Dependent care involves care for individuals who are in some way unable to care for themselves, whether due to problems of age, health, or finance. The dependent individual might be a member of the family of the caregiver or the community of the caregiver, or the relationship might be legal and contractual.
The issue of dependent care, though not discussed as such in the Bible, is seen throughout both Testaments. In the giving of the Mosaic law, the people of Israel are directed to care for the widow, the orphan, and the outcast in their midst. Exodus 22:22-23 tells the people of Israel, “You shall not abuse any widow or orphan. If you do abuse them, when they cry out to me, I will surely heed their cry.” The covenant curses outlined in Deut. 27 include the statement, “Cursed be anyone who deprives the alien, the orphan, and the widow of justice” (Deut. 27:19). The Decalogue command, “Honor your father and your mother” (Exod. 20:12), requires children to care for their aging parents.
The OT wisdom literature refers to children as a gift (Ps. 127:3-5) and talks about the importance of disciplining them (Prov. 13:1,24). Additionally, the wisdom literature is clear about the need for children to obey their parents (Prov. 28:24; 30:17). These passages make clear the need for parents to care for children wisely (which includes proper discipline) and the need for children to honor their parents (which includes caring for them in their old age).
When the prophets speak out against the people of Israel on behalf of God, one of the primary complaints raised concerns the way in which they failed to care for the marginalized, which includes both children and the elderly. Zechariah evokes the Mosaic law in stating, “Thus says the Lord of hosts: Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another; do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another” (Zech. 7:9-10). Dependent care, even though not directly addressed as such, is addressed across the entire OT. Law, wisdom, and prophets all call for care for the vulnerable in society. The obligation falls not only on family members but also on the whole of society.
The OT notion of justice, which transcends many contemporary notions of justice, requires not only that one refrain from treating the vulnerable badly, not only that people care for other family members but also that the whole society provide care for the vulnerable and dependent.
The ethic of care for those who depend on others (including the poor and the marginalized) continues in the NT. Ephesians 6:1-4 emphasizes the need for children to obey parents and for parents to raise children with godly instruction, which implies proper care of dependents, whether children or elderly parents. James writes, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world” (Jas. 1:27). Luke-Acts has a particular emphasis on the idea that God shows no partiality and calls all classes of people, whether in the upper echelons of society or on its margins. This is seen in Luke’s use of Isa. 61:1-2 in the account of Jesus’ rejection at Nazareth (Luke 4:16-30). In this text, Jesus proclaims that his mission is to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim the release of captives, and to let the oppressed go free (Luke 4:18).
Perhaps most important in the NT is a clear emphasis on God as Father and the need of all for care from God. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus exhorts his hearers not to worry about life’s various needs: “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matt. 6:31-33). The apostle Paul says that all who follow Christ are children of God, and that the Holy Spirit bears witness to this when we call out to God as Father (Rom. 8:12-17).
The fact that dependent care is a communal obligation and not just a familial one bears upon some contemporary issues related to dependent care. One such issue is that the burdens of dependent care are often borne especially by women. The demands of dependent care can affect their relationships to both other persons and their work. Gloria Albrecht observes that the common assumption is that childrearing is the responsibility of women such that women are expected to take time away from work to care for children either full time if possible or when a child is sick or without childcare. This means that it is women whose work suffers when childcare plans fall through or become complicated due to illness. Further, the burdens of eldercare also fall disproportionately on women.
There is another problem: the burdens of dependent care often are assigned to poor women. Women who are employed in high-paying jobs
typically rely on lower-income women to provide childcare or eldercare. Albrecht writes, “All over the world, poor women from the periphery leave their own families to care for the children of women (and men) in the overdeveloped world” (Albrecht 83). In essence, Albrecht claims, middle-and upper-income women secure the well-being of their families at the expense of lower-income women. Albrecht’s claims are furthered by Arlie Hochschild’s The Second Shift, which explores the ways in which women who work full-time carry a greater burden of household work (dubbed by Hochschild “the second shift”) than their male partners. This too, following Albrecht’s argument, could be alleviated for higher-income families through the reliance on lower-income individuals, most of whom are women.
Albrecht also observes that in the United States the lowest-paid jobs do not provide a living wage. As a result of this, some workers, though employed, are forced to use public assistance in various forms (Medicaid, WIC, and housing subsidies are the most commonly used). When this is done, “the cost of labor has been social-ized—not to the benefit of the common good but to the benefit of profit-making corporations” (Albrecht 89).
Both Testaments make clear that we are called to give care to those who need it, and to do so with social responsibility. If middle- and upper-income families procure their own work-life balances at the expense of poor families, those situations are characterized by the very lack of justice condemned by the prophets. Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz argues that without justice, religious beliefs and practices could be the “opium of the people” as Karl Marx claimed. Isasi-Diaz looks to the work of Margaret Farley to claim that true justice flows from a commitment to persons and mutuality. When we realize that there is something in us that binds us to others (even if the other does not explicitly realize it), then we are able to continue to pursue justice without losing sight of the reasons it is sought in the first place. This is the kind of justice, and mutuality in caregiving, to which biblical religion calls us.
See also Care, Caring; Economic Ethics; Feminist Ethics; Healthcare Ethics; Welfare State
Bibliography
Albrecht, G. Hitting Home: Feminist Ethics, Women’s Work, and the Betrayal of “Family Values." Continuum, 2002; Hochschild, A. The Second Shift. Penguin Books, 2003; Isasi-Diaz, A. “Justice and Love Shall Kiss.” Pages 163—96 in A Just and True Love: Feminism at the Frontiers of Theological Ethics; Essays in Honor of Margaret A. Farley. University of Notre Dame Press, 2007; Ladd, G. A Theology of the New Testament. Rev. ed. Eerdmans, 1993; Rendtorff, R. The Canonical Hebrew Bible: A Theology of the Old Testament. Trans. D. Orton. Deo Publishing, 2005. Verhey, A. Remembering Jesus: Christian Community, Scripture, and the Moral Life. Eerd-mans, 2002.
Mary M. Veeneman
Desertion is the abandonment of military duty without the permission of one’s superiors and with the intent of not returning. In the American and English common law traditions, it encompasses the act of being “absent without leave” (AWOL). To desert in a military context can include leaving one’s post contrary to orders, abandoning one’s unit to avoid battle, or otherwise failing to fulfill one’s military responsibilities.
From a moral perspective, desertion is the failure to fulfill one’s obligations to one’s nation or its military institutions. These obligations may arise out of a general sense of patriotic duty or out of an explicit promise or oath that one has made to participate in military service. This can be understood deontologically as a matter of pure principle, in the sense that one’s obligations are a matter of unconditional obedience to a moral law. It can also be understood teleologically, in the sense that desertion can jeopardize the possibility of victory, costing lives and possibly resulting in conquest of one’s nation. It can also be understood to be a failure of virtue, insofar as it can be understood as evidence of cowardice in the face of the possibility of death or serious injury.
However, desertion has also been understood as an act of protest by soldiers against unjust or immoral wars. During the Vietnam War, for example, a significant number of US soldiers deserted, in some cases leaving the country to avoid prosecution, understanding this to be an act of conscience. Similar acts of desertion as a form of protest have taken place in the Iraq War. Desertion as the refusal to fight an unjust war can thus be understood not as a failure to fulfill one’s moral obligations, but as obedience to a higher moral obligation. This concept is embedded in the Nuremberg Principles, which affirmed the obligation of soldiers to act morally even in the face of immoral commands. By the same token, the right of conscientious objection is recognized under international law to permit individuals to refuse to fight in wars that they deem to be immoral.
