity, the comparative study of religion arose in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Two contrasting foci were prominent at that time. The first was a form of debate that we know as apologetics. Comparisons of religions focused on Christian theological categories—for example, good and evil, personal responsibility, a good God, and a created world. The Bible was used to support that evaluative framework. Those measures were used to evaluate the moralities of other religious traditions. The goal of the discourse was to convince those of a different religion of the veracity and worth of Christianity.
The second, nearly opposite, focus was on the scientific development of university disciplines. Sociology, anthropology, and history of religions attempted to do objective research that produced results that could be universally applied. That movement influenced theology as well. As the interdisciplinary project of comparative religion developed, an anti-Christian bias grew along with it. The use of Western theological categories of comparison continued to be used but were now separated from the religion of Christianity and considered to be universal categories of religious study.
Stage two. The second stage, beginning in the post-World War II era, focused on commonalities among religious traditions. The shattering experiences of World War I and World War II demonstrated the need for international agreement on the ethics of war, the sanctity of human life, and equity among peoples. During this modern phase of comparative religious ethics the search for universals predominated. Human reason and international law became sources for delineating values of human freedom and dignity, values that came to be considered universal in the West. Those sources for international discourse and the values that they generated were rooted in Enlightenment philosophical and Christian theological perspectives.
The 1948 United Nations Declaration on Human Rights (UNDHR) was an example of this type of comparative religious ethics. Persons from different religions and regions of the world worked together to craft a document that focused on the necessity and reasons for according each person rights that stemmed from being human. Although a Western individualistic focus predominated, views of representatives from various religious traditions from around the globe were heard.
That document led to a larger conversation as later documents that augmented the UNDHR brought those other voices more centrally into the conversation. In the 1990s religious scholars dialogued about ways that religious values could be added to the UNDHR, values that identify human rights and responsibilities from within frameworks of different religions. The resulting Declaration of Human Rights by the World’s Religions (1998) offers ongoing opportunities for religious scholars to contribute to a global ethic of human rights. The Bangkok Governmental Declaration (1993) stressed the uniqueness and diversity of human-rights views across Asia. Those documents brought out the communal nature of human rights and the importance of balancing human rights with responsibilities. The creation of such documents by scholars of various religions highlights the importance of religions adding their voices to human-rights discourse.
Stage three. The third stage of comparative religious ethics comes with the postmodern turn. A general realization that traditions and views of morality grow up in particular contexts shapes this view. Ethics are placed in the context of traditions that are tied to historical narratives and present societal conditions. In this view, all knowledge is interpreted, understood from a particular perspective. An interpretive process that recognizes the gaps between text and context and the differences between ethical views of different traditions complexifies the work of comparative religious ethics. In dialogue with those of a different religion, both differences and common values are sought as discourse explores the substantive traditions of each religion. A certain degree of ethical relativism enters the dialogue as participants realize the limitedness of any perspective and its ties to social and historical location.
Using the Bible in Comparative Religious Ethics
Many religions use their sacred texts to help them establish values and evaluate moral behavior. Ways to do this vary: Hindu and Greek texts offer stories of the gods that model both laudable and sometimes less-than-honorable ways of acting. Hebrew and Islamic texts convey commands that people are encouraged to follow. Christian and Taoist texts outline a way of life that leads to harmony and well-being. Native American and traditional African religions show paths to identification with natural forces that increase one’s ability to perceive the good. The content and style of communications differ, as do the underlying cosmologies of those religions, making direct comparison difficult.
Categories of analysis for comparative religious ethics have been developed in the West, influenced by the Judeo-Christian heritage and the Enlightenment philosophical framework of Europe and the United States. The Bible has been the text sourcing the framework used in comparative religious ethics until the late twentieth century. An awareness of major themes used in the Bible in ethics is essential to understanding that influence.
The idea of obedience to God’s command, particularly the Ten Commandments, as the law of God was central for the people of Israel. The Ten Commandments provided the standard for evaluating both ritual and moral behavior of proponents of other religions during OT times. When neighboring societies practiced religions that focused on other gods and customs foreign to the Torah, priestly and prophetic voices condemned them. Correspondingly, when people from those societies acted in accordance with the commandments, they were praised. An unreflective comparative morality privileged Hebrew beliefs.
As Christian theologies developed, what Jews called the greatest commandments were linked, becoming the basis for Christian morality. The love of God and neighbor, as explained and modeled by Jesus’ life, became a standard for evaluating beliefs and behaviors of those within and beyond the Christian church. The concepts of God’s good creation corrupted by sin, of the person created in God’s image, and of responsibility to a social order in covenant with God became important themes. The apostle Paul’s Epistle to the Romans reinterpreted the OT law to demonstrate the importance of Jesus’ death in appropriating the grace of God. His letters also emphasized a Stoicism borrowed from the Greeks that was incorporated in Christian understandings of moral behavior. Through the centuries those themes focused both Christian theological understandings of the good and Christian appraisals of other religions and their ethical systems.