In the biblical context, desertion is usually described as the abandonment by soldiers of their posts (e.g., 2 Kgs. 7:4; 1 Chr. 12:19), but the concept is also used in English biblical translations to describe the abandonment of God by Israel, as well as the forsaking of Israel by God. It is also used to describe the abandonment of Jesus by his disciples. Paul uses the idea of desertion or abandonment to describe the rej ection of the gospel by the early Christian communities, through their lack of faith or immoral actions. In these cases, the idea of desertion is not used in the specifically military sense, but it does depend on the same underlying assumption that individuals have an obligation of faithfulness to God that through idolatry and sinful action they fail to fulfill.
See also Conscientious Objection; Duty; Military Service; War
Bibliography
International Law Commission. “Principles of International Law Recognized in the Charter of the Nurnberg Tribunal and in the Judgment of the Tribunal.” Yearbook of the International Law Commission (1950), vol. 2, paragraph 97; United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. “Conscientious Objection to Military Service: United Nations Commission on Human Rights Resolution 1998/77.” Adopted April 22, 1998.
Scott Paeth
Desire, as a human orientation toward other people, objects, or states of being, appears as a characteristic attribute of human existence. Discussion of desire engages the appropriateness or otherwise of the objects of desire and its contribution to human well-being. In the OT, desire is generally not seen to carry a negative or positive ethical quality in itself; this depends on the circumstances in question and the object of desire. The NT writers, by contrast, frequently offer a more negative view of human desire. This may well be due to the influence of negative attitudes toward desire in influential strands of Greco-Roman moral discourse at the time.
Desire in the Old Testament
A sense of desire is expressed by several Hebrew terms, usually the stem wh, although hsq and hps can also connote longing for or setting one’s heart on a desired object or person.
Desire for another human being is almost always expressed as the desire of a man for a woman (e.g., Gen. 34:2-3, 8; Deut. 21:11; 2 Sam. 11:2-4; 13:2), as one might expect within the androcentric culture of the time. Although the violent consequences that such sexual desire can lead to are ethically negative, there is no implication that the desire in itself is wrong, and so desire can lead to marriage (Deut. 21:11-13) and is portrayed as appropriate in the acclamation of royal marriage in Ps. 45:11. The positive potential of such relational desire is further shown in the expression of God’s desire for Israel (Deut. 10:15).
The exception to the portrayal of male actors desiring passive females is in Gen. 3:16, where
God tells Eve that her “desire” (Heb. tesuqa, a rare term) will be for her husband, who, however, will rule over her, as the apparent primordial harmony of Adam and Eve is replaced by yearning and domination.
An uncomplicated sense of moral differentiation in relation to desire is implied by the book of Proverbs’ references in general terms to the desires of the righteous and the wicked: the desire of the righteous leads to good (Prov. 11:23), and the wicked desire evil (Prov. 21:10), with the expectation that the righteous will receive their desire (Prov. 10:24; 13:12, 19). A similar sense is reflected in some of the psalms: the king who trusts God receives his desire (Ps. 21:1-7), whereas the wicked receive nothing (Ps. 112:10).
Desire in Greco-Roman Moral Thought
The role of desire, as humans pursued happiness or the good life, received greater systematic consideration from Greek and Roman philosophy than it did in the OT. Aristotle argued that desire, at a general level, had a role to play in ethical conduct, in assigning good to some external object as an impulse to action, while at the same time he criticized the commonly observed excessive desire for such objects as wealth and status.
For Epicurus and his followers, happiness was attained in a tranquil life, to be pursued by differentiating empty desires, which led to a disturbed and anxious life, from those “natural” desires that usually could be fulfilled in a modest and proportionate way. To the Stoics, however, desire was one of the passions that distracted people from happiness by focusing on some external object as good, whereas, in reality, only virtue was good. Desire was not in harmony with the rationality of the universe, which enabled the intentional selection of worthwhile action, and so humans needed to be free of desire and other negative passions in order to realize their well-being.
Desire in the New Testament
Some later Jewish writings, including 4 Maccabees, Philo, and Josephus, show the influence of Greco-Roman reflection on desire, particularly the negative Stoic attitude. In the NT, “desire” is represented by the Greek word epithymia, the same word the Stoics used in their negative assessment; particularly in the epistolary texts, it tends to be portrayed in a negative light.
On the one hand, the noun epithymia rarely occurs in the Gospels, though the cognate verb epithymeo is used several times, with less negative overtones, to depict a sense of longing (Matt. 13:17; Luke 16:21; 17:22; 22:15). On the other hand, the negative role of desire is highlighted in the intensification of the command against adultery in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:28), and in the Markan version of Jesus’ parable of the sower, where desire for other things is one of the thorns that choke the word (Mark 4:19).
In Romans and Galatians, Paul associates desire with mortal human existence, unable to resist the power of sin (Rom. 1:24; 6:12; 13:14; Gal. 5:16, 24). Those who belong to Christ, empowered by the Spirit, are able to overcome desire in a fashion not entirely dissimilar to the way the training of philosophy equips the Epicurean or Stoic to deal with desire. A similar outlook is evident in Ephesians and Colossians (Eph. 2:3; 4:22; Col. 3:5). This is carried through in the Pastoral Epistles also (1 Tim. 6:9; 2 Tim. 2:22; 3:6; 4:3; Titus 2:12; 3:3), often in the context of emphasis on Christian teaching (1 Tim. 6:2b-3; 2 Tim 3:7; 4:3; Titus 2:1-10).
The Johannine tradition also portrays desire negatively, as a worldly quality in contrast with God’s will (1 John 2:16-17). A negative attitude is also typical of the General Epistles: desire is worldly, “of the flesh,” characteristic of the ignorance of believers’ former lives (1 Pet. 1:14; 2:11; 4:2-3; 2 Pet. 1:4; 2:18). For James, one’s own desires lead to sin and death (Jas. 1:14-15), by contrast with God’s gift of birth by the “word of truth” (Jas. 1:17-18).
See also Emotion; Greed; Lust; Passions Bibliography
Brennan, T. The Stoic Life: Emotions, Duty, and Fate. Oxford University Press, 2005; Brenner, A. The Intercourse of Knowledge: On Gendering Desire and “Sexuality" in the Hebrew Bible. BIS 26. Brill, 1997; Ellis, J. Paul and Ancient Views of Sexual Desire: Paul’s Sexual Ethics in 1 Thes-salonians 4, 1 Corinthians 7, and Romans 1. LNTS 54. T&T Clark, 2007; Engberg-Pedersen, T. Paul and the Stoics. Westminster John Knox, 2000; Nussbaum, M. The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics. MCL 2. Princeton University Press, 1994; Sorabji, R. Emotion and Peace of Mind: From Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation. Oxford University Press, 2000; Trible, P. God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality. Fortress, 1986.
David Hutchinson Edgar Determinism See Free Will and Determinism
Nuclear deterrence is a strategy for dissuading enemy attack by threatening retaliatory nuclear strikes. During the Cold War, deterrence was associated with the possibility of “mutual assured destruction” if superpowers exchanged nuclear war. This led the American Catholic Bishops in 1983 to claim that they were members of “the first generation since Genesis with the power to virtually destroy God’s creation.”
Moral problems with deterrence follow from two claims: (1) use of nuclear weapons would necessarily bring about evils disproportionate to any potential good realized and/or would entail the direct targeting of noncombatants; and (2) it is inherently evil to threaten (or intend) disproportionate acts of war or the direct targeting of noncombatants. Defenders of nuclear deterrence must deny some part of these claims.
Some contend that the language of “inherent evil” is inadequate for determining moral duties in the situation. In some cases, they argue, it is necessary to choose the lesser of two evils.