During the thirteenth century, Thomas Aquinas’s rediscovery of Aristotle’s thought influenced Christian theological understandings of the good, the good end, and the role of reason or natural law in the analysis of moral behavior. During the Enlightenment, Immanuel Kant linked the love of God and neighbor to Aristotle’s practical reason, thus reformulating that Christian theme in philosophical terms. The resulting critical standard required treating every person as an end in themselves. The Reformation brought to the fore notions of God’s love and the human responsibility to respond to God’s love.
The individualism that grew up through the Reformation and the Enlightenment was also rooted in a biblical idea of the worth of human beings. Both creation and redemption narratives provided theological sources for the idea of the worth, even sacredness, of the person. Those ideas led to the emphasis on freedom, dignity, and human rights that are central to contemporary Western views.
As colonial expansion brought Africans to the United States, a theology of liberation developed among slaves that drew from OT exodus narratives and prophetic voices. In the twentieth century, the Bible has been used in liberation and feminist theologies and as a moral reminder that draws on societal values shaped for centuries by Christian traditions.
Challenges and Responses for Contemporary Comparative Religious Ethics
The challenge of method: Categories of analysis. In the first two stages of comparative religious ethics—apologetics and scientific study, and the search for universals—practices of other religions were evaluated on the basis of Christian
theological categories. The modern search for
universals, without using the Bible, still resulted in a set of values that found their roots in Christianity and the Enlightenment. The sanctity of the individual; the focus on freedom, democracy, and human rights; the emphasis on reason; and an evolutionary idea of development of religions are some of those modern Western values.
As the academic discipline of comparative religious ethics developed, the importance of the third stage—recognition of context as determinative for ethics—became apparent. It became clear that using Christian theological and Western philosophical categories for comparing moralities across religions privileged Christian and other monotheistic religions and Western values. The evolutionary framework of religious studies further marginalized non-Western religions as that developmental framework ranked religions from “primitive” to “modern.”
The development of philosophical hermeneutics and the critique of ideology in the mid-twentieth century deepened the dilemma for comparative religious ethics. Scholars recognized Western theologies, philosophies, and science as contextual and historically located systems of thought rather than universal verities. That began a search for different ways to organize comparisons of ethics across religions.
Finding patterns of response to moral issues across religions and organizing them is one way to move from using categories from Western frameworks to a more equitable method of analysis. Cultural responses are identified and compared not on the basis of an abstract idea or notion of the good, but according to how those moral responses resemble one another and differ from one another.
Seeking a cross-cultural rationality is another response to the problem of method. Although reason is developed contextually and historically, looking for commonalities across cultures in how they reason about morality or develop ethical systems is a fruitful approach.
A third way go about organizing comparative religious ethics is through identifying commonalities and honoring differences without arranging them in a broader framework.
Identifying shared categories and values provides a forum for discussion of ethics across religions. For example, monotheistic religions can discuss shared values in a framework of belief in one God who created the world and called it good. Jewish, Islamic, and Christian traditions differ in their views of Jesus but agree that one God exists and cares about humanity. Although different views of revelation exist between Islam and Christianity, both hold the belief that God conducts self-revelation to humankind. All three religions purport that God desires submission and obedience to divine commandments. Those overlapping areas allow for a systematic and wide-ranging discussion of religious ethics among Judaism, Islam, and Christianity.
Recognizing differences in overarching frameworks and values—for example, ideas of good and evil, right and wrong, and qualities of character that lead to human flourishing—also fosters conversation among different religions. Hinduism organizes values in a framework that understands the physical world to be illusion, whereas Christians understand the physical world to be God’s creation. Those ideas influence the ways Hindu and Christian scholars organize comparisons of moralities. Scholars can avoid imposing their framework on the comparative discussion of ethics. Agreeing to disagree on the shared basis of the perspectival nature of all knowing leads not only to religious tolerance but also to imagining new paths for ethics in the contemporary world.
Through identifying commonalities and honoring differences, a comparison of substantive traditions with different frameworks becomes possible. A multidimensional hermeneutic allows for toleration of the views of others and self-criticism of one’s own tradition and thus makes room for productive change. Defining shared values or universal norms by scholars from different religions and regions of the world forms one prong of this method. Defining moral norms and practices in each religious tradition, identifying areas of disagreement, and figuring out how to live with enduring differences forms another prong of that methodology.
The challenge of context: Cultural and ethical relativism. The recognition of context as determinative for ethics broadens here to include a range of views on cultural relativism that has developed in the past fifty years. Some scholars suggest an incommensurability of values across cultures and religions. If knowledge is proscribed by social location and interpreted from that standpoint, no universal framework for values is possible. Scholars from different traditions have little basis for conversation or agreement in this view. Other scholars take a milder view of cultural relativism, arguing that knowledge can be broadened by interaction with those of other traditions.
As scholars realized how much social location influenced knowledge, cultural relativism both helped and hindered comparative religious ethics. The understandings of socially located knowledge helped to identify the Western bias in how comparisons of ethical systems across religions developed. This has led to respectful discussions of substantive traditions with real differences rather than attempts to craft universals on principles alone. Cultural relativism has hindered the idea of universal truth or values that go beyond cultural understandings. A kind of nihilism about what is good and true can result from an extreme relativizing of knowledge. That can hinder discussions across traditions because in that view each religion holds a socially located framework and set of values that are valid for itself and are not transferable to other contexts.
In response, some argue that when Western “universals” are recognized as situated knowledge, a more valid search for commonalities and ethical values across traditions can occur. Others argue that knowledge gained through dialogues across traditions can revitalize traditions. Finding that a tradition’s values may not be universal can be helpful to human flourishing. Both those responses assume a “soft” relativism that allows for social change through interaction.
The dialogue itself forms a new context in which imaginative and constructive ethical discourse can occur. In that new context, comparisons of religious ethics take on the character of interpreted knowledge. Dialogue geared to understanding can deepen appreciation of the values and ways of organizing the good in other traditions. That understanding can also reshape the view of one’s own tradition.
Another response to the challenge of relativism is a narrative approach to comparative religious ethics. Rather than compare categories of analysis or address questions of the universality or relativism of any particular tradition’s approach to ethics, listening to the narratives of those in other traditions forms the basis of this method. Sharing stories of major religious figures, such as Abraham, Siddhartha, Jesus, and Muhammad, can bring the ethics of different religious traditions into focus in a personal way. More recent figures can also be used to compare and contrast ways of formulating ethical principles and ideas across traditions. Using substantive narratives from religious texts and religious leaders fosters a different kind of discussion, one that is less oriented to systematization and more oriented to mutual understanding.
The challenge of approach: The demands of globalization. Those positive responses are not only hopeful but also necessary in an age of globalization. People of different religions mingle together in societies that once were monolithic, producing conflict around moral and cultural issues. The world needs some basis for resolving such conflict. Market economies merge and influence global financial health, presenting ethical issues for nations and corporations. Some agreement on trading practices, economic expansion, and protecting the environment seems necessary. Global mobility and wars that produce international refugees create situations that demand resolution.
Seeking answers to those dilemmas moves comparative religious ethics from a scholarly activity to one that involves political, social, and economic entities across societies. Cooperation and some shared values among religious traditions are necessary for peace. Protecting the environment is necessary for human flourishing. And competing goods must be weighed and evaluated from different religious perspectives. The emerging comparative religious ethics works to address those issues. It recognizes the importance of questions of religious identity and authority, values of equality and difference among peoples, the management of marriage and family life, as well as issues of economic globalization, human rights, and conflict and violence. Those have become urgent issues that require comparative religious ethics to analyze and evaluate, and to search for solutions to issues affecting people from many religious traditions. In addition to scholarly debate and analysis, agreements and action are now sought.
Going about that task requires identifying areas of convergence among religions without placing them in a hierarchy. Recognizing and honoring differences is also a response necessary for extending those convergences and identifying others. When traditions clash on values, withholding judgment may be necessary. Continuing discussion despite critical difference can broaden the horizons of traditions involved. Seeking interaction with political voices in societies, nongovernmental organizations, corporations, and disciplines such as philosophy, hermeneutics, sociology, and anthropology in addition to ethics and religious studies can also foster emerging comparative religious ethics.
Conclusion
Method, context, and approach are each addressed in the emerging discourse in comparative religious ethics as interpreted knowledge. A two-pronged method addresses questions of shared or universal values despite differing philosophical and religious frameworks and sifts through agreements and disagreements by studying substantive traditions. A recognition of the importance of context and per-spectival interpretations seeks to form broader contexts of dialogue across traditions, dialogue that fosters creative solutions to contemporary problems. Those new conversations address not just theoretical issues, but actual problems resulting from globalization, seeking practical solutions to those problems that would lead to harmony and human flourishing.