Others, while granting that nuclear war entails inherent evil, deny that deterrence entails inherent evil. Some deny that threatening an immoral act is itself immoral. This leads to the idea of the “bluff,” in which a state threatens nuclear retaliation but has no intent to carry it out. Bluffing, however, faces serious logistical problems. It is almost impossible to realistically threaten without requiring that some participants intend retaliation. Another argument focuses on the distinction between intending deterrence and intending the deployment of nuclear weapons. Deterrence is a strategy, the outcome of which depends on multiple parties. It is wrong, this argument holds, to equate having a deterrent strategy with having a nuclear war.
Others argue that the deployment of nuclear weapons does not necessarily entail inherent evil. Some argue that there is no technological necessity of disproportionate evil in the deployment of nuclear weapons. Others use the doctrine of “double effect” to argue that as long as intended targets are military, any proportionate number of unintended noncombatant casualties could be morally tolerated in a nuclear strike. These arguments have been critiqued, however. Even if not technologically necessary, would not the use of nuclear weapons inevitably lead to disproportionate evil in practice? Can one viably deploy double effect when the actual destruction is so massive and the strategy of deterrence depends on the massiveness of this destruction? Finally, would the threat of a limited nuclear war function sufficiently as a deterrent?
See also Consequentialism; Deontological Theories of Ethics; Double Effect, Principle of; Ends and Means; Just-War Theory; War
Bibliography
Hollenbach, D. Nuclear Ethics: A Christian Moral Argument. Paulist Press, 1983; O’Donovan, O. Peace and
Certainty: A Theological Essay on Deterrence. Eerd-mans, 1989; Ramsey, P. The Just War: Force and Political Responsibility. Rowman & Littlefield, 2002; United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The Challenge of Peace: God’s Promise and Our Response. United States Catholic Conference, 1983; Walzer, M. Just and Unjust Wars. Basic Books, 1977.
Kevin Carnahan
The Apocrypha is a collection of Jewish writings dating somewhere between 250 BCE and 100 CE, written in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek, and composed across a wide geographic area. Although the texts were written by devout Jews, their collection into a discrete corpus is the result of Christian reading practices and positive evaluation of this material. The core of the collection includes two historical books (1-2 Maccabees), wisdom literature (Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach [also known as Wisdom of Ben Sira and as Ecclesiasticus]), additions to or rewritten versions of Jewish scriptural books (1 Esdras, Greek Esther, Greek Daniel [which includes the stories of Susanna and of Bel and the Dragon, as well as Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Young Men], Baruch, Letter of Jeremiah), and two edifying tales (Tobit, Judith). Current collections (e.g., the NRSV) also include two liturgical pieces (Ps. 151, Prayer of Manasseh), another specimen of historical fiction (3 Maccabees), an apocalypse (2 Esdras), and an essay promoting the Jewish “philosophy” (4 Maccabees).
The canonical status of these books has been a matter of debate from the beginning. Several of the Apocrypha have left a clear impression on the writings of the NT, though without ever being explicitly recited or referred to as Scripture. Many church fathers throughout the first four centuries of the church’s history continued to read and invoke these texts, increasingly as scriptural authorities in their own right, though with famous objections being raised to such usage (e.g., by Jerome, who championed the use of the Jewish canon and the Hebrew form of the Jewish scriptural texts as the Christian OT).
Currently, Eastern Orthodox communions and the Roman Catholic Church regard at least the core collection of these books as Scripture, with the former also including Prayer of Manasseh, Ps. 151, and 3 Maccabees. The term deuteroca-nonical is used in these contexts to affirm the canonical status of this collection while acknowledging the fact that their composition and collection followed subsequently, for the most part, on the composition and collection of the Hebrew canon. During the Reformation it became a hallmark of
Protestant churches to exclude these books from the Christian canon, although several leaders of the Reformation themselves were reluctant to see them fall into obscurity Martin Luther, for example, commended (and included) them in his translation of the Bible as “both useful and good to read,” though not of equal authority with Scripture, and the Church of England stipulated in the sixth article of religion that they be “read for example of life and instruction of manners.” This last statement is particularly salient here, as it is precisely as ethical literature that the deu-terocanonical/apocryphal books have been most widely read and valued.
The Mosaic covenant—the stipulations and terms outlined in the Pentateuch—provides the overarching framework for ethics throughout this literature. Nearly every text reflects explicitly on this covenant as a divinely given, clearly articulated matrix of specific ethical directives and of personal and corporate motivations to embrace these directives. “Wisdom,” the ethical ideal in Sirach, Wisdom of Solomon, and Baruch, for example, has come to be identified with “the book of the commandments of God, the law that endures forever” (Bar. 4:1 [cf. Sir. 24:1-23; Wis. 16:6; 18:9]). The person whose behaviors and practices align with the stipulations of Torah is the “ethical” person (Sus. 3), whereas the person who transgresses the same exhibits ethical failure. As a result of the covenantal framework, the scope of concern throughout this literature tends to be particularistic, focused on the good of the Jewish people as a whole and, within it, the individual Judean. There are limited universalistic strains (e.g., Wis. 11:23-12:2; 13:1-7), but these are often swept aside (e.g., Wis. 12:10-11; 13:8-9).
The covenant curses and blessings outlined in Deut. 28-30 are a constant reference point for analyzing social and political conditions, diagnosing ethical failure, and pointing the way toward reform and restoration both of the individual and the nation. Motivations to ethical action tend to be drawn from the consequences laid out in the Deuteronomic model: obedience leads to divine blessing, disobedience to experience of divine wrath and punishment, repentance and renewed obedience to renewed experience of divine aid and restoration (see, e.g., Jdt. 5:17-20; Bar. 1:15-22; Sg. Three 5-13; 2 Macc. 4:7-17; 6:12-17; 4 Macc. 3:20-4:21; 18:3-4). Using this model, authors can appeal to individual self-interest: ethical action is a means to an end, most expedient for the doer in terms of leading to honor, advantage, and enjoyment of particular goods valued in society. This is common in Sirach and Tobit, as, indeed, it is in the advice literature of the period more generally. Authors can also appeal to the good of the nation: ethical action is most expedient for the commonwealth, whether on the basis of the covenant blessings and curses (the actions that God would take in response to the people’s alignment with covenant stipulations) or with a view to natural consequences (e.g., demonstrating the nobility of the nation’s way of life to others, or rallying resistance against a tyrant by a demonstration of courage and commitment). In both instances, the rewards and punishments may be anticipated in the natural course of one’s lifetime or national fortune, or in the postmortem existence of the individual or eschatological future of the nation.
Ethical action, however, is also urged as a proper response to God, an expression of commitment to God and loyalty to God for the experience of God’s past gifts. In 4 Maccabees, for example, a Torah-observant life productive of virtue is a means of living so as to best honor God, using the gift of human faculties well and in line with God’s best intentions for it (4 Macc. 2:21-23). The commitment to do so even in the face of great hardship, even martyrdom, may be motivated by the hope for postmortem reward or fear of postmortem punishment (4 Macc. 9:8-9; 13:14-17; 15:2-3), but it is motivated also by the awareness that it is a proper and just return to God for the gift of life itself (4 Macc. 13:13; 16:18-19). Ethical action is what is due God.