See also Cross-Cultural Ethics; Globalization; Natural Law; Natural Rights; Pluralism; Religious Toleration
Bibliography
Adeney, F., and A. Sharma, eds. Christianity and Human Rights: Influences and Issues. State University of New York Press, 2007; Bauman, Z. Postmodern Ethics. Blackwell, 1993; Fasching, D., and D. Dechant. Comparative Religious Ethics: A Narrative Approach. Blackwell, 2001; Little, D., and S. Twiss. Comparative Religious Ethics. Harper & Row, 1978; Morgan, P., and C. Lawton, eds. Ethical Issues in Six Religious Traditions. 2nd ed. Edinburgh University Press, 2007; Schweiker, W., M. Johnson, and K. Jung, eds. Humanity before God: Contemporary Faces of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Ethics. Fortress, 2006; Sullivan, W., and W. Kymlicka, eds. The Globalization of Ethics: Religious and Secular Perspectives. Cambridge University Press, 2007; Taylor, C. Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity. Harvard University Press, 1989; Wolfe, R., and C. Gudorf, eds. Ethics and World Religions: Cross-Cultural Case Studies. Orbis, 1999.
Frances Adeney
God’s Faithful Compassion
The OT recounts God’s compassion with thanksgiving and praise, while expressing the confidence and hope that this divine compassion will continue to be upon God’s people throughout all time. The Hebrew word raham and its variants describe God’s love, mercy, and abundant care. God’s compassion is like the tender parental love and care for a dear child (Ps. 103:13; Isa. 49:15), but much greater. The breadth and depth of God’s love perdures in constancy in the face of the people’s persistent unfaithfulness. God’s acts of compassion include forgiveness (1 Kgs. 8:50; Mic. 7:18), comfort (Isa. 49:15), patient presence (Isa. 30:18), loving-kindness (Ps. 145:8), and the restoration of justice (Jer. 13:14).
God listens to the needs of the people and responds with compassion (Exod. 2:27). God promises to have compassion on his servants (Deut. 32:36). The writer of Lamentations claims confidence in God’s sure compassion, even and especially when God has first brought suffering (3:32). Isaiah calls for joyful responses to the fact that God does and will show compassion on those who wait for him to provide comfort and justice (30:18; 49:15). The psalms are replete with thankful proclamations of God’s past compassion (78:38), desperate pleas for God’s present compassion (6:2), and sure predictions of God’s compassion to come (135:14). Although God’s compassion appears more frequently in the OT than human compassion, God calls the people to practice compassionate justice through care for one another (Lev. 25:35-37 [the Jubilee]), for animals (Deut. 25:4), and for resident aliens (Exod. 23:9).
God’s Compassion through Jesus Christ
In the NT, God manifests compassion in Jesus Christ, who constantly reaches out with works of healing and ministry to the needy, the suffering, and the outcast. Jesus responds in love and mercy to those whose pain, loneliness, and faith are strong. His compassion moves him to pour out healing care, forgiveness, and comforting presence, even to the point of his death and beyond in resurrection and ascension. J esus is moved with compassion (splanchnizomai) when he sees the hungry crowds waiting with no food, and he provides them all with bread and fish (Matt. 9:36). He is similarly moved when he sees a widow following as her dead son is being carried to the grave (Luke 7:13), and after telling her not to weep, he brings her son back to life. The sick and afflicted cry out to him for mercy (eleeo), and he heals them. He is touched by the same feelings that we experience, and he sympathizes with our weaknesses, though without succumbing to temptation as we do (Heb. 4:15). Throughout, God stands as the source of all mercies (oiktirmos) (2 Cor. 1:3), sharing that mercy and love for us with the gift of his Son, Jesus Christ (Eph. 2:4). In God’s infinite compassion, God gives the embodiment of divine compassion in human form.
Compassion of the Passible and Impassible God During the last century, relational and openness theologies have expressed concern that traditional understandings of divine compassion describe a God who is detached from the suffering of creatures. Instead of claiming that God is both compassionate and unchanged by that compassion, this view champions a God who suffers with those who suffer, who (in the OT) responds with an emotional compassion not unlike human compassion (only greater), and who (in the NT) suffers and dies as God in Jesus Christ’s crucifixion. In this way, God is passible, subject to the shifting circumstances that affect creatures.
The notion of a passibly compassionate God appeals to those looking for a present, accessible God who addresses contemporary pain, disaster, and evil by sharing in creaturely pain. They draw on biblical interpretation that emphasizes the way God’s feelings and actions are described anthropomorphically, especially in the OT. The accompanying NT interpretation emphasizes the unity of the Trinity and the oneness of the hypostatic union more than the particularity of Christ’s human and divine identities. The resulting presentation of God allows for the God of Israel and of the Trinity to respond in suffering compassion, in the time and space of creatures’ lives.