The covenantal framework elevates the nation’s (and the individual’s) relationship with God and experience of God’s favor (past, present, and future) as the ground for the meaningfulness of and motivation for ethical action. Right ethics begins with right piety. Hence, attention is given throughout the literature to debunking idolatry (see Letter of Jeremiah; Bel and the Dragon; Wis. 12:1-14:31) and maintaining commitment to the one God, the God who gave and enforces the covenant and its legal, ethical, ritual code. The author of Wisdom of Solomon explicitly reflects on the failure to experience this relationship with the one God: the filling of the religious vacuum with idolatry—creating relationships with false gods—has resulted in the moral chaos observable in gentile society at both the personal and social level (Wis. 13:1-14:31). Perversion of piety leads to perversion of thinking, feeling, craving, and action in every arena. In an earlier section of the book (possibly by a different author) the source of this ethical mayhem is sought in the failure of individuals to look beyond death to seek immortality through virtuous living, choosing instead to grasp at whatever fleeting pleasures they can, at whatever cost to others it entails. Looking at death as the end of existence elevates the wrong goals and means to their attainment (Wis. 1:16-2:24).
The Jews’ commitment to monolatry and to the particular practices prescribed by Torah frequently led to tension with non-Jewish groups (and authorities) in regard to the latter’s political and civic ethics (see, e.g., Add. Esth. 13:4-5; 3 Macc. 3:3-7, 21-23). The literature bears witness to strenuous debates and a significant diversity of response within Judaism regarding how to address this, many Jews advocating significant compromise, even capitulation on these points, in order to appear as “good citizens” and enjoy the benefits thereof (e.g., 1 Macc. 1:11-15; 3 Macc. 2:31-33). The deuterocanonical/apocryphal books, not surprisingly, consistently promote fidelity to the minority culture’s ethical code, even where this incurs reproach or open hostility. Moreover, there are some stunning examples of innercommunal reinforcement of ethics, whether through giving assistance preferentially to the righteous poor, using charity as a means to promote alignment with the covenant (Tob. 2:2; 4:6; Sir. 12:1-7), or through enforcing the covenant violently—for example, by circumcising Jewish boys left uncircumcised by their apostate parents and lynching or executing apostate Jews (1 Macc. 2:42-48; 3:5-8; 3 Macc. 7:10-16).
Where fidelity to the covenant and the faithful performance of its stipulations are threatened, both violent and nonviolent resistance are commended as ethical responses. The books of 1-2 Maccabees are especially interested in military and diplomatic action as a component of faithful response to Torah and thus support violent resistance (see, e.g., 1 Macc. 2:15-28, 39-48; 3:1-26; 2 Macc. 8:1-16:37). Considerable space, however, is also given in these texts to commending nonviolent resistance even to the point of death (1 Macc. 1:60-63; 2 Macc. 6:1-7:42). The book of 4 Maccabees commends the ideal of the witness who resists apostasy, foreign domination, and religious repression but does so by suffering courageously in the face of repressive violence rather than by practicing violence. Although essentially advocating a violent solution to political and religious repression, the book of Judith presents a special ethical problem, celebrating the use of deceit and seduction as a valid ethical means to secure the safety of the nation (Jdt. 8:1-13:20), a means even sanctioned by God (Jdt. 9:13). Judith’s strategy, however, is analogous to other uses of “craftiness” in wartime situations. Moreover, the ancient Mediterranean world tended to regard not the use of deceit, but rather being duped by deceit, as the point of failure.
A few texts within this collection merit special note for their contribution to ethical reflection. The book of Sirach contains the essential curriculum of a Jewish sage who maintained a school in Jerusalem in the decades around 200 BCE. This sage’s literary legacy gives a window into early Jewish reflection on negotiating life in the household, in the larger society, even in the international sphere to advantage. It covers a wide variety of ethical and practical topics, including ethical speech, friendship, forgiveness, etiquette, caution in regard to ambition, moderation and self-control, household management, family duties, sexual ethics, the virtue of humility, the importance of mutual accountability, generosity, and practicing charity and social justice. A critical problem in Sirach concerns his view of women, which is largely negative and derived from his culture’s obsession with female sexuality. As is reflected in the views of other authors in this collection, sexual exclusivity is the sine qua non of female virtue (see Jdt. 13:16; 4 Macc. 17:1; 18:6-9 [although in these books women are clearly regarded as capable of other virtues, notably courage and unyielding covenant loyalty]). However, Sirach expresses a clear lack of faith that women will reliably keep to the ideal, bringing anxiety and disgrace upon their fathers and husbands instead (Sir. 26:10-12; 42:11). Nevertheless, on many issues Sirach makes important ethical advances. The book promotes forgiveness of others on the basis of hoping for God’s forgiveness of oneself. Also, it uses the commandments as a ground for ethical reflection, extending, for example, the prohibition against murder to include other acts of social or economic violence. Finally, it commends generosity toward all, especially the poor, as a reflection of God’s character and thus of the donor’s kinship with the divine. In all this, the author anticipates the ethics of Jesus of Nazareth.
The text of 2 Esd. 3-14 is a Jewish apocalypse from the late first century, usually referred to as 4 Ezra (2 Esd. 1-2 and 2 Esd. 15-16 are slightly later Christian additions, called 5 Ezra and 6 Ezra, respectively). The author of this text sharply poses the ethical problem of the individual’s seeking to live up to the ideal of the covenant while dominated by the tendency toward transgression that seems, from lived experience, to grip the human race (both Jews and gentiles) in a stranglehold. Like Paul, he looks to the story of Adam and Eve as the beginning of sin and, indeed, as the episode that forever predisposes their descendants toward vice (2 Esd. 3:22; 4:30; 7:118-119; cf. Sir. 25:24; Wis. 2:23-24). Nevertheless, moral responsibility is not in any way abated. The contest against the evil inclination may be difficult, and the stakes indeed high, but each person must fight well in this contest so as to walk aligned with God’s law and arrive at the promised blessings beyond death (2 Esd. 7:127-130). The author thus reaffirms the conclusion at which Sirach had arrived three centuries before: ethical achievement or failure remains a matter of the individual’s choice and responsibility (Sir. 15:11-20).
A product of the Hellenistic Diaspora, 4 Maccabees is the text within this collection most explicitly and fully devoted to well-defined ethical issues. Addressing a common subject of Greek and Latin philosophical ethics, the author presents Torah observance as a disciplined lifestyle that promotes self-mastery in regard to the “passions”—the emotional responses, volitional cravings, and physical sensations that pose an ongoing danger to consistent ethical action—with the result that the pious Jew attains the ethical ideals prized by the Greco-Roman philosophical culture (justice, courage, temperance, prudence, piety). Martyrdom
is interpreted as both the ultimate sign of such
self-mastery and the realization of the freedom of the wise person from all external compulsion. Sages can be injured only insofar as they consent to depart from their moral principles. The book is a fine example of religious ethical discourse that is also fully informed by, and engaged in, the larger Greco-Roman conversation.
The deuterocanonical/apocryphal books provide essential windows into the ethical interpretation of the received tradition and the ethical developments within Judaism in the postprophetic period. As such, they also provide essential background to any study of the ethics of the early Christian writings, and, indeed, the impact of the Apocrypha on the ethics of the early and ongoing Christian movement is significant. Whatever the canonical status of these texts might be in the eyes of the interpreter, any thorough investigation of biblical ethics must take this literature into account.
See also Additions to Daniel; Additions to Esther; Baruch; Freedom; Idolatry; Judith; Letter of Jeremiah; 1 Maccabees; 2 Maccabees; Martyrdom; Orthodox Ethics; Passions; Sirach; Tobit; Wisdom of Solomon
Bibliography
Charles, R. The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament. 2 vols. Oxford University Press, 1913;
Collins, J. Between Athens and Jerusalem: Jewish Identity in the Hellenistic Diaspora. 2nd ed. Eerdmans, 2000; idem, Jewish Wisdom in the Hellenistic Age. Westminster John Knox, 1997; deSilva, D. 4 Maccabees. GAP. Sheffield Academic Press, 1998; idem. Introducing the Apocrypha: Message, Context, and Significance. Baker Academic, 2002; Harrington, D. Invitation to the Apocrypha. Eerdmans, 1999; Helyer, L. Exploring Jewish Literature of the Second Temple Period. InterVarsity, 2002; Maldwyn, H. The Ethics of Jewish Apocryphal Literature. Robert Culley, 1909; Metzger, B. An Introduction to the Apocrypha. Oxford University Press, 1957.