In contrast, a contemporary reclamation of the early church’s understanding of God as passible in a way that does not negate divine impassibility claims that all anthropomorphic images of God rest on the prior and foundational character of God as impassible, as unchanged and undiminished by the pain and death of the created world. Early hymns proclaim the mysterious and immanent presence of God, who compassionately cares for, suffers with, and comforts his people, without the changes that characterize human physical and emotional feelings. This understanding of God as passible and impassible emphasizes the effectiveness of Christ’s compassionate ministry, suffering, death, and resurrection without imposing the human nature of Christ onto Christ’s divine and divinely shared impassible nature.
Ethics of Compassion
Contrasting assessments of the compassionate God can lead to different emphases in the ethics of human compassion. A commitment to God’s passibility recognizes that some problems are too great for God to change, and it focuses on human agency to bring about compassionate social change here and now. A commitment to God’s impassibility places less emphasis on the capacity of human agency to effect change, and it focuses on human compassion that reflects and points toward God’s ultimate power to bring eternal justice. Nonetheless, both the primarily passible and the primarily impassible interpretations of God claim his compassion for creation as a constant and determinative mark of his relationship with humans and all of creation. The compassion that God shows to his chosen people in the OT models the compassionate justice that God’s prophets exhort his people to embody. Both interpretations require Christians to imitate, albeit imperfectly, Jesus Christ’s divinely human compassionate ministry to the lost, hungry, poor, and suffering.
In word and activity, Christ issues an ethical call to the people of God to care for the needy with compassionate kindness, which the Samaritan did for the victim of a violent robbery (Luke 10:33), but which the rich man failed to do for the ill and impoverished Lazarus (Luke 16:19-21). This compassionate discipleship is not an attitude or feeling, but rather involves living with the poor as the poor, sharing all possessions, and extending familial commitments of care to strangers and enemies. The book of Acts shows how the earliest Christians try to live into Jubilee compassion, even in the face of persecution. The NT Epistles urge those who follow Christ to clothe themselves with “compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience” (Col. 3:12), to suffer with and care for prisoners (Heb. 10:34), and to help those in need (1 John 3:17).
Today’s responses to God’s call for human compassion include liberation theology’s solidarity with the poor, feminist ethics of care, feminist and womanist attention to trauma, pacifist and just-war ethics of peacemaking, animal care ethics, ecological ethics, and ethics that look to spread God’s compassion universally.
See also Care, Caring; Feminist Ethics; Trinity
Bibliography
Fretheim, T. The Suffering of God: An Old Testament Perspective. Fortress, 1984; Moreno, J. “Evangelization.” Pages 564-80 in Mysterium Liberationis: Fundamental Concepts of Liberation Theology, ed. I. Ellacuria and J. Sobrino. Orbis, 1993; Sanders, J. The God Who Risks: A Theology of Providence. InterVarsity, 1998; Sears, D. Compassion for Humanity in the Jewish Tradition. Jason Aronson, 1998; Webb, S. On God and Dogs: A Christian Theology of Compassion for Animals. Oxford University Press, 2002; Weinandy, T. Does God Suffer? University of Notre Dame Press, 2000; Welch, S. A Feminist Ethic of
Risk. Augsburg, 2000.
Margaret B. Adam
Biblical authors did not possess the knowledge that we now have regarding human reproduction, nor could they have foreseen the reproductive technologies available today. Scripture assumes, for example, that conception occurs through heterosexual intercourse. Scripture does provide a vision of the origins of human life that may orient and inform ethical reflection on reproduction and the moral value of human life in its earliest stages.
Genesis describes the creation of the first humans. God fashions Adam from the earth (Gen. 2:7) and Eve from Adam’s rib (Gen. 2:21-23). Thereafter, humans are conceived through intercourse, except for Jesus, who is conceived by the Holy Spirit (Matt. 1:18; Luke 1:26-38). Natural reproduction falls under the governance of God, the maker of life. God alone opens (Gen. 29:31; 30:22) and closes (Gen. 20:18; 1 Sam. 1:5) wombs. Scripture conveys both God’s sovereignty as the Lord of life and God’s intimate knowledge of us in passages that speak of God forming us in our mother’s wombs: “You knit me together in my mother’s womb. . . . In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed” (Ps. 139:13b, 16b). All human life originates within God’s plan of salvation history, yet in various places Scripture tells of divine appointment from the womb. Jeremiah is called by God from the beginning: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you” (Jer. 1:5). From within Elizabeth’s womb John the Baptist heralds the arrival of Jesus (Luke 1:41, 44) and is the prophet of the Most High who prepares the way of the Lord (Luke 1:57-80). Paul writes to the Galatians that God had set him apart and called him before he was born (Gal. 1:15). The general witness of Scripture is one of awe or wonder at the mysterious origins of life under the providential sovereignty of God (Eccl. 11:5). Scriptural emphasis on God’s initiative and authorship rather than human will relativizes parental claims to offspring (see 2 Macc. 7:22-23) and emphasizes that life is a gift given by God.
Scriptural perspectives on conception bear on ethical issues such as abortion, desirable conditions for reproduction, and assisted reproductive technologies. Human life undoubtedly begins at conception, but Christians disagree regarding the moral status of prenatal human life. The Catholic magisterium argues for a right to life from conception until natural death, whereas ethicists such as Beverly Wildung Harrison differentiate the moral status of pre- and postnatal human life. Circumstances surrounding one’s conception—rape, incest, assisted reproduction, within marriage or by casual sex—sometimes contribute to stigmas given religious warrant (see Witte). Oliver O’Donovan argues that extracorporeal conception distorts the parent-child relationship into that of creator and artifact, though moral analyses of assisted reproduction would also need to consider biblical attitudes toward fecundity, infertility, kinship, and healing.
See also Abortion; Birth Control; Family Planning; Procreation; Reproductive Technologies; Sexual Ethics
Bibliography
Harrison, B. Our Right to Choose: Toward a New Ethic of Abortion. Beacon Press, 1983; John Paul II. Evange-lium Vitae. United States Catholic Conference, 1995; O’Donovan, O. Begotten or Made? Human Procreation and Medical Technique. Oxford University Press, 1984; Witte, J., Jr. “Ishmael’s Bane: The Sin and Crime of Illegitimacy Reconsidered.” Punishment and Society: The International Journal of Penology 5 (2003): 327-45.
Darlene Fozard Weaver
The word concubine derives from the Latin concu-bina, itself derived from concumbere, meaning “to lie with” (com = with + cubare = to lie down). The NRSV consistently translates the Hebrew term pileges (37x in the OT) as “concubine.” The word pileges has no cognates in the other Semitic languages in the region. It may be a loanword based on the Greek term pallax (variants pallake, pal-lakis) meaning “concubine,” perhaps penetrating
Israelite culture via the Philistines, who were Aegean in origin (Rabin). The Oxford English Dictionary defines concubinage as “the cohabiting of a man and a woman who are not legally married,” while stating under concubine that this position was legally recognized in Hebrew and Islamic societies. This inconsistency reveals the difficulty of defining the notion with precision. In biblical context, concubines had a recognized place within the
social system. But the legal codes of the OT do not specify the conditions and requirements of either proper marriage or concubinage; a sketch of what constitutes concubinage, the reasons it existed, and why it was permitted must be constructed on the basis of narrative texts. An additional difficulty arises with the common Hebrew noun ’issa, which basically means “woman” but often is rendered as “wife” where translators think it contextually appropriate; readers should remember that translating ’issa as “wife” and ’is as “husband” may be overly restrictive because Hebrew has no specific term for “wife” or “husband” (as is true of Greek as well).
There is no consensus in biblical studies regarding the social status of the concubine. Tal Davidovich identified four definitions represented in the scholarly literature. A concubine is (1) a secondary wife acquired by purchase or as booty in war who is midway in status between primary wife and maidservant (Deut. 21:10-14); (2) a maidservant whose function was to perpetuate her master’s line by bearing sons (Gen. 16:2-4 [sipha, “slave-girl”]; 30:3 [’ama, “maid”]); (3) a woman who lives in a bonded relationship with a man within his household without legally being married to him (by analogy with Hellenistic and Roman law); and (4) a woman married to a man but who still lives in her father’s house, so-called matriarchal matrimony (Judg. 8:3). Likewise, there is no consensus regarding the status and rights of children issuing from a concubine relationship. Biblical evidence supports a range of options, from equal inheritance rights, to lesser rights than children of primary wives, to no inherent property rights.
Texts from the wider Middle East do not settle the issues. Middle Assyrian law (late second millennium BCE) regulates concubinage and inheritance. A citizen may declare before witnesses that his concubine is to be his wife; then when he dies, his concubine’s sons will receive a share of his estate (Pritchard 183, no. 41). In Roman law, concubinatus was an enduring monogamous relationship. It was an alternative to legal marriage, often exercised when the man had higher social status (Treggiari). Because concubinatus was not legal marriage, offspring would not automatically inherit their father’s estate. In postbiblical Jewish law, a Jewish woman who lives monogamously with a Jewish man without the legality of a ke-tubah (marriage contract) is a concubine. Only one talmudic source addresses the legal difference between wives and concubines. Reflecting on David’s wives and concubines, b. Sanh. 21a says that a wife has kiddushin (betrothal) and ketubah, whereas a concubine has neither; little else is said in the Talmud. By the early centuries CE, Jews virtually ceased practicing concubinage (Adler).