David A. deSilva
The books of the Former Prophets (Joshua, Judges, 1-2 Samuel, 1-2 Kings) have become known by this title in accordance with an influential theory proposed by German OT scholar Martin Noth. Noth viewed the Former Prophets, together with Deuteronomy, as composing a unified, large-scale literary corpus whose primary purpose was to provide an explanation for Israel’s sixth-century defeat and exile. With this goal in mind, a single editor-like exilic author had combined numerous preexistent traditions. The author, commonly referred to as the Deuteronomist, had creatively shaped the telling of this history (DtrH), highlighting certain aspects and glossing over others, dividing it into discrete periods and inserting into its continuous narrative a number of salvation-historical speeches by various characters or the narrator himself (Josh. 1:1-9; 12:1-6; 23:1-16; Judg. 2:11-3:6; 1 Sam. 12:1-15; 1 Kgs. 8:14-53; 2 Kgs. 17:7-23). These speeches cumulatively tracked the action of the overarching story and
reinforced the author’s theological perspective.
Despite some objections, subsequent scholarship at first upheld Noth’s thesis strongly, although gradually with the proviso that the DtrH had instead been created in stages and by more than one hand. Building on the work of Rudolf Smend, many German scholars argued that the original exilic edition of the DtrH had been supplemented by two further layers of material, one focusing on the activity of prophets (DtrP) and another, later, layer exhibiting a characteristic emphasis on nomistic/Torah piety (DtrN). Following Frank Moore Cross, US scholars tended to adopt a two-stage view in which the first edition of the DtrH (DtrH1) was produced in the preexilic period as Josianic propaganda, then modified after Josiah’s death and Judah’s downfall in order to conform to these newly disastrous circumstances (DtrH2). However, the entire notion of a DtrH is now being criticized, with a new generation of scholars stressing the untidiness of the material, the presence of pluriform perspectives, the substantial differences between the individual books, and the possibility of even later postexilic dates for these books’ composition and literary development. Yet, there is still no gainsaying the presence of Deuteronomy-like elements in each of the books, especially the motif of “other gods” (e.g., Deut. 6:14) and the repeated references to an approaching exile (e.g., Deut. 28:63-64).
The primary literary effect of the complex’s disastrous conclusion is to create irony at the intersection between individual narratives and the wider story. For example, the stirring exploits of local heroes nevertheless fail to achieve permanent change (Judg. 2:16-23). Some episodes that might at first appear commendable are eventually revealed to be examples of Israel’s sinful decline (Judg. 11:29-40; 19). So too praise of certain kings and the institution of the kingship itself (2 Sam. 7; 1 Kgs. 8) now occur within a broader literary frame in which monarchy is viewed as a primary reason for Israel’s downfall (Deut. 17:1420; 1 Sam. 12:12-15; 2 Kgs. 17:8; 21:10-15). While not quite as bleak as Noth envisioned (as Gerhard von Rad pointed out, God’s promise to Israel is “forever”; the exiles will survive), the DtrH does indeed justify the righteousness of God by laying the blame for Israel’s destruction squarely with Israel.
Israel, Land, and the Nations
The book of Joshua begins with Israel’s armed occupation of Canaan at God’s direction. The narrative gives an initial impression of a speedy, violent, and total conquest (Josh. 10; 21:43-45). God not only sanctions this warfare but also participates in it (Josh. 5:13-15; 10:6-11; 11:6-9). Disturbing is not only the lack of greater sympathy for the land’s inhabitants but also the way that this portion of the Bible has provided ideological cover for numerous land grabs in history (e.g., the United States’ takeover of Native American land, the Afrikaners in South Africa, the Ulster Scots in Northern Ireland). The litany of “utter destruction” in Josh. 10-11 reads almost like a celebration of genocide. Here again, however, Israel’s violent loss of the land at the conclusion of the DtrH later casts doubt on Israel’s earlier manner of occupying it. The effectiveness of the conquest is in fact subverted in the course of the narrative through passing references to its gradualism (Josh. 11:18-20; see also Deut. 7:22: “little by little”; cf. Exod. 23:30) and incompleteness (Josh. 13:1-13; 15:63; 16:10; 17:12-13; Judg. 1). Moreover, the narrative’s only extended episode of urban conquest depicts a style of warfare more liturgical than actual: Jericho’s walls are brought down by a priestly parade rather than siege works (J osh. 6). In the end, although violence in God’s name is never rejected, a distancing is evident. Various battles have their outcomes reported without the details of the engagements being specified. By associating the “conquest” so closely with Israel’s unique territorial inheritance, the narrative makes this primal instance of dispossession unrepeatable (i.e., there is only one “promised land”). Even more suggestively, Israel’s ultimate loss of the land reinforces a conditional message of responsibility (Deut. 29; Josh. 23:6-13), even a sense of futility (Josh. 23:15-16; but cf. Deut. 30), with respect to Israel’s privileged hold on its geographic claim.
The other peoples within the land and in the nations outside Israel are often portrayed as threats and enemies. Yet beginning with Rahab (Josh. 2; 6) and continuing in figures such as the queen of Sheba (1 Kgs. 10), the widow of Zarephath (1 Kgs. 17), and Naaman (2 Kgs. 5), the DtrH also depicts non-Israelites who come to know God through their interactions with Israel—a theme further emphasized by the placement of Ruth between Judges and 1 Samuel in the Christian canon. Additionally, the DtrH subverts Israel’s ethnic distinctiveness by portraying Israelites who are more similar to foreigners than different, even if that similarity is interpreted as a mark of unfaithfulness (e.g., Samson, Solomon). In this way, the DtrH also illustrates and extends the Genesis account of how God is using Israel to bring blessing to “all the families of the earth” (Gen. 12:1-3; cf. 1 Kgs. 8:41-43). Or in a saying attributed to Rabbi Hizkiyah in the Zohar, a medieval Jewish text, “The blessed Holy One cast Israel into exile among the nations only so that the other nations would be blessed because of them, for they draw blessings from above to below every day.”
Responsible Leadership
The book of Joshua also makes clear from the outset that Israel’s leaders must submit to the rule of law (Josh. 1:7-9; cf. Deut. 17:14-20). Human authority can change within a spiritual succession (e.g., Moses to Joshua, the judges, Saul to David, Elijah to Elisha), but biological succession is viewed with intense suspicion (Judg. 8:22-23; 1 Sam. 2; 8:1-3). “Absolute monarchy” is not found in the DtrH. Instead, God is considered Israel’s true king (Judg. 8:23; 1 Sam. 7; cf. Isa. 6:5), and human leadership is treated as fundamentally derivative of divine authority (God is supposed to “choose” those in leadership). Furthermore, kings and other leaders are held accountable within a variety of wider social contexts and interactions, such as Israel’s tribal structure, moral tradition, legal system, priestly customs—and even outsider figures possessing specialized knowledge (e.g., the wise woman of Tekoa [2 Sam. 14]) or ability to communicate directly with God (e.g., the prophet Elijah [1 Kgs. 17-19; 2 Kgs. 1-2]). Still, the quality of leaders and the character of their leadership matter greatly to the health of the nation and to the furtherance of God’s purposes in the world. God’s leaders can be outnumbered (1 Sam. 14:6-15) and physically unprepossessing (1 Sam. 17) because they draw their true strength from ruling justly (2 Sam. 23:3). “Power politics” and coercive policies (1 Kgs. 5:13-18) are rejected in favor of a pious openness (“heart” [Josh. 24:23; 1 Sam. 16:7]) to the prophetic word (Josh. 24:2; 1 Sam. 15:22-23).
Indeed, prophetic figures begin to predominate in the course of the DtrH until Israel’s destiny becomes almost a tug-of-war between righteous prophets and unrighteous kings. Only two kings receive unqualified praise (Hezekiah [2 Kgs. 18:56]; Josiah [2 Kgs. 23:25]), and both have reigns featuring a reform of Israelite worship in which prophets play a leading role (Isaiah [2 Kgs. 19-20]; Huldah [2 Kgs. 22:14-20]). The DtrH sponsors a view of history in which Israel’s prophets all finally offer a common message (2 Kgs. 17:13) and stand within a succession begun by Moses (Deut. 18:15-22). In this perspective, law and prophecy are complementary rather than competitive authorities, particularly in the constraint that both provide to royal power. The Latter Prophets are significantly less inclined to ground moral imperatives in legal warrants (they instead usually emphasize spiritual/moral values such as “righteousness” and “covenant faithfulness”). The theological unity of law and prophecy is therefore a crucial Deuteronomistic insight and one that lies at the origin of the eventual shape of the OT canon (i.e., “the law and the prophets”).
Human Dignity
Particularly striking throughout the DtrH is the richness of its individual characters, especially since their literary characterization typically is handled with great economy of means (e.g., little physical description, infrequent use of affective/ emotional terms). Yet figures such as Delilah, Hannah, Jonathan, Abigail, Joab, Bathsheba, Jehu, and Jezebel are fascinating for their complexity and lifelikeness. Although the DtrH operates with a strong sense of divine involvement in history, human nature is depicted as varied, human choice as real, and human freedom as precious. Even the catastrophe at the end of the DtrH underscores the value God places on human freedom; otherwise, given the stakes, why give Israel any choice? God is correspondingly portrayed as having the capacity for direct action (1 Sam. 25:38) but more customarily acting through human judgments (2 Sam. 17:14). Even though human figures are shown to be embedded within social groups and contexts, each individual has access to God and therefore a concomitant dignity. In a classic story about the abuse of royal power (1 Kgs. 21), the rights of Naboth, an ordinary Israelite, are upheld against Ahab’s covetousness. Jezebel’s plot against Naboth turns on the bearing of false witness—in other words, the suppression of Naboth’s ability to function as a trustworthy moral agent. The irreducible worth and complexity of individual moral character explain why the DtrH does not demonize its villains and presents its heroes unvarnished.
Women are often the victims of horrible mistreatment in the DtrH’s narratives (Judg. 1:1215; 11:29-40; 19; 21; 1 Sam. 1; 2 Sam. 13; 2 Kgs. 15:16), yet they can be simultaneously portrayed as fully realized human agents possessing a personal dignity equivalent to that of men (Judg. 1:14-15; 11:36-40; 1 Sam. 1:12-18). Women are not completely restricted to the domestic sphere, and occasionally they become leaders in warfare (e.g., Deborah, Jael), politics (e.g., Abigail, Mi-chal, Bathsheba), and government (e.g., Jezebel, Athaliah, the queen of Sheba). Although Israelite women are for the most part apparently excluded from central positions of political power, the DtrH’s overall perspective is surprisingly egalitarian rather than misogynistic. Ironically, even episodes of victimization can reinforce this egalitarian perspective by calling attention to the unfairness of the social structures in which women’s moral agency and spiritual freedom are eclipsed (1 Sam. 1; 2 Sam. 3:12-16).
Even so, Israel is finally depicted as more than the sum of its individuals. At the heart of the DtrH is the challenge facing the people of Israel to be a people. That they are exiled as a people (2 Kgs. 24:14-16; 25:11) is a feature of the story pointing beyond itself to Israel’s continuing communal future on the other side of divine judgment.
See also Ban, The; Deuteronomy; Exile; Holy War; Joshua; Judges; 1-2 Kings; Land; Law; Old Testament Ethics; 1-2 Samuel
Bibliography
Ellul, J. The Politics of God and the Politics of Man. Eerdmans, 1972; Klein, L. The Triumph of Irony in the Book of Judges. JSOTSup 68. Almond, 1988; Noth, M. The Deuteronomistic History. 2nd ed. JSOTSup 15. JSOT Press, 1991; Pleins, J. The Social Visions of the Hebrew
Bible: A Theological Introduction. Westminster John Knox, 2001; Romer, T. The So-Called Deuteronomistic History: A Sociological, Historical and Literary Introduction. T&T Clark, 2005; von Rad, G. Old Testament Theology. 2 vols. Harper & Row, 1962—65; Wenham, G. Story as Torah: Reading Old Testament Narrative Ethically. Baker Academic, 2000.
Stephen B. Chapman
The book of Deuteronomy (meaning “a copy of the law” or “second law,” from the Greek translation of 17:18) is presented as the last set of instructional sermons from ancient Israel’s elderly leader Moses to a new generation of Israelites who are at the border preparing to enter the promised land of Canaan.
Core Ethical Assumptions in Deuteronomy Many parts of Deuteronomy repeat or reinterpret earlier laws and narratives in the Pentateuch, especially the laws of the Covenant Code in Exod. 20:22-23:19. About 50 percent of the Covenant Code laws in Exodus are repeated with small but significant variations in Deuteronomy. The book of Deuteronomy often adds its unique theological stamp to this material, shaped especially by Deuteronomy’s emphasis on “oneness”: (1) Israel’s relational loyalty to one God alone; (2) the identity of Israel as one people set apart from the nations;
(3) the requirement of one centralized place of worship to which all Israel gathers in festivals;
(4) adherence to one Torah, which all Israel is called to obey.
Deuteronomy’s central confession is the Shema (from the first word of the Hebrew text, meaning “hear”): “Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord alone,” followed by the command “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might” (Deut. 6:4-5). Jesus coupled this verse with Lev. 19:18 to describe the Great Commandments, which summarize all the law of Moses (Matt. 22:36-40; Mark 12:28-34; Luke 10:25-28).
Scholars have associated Deuteronomy’s requirement for the centralization of worship in ancient Israel with the reforms of King Hezekiah and King Josiah, who cleansed the Jerusalem temple and destroyed worship sites and altars outside Jerusalem (2 Kgs. 18:3-6, 22; 22-23). These royal reforms seem to coincide with Deuteronomy’s decree that all offerings of grain and animal sacrifices and all celebrations of holy festivals are to be held in the one “place which the Lord your God will choose” (Deut. 12:5, 13, 18, 26; 14:23; 15:20; 16:6, 11, 15-16; 17:10; 31:11). Although Deuteronomy centralizes sacrifice and worship in one place, it maintains that God’s sovereignty and concern for holiness extend to the whole land and to every family within Israel.
Deuteronomy refers to itself frequently as “the book of the torn” (1:5; 4:8,44; 17:18-19; 27:3, 8, 26; 28:58, 61; 29:20, 28; 30:10; 31:9, 11-12, 24; 32:46). Some have translated torn for Deuteronomy as referring to the polity or constitution of the people of Israel. Its emphasis on law, obedience, and allegiance to God alone suggests its role as a core legal foundation for the identity and organization of Israel as the people of God. Others have also noted the strong educational or instructional meaning associated with the Hebrew term torn along with the frequent references in Deuteronomy to members of an older generation teaching a new generation (4:1, 5, 10, 14; 5:31; 6:1; 11:19; 31:19; 32:2; 33:10). Thus, Deuteronomy as torn may be understood as a program of ethical, political, and theological catechesis achieved through a variety of formational strategies: narratives (chaps. 1; 9), laws (6:1; 12-26), rituals (chaps. 16; 26), poetic song (31:19; 32), oral recitation (31:9-13), and exemplary models of character (Moses in chap. 34).