In distinction from Roman law, Hebrew concubinage was not a mutually exclusive alternative to marriage, but when practiced, it was a supplement to marriage. A man could have one or more wives and have one or more concubines at the same time. Concubinage seems to have been mostly the prerogative of community or state leaders. In the OT, patriarchs, tribal chieftains, and kings are those who took concubines: Abraham had Ke-turah (1 Chr. 1:32), Abraham’s brother Nahor had Reumah (Gen. 22:24), Jacob had Bilhah (specifically identified as a concubine in Gen. 35:22), and Caleb had two concubines, Ephah and Maacah (1 Chr. 2:46, 48).
Sarah’s maidservant Hagar is not identified specifically as a concubine, but she was Egyptian, apparently a slave, and clearly was not equal in status with Sarah; there is no evidence that concubines were necessarily slaves. There is evidence that offspring of concubines were viewed as potential rivals of the children of primary wives, as was the case with Hagar’s Ishmael as well as Abraham’s other concubines’ sons (Gen. 25:6), and Gideon’s son Abimelech (Judg. 8:29-31).
Biblical writers sometimes note that certain dishonorable men consorted with concubines or were the sons of concubines; it might be worth asking why. Reuben consorted with his father’s concubine Bilhah (Gen. 35:22) and brought dishonor upon himself (Gen. 49:3-4). The concubine of Esau’s son Eliphaz bore Amalek (Gen. 36:12), and Ama-lek was Israel’s most heinous tribal enemy. The book of Judges associates two concubines with disreputable figures; in both cases the concubine is from an outside clan or tribe. While Gideon had seventy local sons by many wives, Gideon’s concubine was from Shechem, and she bore him Abimelech, who went on to declare himself king (Judg. 8-9). An unnamed Levite from Ephraim took a concubine from Bethlehem. After he allowed her to be ravaged and raped to death by an unruly mob of Benjaminites, he cut her in pieces (Judg. 19-21); this lengthy story is told to stigmatize the Benjaminites.
Kings assembled collections of royal women for a variety of reasons, including the making of diplomatic alliances, as war trophies, and as court helpers such as singers, weavers, and dancers. Not all held the same rank once they entered the king’s household. Some women held the rank of wife (issa), others were royal concubines, and still others were maidservants. Among the kings who took concubines, Saul took Rizpah (2 Sam. 3:7; 21:11), and David had at least ten concubines (2 Sam. 15:16; 20:3) in addition to wives. Absalom slept specifically with David’s concubines whom he had left behind (2 Sam. 16:21-22). Solomon had three hundred royal concubines from foreign lands in addition to his seven hundred princess wives. Re-hoboam had eighteen wives and sixty concubines (2 Chr. 11:21). Curiously, only kings reigning from Jerusalem are mentioned as having concubines, none from the kingdom of Israel. Concubines were considered royal assets, and any attempt by someone other than the king (e.g., Adonijah [1 Kgs. 2:21-22]) to sleep with them was considered an attempt to usurp the throne. Since the children of royal concubines were reckoned among the group of royal offspring and shared rights with the children of royal wives (Davidovich), controlling reproductive access to concubines protected the lines of office and inheritance. Overall, there is no moral criticism of concubinage as a social practice. While the Deuteronomistic History criticizes Solomon for taking a thousand wives, it was not because of their number or because they included concubines, but because they turned his heart from exclusive devotion to Yahweh (1 Kgs. 11:1-13).
In the NT, the word concubine is never used, and there is no specific reference to concubinage. The only possible indirect allusion comes in the Pastoral Epistles where qualifications for church officers are specified. Bishops, deacons, and elders should be “married only once” (1 Tim. 3:2, 12; Titus 1:6)—literally, be a “man/husband of one woman/wife.” The NRSV may be misleading insofar as this text does not specifically rule out marrying more than one woman, but says only that a man may have but one woman at a time. This qualification for office may be specifying serial monogamy and perhaps was formulated in this way in order to align with Roman marriage practice, and it may be a move away from the Jewish tolerance of polygamy and concubinage; however, there are other interpretions of this prescription.