Deuteronomy and the Sabbath
The Sabbath commandment in 5:12-15 and its further explication in the sabbath laws of 14:2216:17 underscore the strong connection between the worship of God and concern for care and justice for the vulnerable members of the community. Regular worship of God on weekly Sabbaths and annual festivals is combined with the sharing of offerings with the most vulnerable members of the community (the poor, widows, orphans, landless Levites). The Sabbath laws also include the cancellation of all debts every seven years and the required freeing of slaves after seven years of service (15:1-6, 12-18). The Sabbath laws also hold in creative tension the ideal that there will “be no one in need among you” (15:4) with the realism that “there will never cease to be some in need on the earth” (15:11). This tension creates the need for structural provisions for the periodic cancellation of debts as well as more spontaneous and voluntary acts of charity and support to the poor (15:7-11).
Other Ethical Resources
Deuteronomy’s laws also set in motion creative tensions between proper respect for authority (5:16) and provisions that ensure that those in leadership remain worthy of respect and authority (16:18-18:22). These same laws also prescribe a delicate balance between centralized leadership and distributed authority (see also 1:9-18). Ecological concern for the care of animals and vegetative life is evident in several laws (5:14; 20:19-20; 22:1-4, 6-7). Deuteronomy uses the metaphor of “circumcising the foreskin of the heart” to hold together the need for humans to strive to be obedient (10:16) and the promise that God will work within humans to create obedience (30:6).
One of the most ethically challenging texts in Deuteronomy is the law of holy war in 20:1-20, which commands the Israelites to kill “everything that breathes” (v. 16) when they enter the land of Canaan (see Josh. 6:21). In the end, however, Israel was unable or unwilling to carry out the law, as Israel allowed some Canaanites to remain alive in the land (Rahab [Josh. 2; 6]; the Gibeonites [Josh. 9; Judg. 1:21, 27-36]). Thus, God abandoned the strategy of holy war and allowed the Canaanites to remain in the land as a perpetual test of Israel’s obedience in the face of the ongoing temptation to worship other gods (Judg. 2:19-23; 3:1-5).
See also Authority and Power; Ban, The; Conquest; Holy War; Idolatry; Law; Old Testament Ethics; Sabbath; Ten Commandments; Torah
Bibliography
Hamilton, J. Social Justice and Deuteronomy: The Case of Deuteronomy 15. SBLDS 136. Scholars Press, 1992; Levinson, B. Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation. Oxford University Press, 1997; McDonald, N. Deuteronomy and the Meaning of “Monotheism." FAT 2/1. Mohr Siebeck, 2003; Millar, J. Now Choose Life: Theology and Ethics in Deuteronomy. Eerdmans, 1998; Miller, P. Deuteronomy. IBC. Westminster John Knox, 1990; Olson, D. Deuteronomy and the Death of Moses: A Theological Reading. Fortress, 1994; Vogt, P. Deuteronomic Theology and the Significance of Torah: A Reappraisal. Eisenbrauns, 2006.
Dennis T. Olson
Deviance is the characteristic or state of departing from common standards or established norms. Deviance especially refers to the violation of social mores concerning life and relationships, and, particularly, sexual behavior. Often used in a pejorative sense, it signals societal disapproval and condemnation and is associated with shame and definitions and theories of crime.
Sociological theories of deviance often focus on its place in social control. These include learning theories, which generally state that people inculcate norms of conformity and deviance through intimate reference groups, which can include family, church, workplace, friends, and media;
strain or anomie theories, which explain deviant behavior resulting from conflicts between social goals and the availability of legitimate means to reach those goals; control theories, which outline the development of self-control that keeps persons from acting on deviant tendencies or desires through internal constraints, such as conscience and morality, and external constraints, such as law enforcement and religious authority; and labeling theories, which hold that deviance is a process of social power in which a person or behavior is considered deviant only when it is labeled as such by persons or groups with social authority. Labeling theory was influenced by conflict theory, such as that of Karl Marx, whose work explains deviance as a construct of power within economic class conflict in which those with productive property exert their power over societal influencers—for example, religion, education, criminal justice—in order to protect their own interests.
Identifying the norms that define deviant and conforming behavior can be a complex undertaking, given that it is often assumed that the relevant social standards vary both within and among cultures. Behavior that is considered deviant in one group or culture may be considered acceptable or even praiseworthy in another, making it difficult to talk of application of universal or absolute norms to determine deviance. Postmodern social theory
has paid particular attention to such complexity,
calling into question the production of norms from conventional moral and legal authority and suggesting that discussion of norms or deviance is valid only within a relative group rather than throughout a culturally diverse society. Other theorists have looked to norms formed around issues of harm to person or property, justice, and human flourishing that may be applied more broadly in human society.
Within the religious community, deviance often centers on the place of the sinner, who violates central doctrines; the heretic, who rejects elements of the faith; and the apostate, who abandons the faith for an alternative set of religious values. In the codes of the OT, deviant acts viewed as a threat to the whole community--such as apostasy and blasphemy (Exod. 20:2-5; Lev. 24:10-14; Deut. 17:2-7), female sorcery (Exod. 22:18), and various sexual offenses (Lev. 18:6-23)—carry the greatest penalties. Sexual norms also play a prominent role in defining deviance in lists of virtues and vices in the NT, which include adultery, fornication, male prostitution, and sodomy (e.g., Matt. 15:19; 1 Cor. 6:9-10; Rev. 22:15). Such biblical lists are frequently used in defense of contemporary proscriptions concerning homosexuality, yet ongoing societal, ecclesial, and scholarly debates regarding the deviance of homosexual practice expose hermeneutical complexities in defining norms and mores across cultures and history.
While conventional wisdom and social-scientific study often have posited with religion a role as sustainer of societal moral order, at times religion has challenged secular culture, providing a source of deviant behavior rather than acting as an instrument of social control. The theme appears in the Bible as well, such as Jesus’ defiance of purity laws (e.g., Matt. 8:1-4 pars.), his incitement of the synagogue crowd at the beginning of his Galilean ministry (Luke 4:28-29), and the marginal status of believers in the Roman Empire documented, for example, in 1 Peter or Revelation.
See also Clean and Unclean; Cross-Cultural Ethics; Holiness Code; Norms; Vice; Vices and Virtues, Lists of
Bibliography
Clinard, M., and R. Meier. Sociology of Deviant Behavior. 13th ed. Thompson/Wadsworth, 2008; Dinitz, S., R. Dynes, and A. Clark. Deviance: Studies in Definition, Management, and Treatment. Oxford University Press, 1975; Harrington, A. Modern Social Theory: An Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2005; Stark, R., and W. Bainbridge. Religion, Deviance and Social Control. Routledge, 1997; Talbott, R. “Nazareth’s Rebellious Son: Deviance and Downward Mobility in the Galilean Jesus Movement.” BTB 38 (2008): 99-113.
Gary B. MacDonald
The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, or the Didache (Gk. didache [“teaching”]), is an early Christian manual of instruction whose origins remain unknown. Most scholars date the work to the late first or early second century, with a provenance somewhere between Egypt and Syria. Familiarity with limited themes from Paul and the sayings of Jesus, mainly as reflected in the Gospel of Matthew, is evident throughout. The text plausibly divides into three parts: the teaching of the “two ways” (chaps. 1-6), various liturgical and ecclesiastical instructions (chaps. 7-15), and concluding apocalyptic warnings (chap. 16).