See also Family; Marriage and Divorce; Polygamy
Bibliography
Adler, R. Engendering Judaism: An Inclusive Theology and Ethics. Beacon Press, 1999; Davidovich, T. The Mystery of the House of Royal Women: Royal Pllagsim as Secondary Wives in the Old Testament. Uppsala Universitet, 2007; Levin, S. “Hebrew pi(y)leges, Greek παλλακή, Latin paelex: The Origin of Intermarriage among the Early Indo-Europeans and Semites.” General Linguistics 23 (1983): 191—97; Page, S. “Marital Expectations of Church Leaders in the Pastoral Epistles.” jSNT 50 (1993): 105-20; Pritchard, J. Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament. 3rd ed. Princeton University Press, 1969; Rabin, C. “The Origin of the Word Pileges.” JJS 25 (1974): 353-64; Treg-giari, S. Roman Marriage: Iusti Coniuges from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian. Oxford University Press, 1991.
Barry Bandstra
Confession in Scripture, tradition, and Christian ethics encompasses four deeply intertwined meanings: confession of praise, thanks, sin, and faith. By tracing confession in Scripture, we come to see worship as Christian ethics.
In Scripture
Two terms translate as “to confess” in Scripture: yada (or toda) in Hebrew and homologeo (and exomologeo) in Greek. Old Testament notions of confessing entail a sense of action—casting forth thanks or praise for blessings, casting transgressions out of the self or community, or throwing out into the world claims of allegiance to the God of Israel. The word yada first occurs in Scripture on the lips of Leah (Gen. 29:35), who proclaims that in praise of God for the birth of her fourth son, she will call him “Judah,” whose name means “praise.” In the OT 80 percent of the occurrences of yada mean “thanks” or “praise”; most of these appear in the psalms, songs for communal worship.
The remaining occurrences of yada in the OT split about evenly between confession of sin and confession of God’s name. With the covenant comes the obligation to confess uncleanness, transgressions, or unrighteousness (Lev. 5:5). Central to the worship of God by the people of Israel (Ps. 32:5), such confession is highly embodied, being intertwined with the bodies of sacrificial animals or the scapegoat, understood to literally carry the sins of the community into the desert (Lev. 16:21). Via confession, righteousness dislodged from among God, individuals, and community by human action is restored.
These same meanings carry over into the NT, but with a decisive shift in emphasis. The word homologeo also signifies confession of praise, thanks, sins, or faith, but faith emerges as primary. Deriving from the roots logos (“word”) and homou (“together”), homologeo entails a more verbal sense, suggesting “to speak” and “to agree.” Contrary to the OT, almost 75 percent of the time homologeo or exomologeo in the NT refers to confessing the name of the Lord Jesus or confessing faith in Christ Jesus (e.g., Matt. 10:32; John 9:22; Rom. 10:9). Such confession entails conversion to a new way of life among God’s people and repentance for and confession of one’s earlier sins.
In the Christian Tradition
“Confession” retains these multiple, interconnected meanings throughout Christian history. Augustine’s Confessions is the exemplar par excellence. But due to the NT influence, confession of sin and faith come to dominate. The practice of confessing sins, rooted in Judaism, remains central to the early church (Jas. 5:16; Did. 14.1), fundamental to conversion, a precursor to baptism, and key for reconciliation within the Christian community. Confession of sin becomes central to the eventual sacrament of penance, a practice rejected as a sacrament by the Reformation but retained in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions. The practice of general confession of sin remains a central component of most Christian liturgies.
Protestant traditions come to highlight confession of faith. In the NT “to confess” primarily refers to a public witness to the faith, even to the point of martyrdom. Confessions were relatively simple in the early church (“Jesus is Lord”), becoming more complex with the christological controversies, culminating in the creeds. Similarly, the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries saw the emergence of official statements of doctrine in the Protestant churches, of which the Lutheran Augsburg Confession was the first (1530).
Confession, Worship, and Christian Ethics Tracing this history of confession highlights the deep wisdom of the Judeo-Christian tradition: worship is ethics (see Hauerwas and Wells). To praise and worship God is a moral act, the primary act of justice, according to Augustine (Civ. 19). To confess Jesus as Lord, to confess the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as the one God, is to enact the first commandment; confession, therefore, is the ground of all the commandments of the Torah and the new covenant. To confess is to commit an act of truth, not just verbally, mentally, or propositionally, but with one’s life and actions. For to confess the Lord entails conversion, becoming a member of God’s people, a complete change of life. It requires an ongoing practice of truthfulness about ourselves, especially of where we fall short, and of confession and reconciliation. As the OT attests, confession is a bodily action, something that we do not only with our words but also with our bodies and lives.
See also Conversion; Faith; Forgiveness; Liturgy and Ethics; Martyrdom; Penance; Reconciliation; Repentance; Sin
Bibliography
Hauerwas, S., and S. Wells. The Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics. Blackwell, 2006.
M. Therese Lysaught