Many Christians by the turn of the second century sought to create a new ethic with origins that lay outside of the synagogue. Against this tendency, the Didache appeals to those NT authors who endorse a functional ethic from within Judaism. Two primary elements from this more Jewish perspective appear here: a concern for eschatology and the “two ways.”
The language of eschatology emerges randomly throughout the latter half of the work. One hears
a call for the coming of God’s kingdom and that heaven’s work be done on earth, as illustrated by the Lord’s Prayer (8.2). So too, supplication is offered for the ingathering of the church from the ends of the earth (9.4) and from the four winds (10.5). In light of the Lord’s dominion, appropriate liturgical practices and good conduct in how peripatetic prophets are received are encouraged. A brief apocalyptic piece (chap. 16), reminiscent of Paul (1 Thess. 4:13-18) and Mark 13, concludes the text. Here the faithful of God are warned to be careful, to gather frequently, and to avoid false prophets as lawlessness increases before that day when the Lord comes from the skies with the sound of a trumpet. Typical of apocalyptic literature generally, this final warning intends for the listener to live ethically in the hope of eternal reward. It casts a shadow of urgency over the entire collection of teachings, much as Revelation does for the larger canon of Christian Scripture.
Apart from the broad community ethic associated with proper liturgical and ecclesiastical practice, the Didache is particularly interested in the question of individual ethics. This is evident in the opening line of the work: “There are two ways, one of life and one of death” (1.1). The “two ways” perspective developed from OT roots (Deut. 30:15; Jer. 21:8) into a common late Jewish directive (see T. Ash. 1.3-9; 1QS 3.13-4.26) whose branches extended into the NT (see Matt. 7:13-14). The Apostolic Fathers preserve this teaching in Did. 1-6, Barn. 18-20, and Herm. Mand. 6.1-2.10, revealing broad usage of this moral standard throughout the early second-century church. The “two ways” are often associated with angels of light and darkness in literature, though not so in the Didache.
The “way of life” in the Didache follows two principles. The first is the double command to love God and neighbor, thus directing the listener toward observance of the Shema (Deut. 6:4) coupled with a charge to respect other people (Lev. 19:18). This link is variously attributed to the teachings of Jesus elsewhere in the tradition (Matt. 22:37-40 pars.). Within broad rabbinic practice, to love God and neighbor is equivalent to satisfying the requirements of the Torah generally. To meet this essential requirement of God is to fulfill one’s obligation to live righteously. The text also contains a negative form of the so-called Golden Rule to describe the appropriate treatment of neighbors: “Whatever you do not wish for yourself, do not do to another.” Among the NT Gospels, only Matthew equates the double command and Golden Rule with “the law and the prophets” (Matt. 7:12; 22:40).
The second rule to which the Didachist turns for the essential framework of the “two ways” is the Decalogue. Here the author warns the listener to avoid murder and adultery, idolatry and theft, and the like. These sins are primary snares of the “way of death” (chap. 5). In similar fashion, the Didache lists prohibitions against practicing worldly sins, such as magic, sorcery, abortion, hypocrisy, arrogance, astrology, and so forth. Such transgressions are stepping-stones to greater sins. Following rabbinic technique, the Didachist cautions against these lesser indiscretions in order to erect a fence around the more vital teaching of the Decalogue itself. Here the listener discerns an early Jewish-Christian argument for the need to respect the teachings of Torah and to practice an ethic pleasing to both God and humanity.
Secondarily inserted into the “two ways” segment are injunctions from the early church known as the “ecclesiastical interpolation” (1.3b-2.1a). Included here are instructions to bless, pray, and fast for one’s enemies, to love one’s opponents, to resist aggression, and to give gladly and not receive. Parallel teachings appear in the sermon materials of Matt. 5:38-48 and Luke 6:27-36, which may be the source for these sayings in the Didache. The presence of this insertion suggests that the Didache reflects an evolving community ethic. It is built on an early Jewish foundation featuring eschatological promise and warning, a “two ways” directive of the Shema and a command to love one’s neighbor, an exposition of the Decalogue with a defensive hedge against secondary offenses, and the late addition of Jesus’ teachings on the nature of sacrificial love. The agenda is expressly Jewish in form, though essentially Christian in flavor.
The Didache was widely known among later patristic writers, most of whom abandoned the shape of its ethics, undoubtedly because of the author’s emphasis on a decidedly Jewish perspective.
See also Apostolic Fathers; Eschatology and Ethics; Golden Rule; Love, Love Command; Ten Commandments
Bibliography
Balabanski, V Eschatology in the Making: Matthew, Mark, and the Didache. SNTSMS 97. Cambridge University Press, 1997, 180-209; Kloppenborg, J. “The Transformation of Moral Exhortation in Didache 1-5.” Pages 88-109 in The Didache in Context: Essays on Its Text, History, and Transmission, ed. C. Jefford. NovTSup 77. Brill, 1995; Osborn, E. “The Love Command in Second Century Christian Writ-mg.” SecCent 1 (1981): 223-43; Rordorf, W “An Aspect of the Judeo-Christian Ethic: The Two Ways.” Pages 148-64 in The Didache in Modern Research, ed. J. Draper. AGJU 37. Brill, 1996.
Clayton N. Jefford
In the play Les mains sales (Dirty Hands), first performed in 1948, Jean-Paul Sartre presents a situation set in the resistance to the Nazi occupation of France during World War II. Underground fighters face circumstances wherein every action that they could undertake violates common morality, betrays a loyalty, or brings harm to others but appears to be the right thing to do. This portrayal is intended to expose the guilt of those who justify doing evil for good purposes and to challenge those moral philosophies that view ethics as essentially about the inviolability of universal principles. It is a dramatized existentialist argument against idealist (especially Kantian) theories and, by implication, against ideals formed by divine command. These are held to be impossible, wrong, or irrelevant in contexts where every option is tragic.
The problem is not new. Abraham was caught between obedience to God’s command and his love for his son Isaac. David had to slay some ten thousands of enemies to establish a relatively peaceful regime. Elijah had to risk life and reputation to confront false prophecy and political power, as did Christ later on. But the most famous example is Pilate, who tried to wash his hands publicly to declare his innocence of the crucifixion of Jesus. And Paul instructs everyone to “live peaceably with all,” and then writes just a few lines later that rulers are authorized by God to be “a terror to evil” conduct (Rom. 12:18; 13:3). These examples of biblical realism do not allow believers to hold that morality is simply a matter of following the universal and inviolable rules.
This realism is manifest in the classic traditions of Augustine and Aquinas and in the teachings of the Protestant Reformers, who thought that the innocence that the monastic life sought to protect and the perfection to which the sectarians aspired were unrealistic and pretentious. One cannot avoid sin by avoiding the complexities of the common life. Indeed, faithful living in society sometimes requires actions on the part of those called to particular roles that are otherwise forbidden. Thus, Luther wrote that soldiers “can be saved.” And Calvin argued that the lower magistrates, who ordinarily are required to obey the higher officers, can confront them and even use force to reestablish a more just order if the higher magistrates conspire against the people and betray basic justice (Institutes 4.20.29-30). The contextual and consequential aspects of ethics cannot be neglected, even if ethics inevitably also is about following principles of right and wrong.
In the twentieth century, fascism in Western Europe and communism in the East brought the double threat of a militantly race-based neopaganism in the one and a militantly class-based secularism in the other. These engendered worldwide confrontations and apparently necessary uses of bribery, deception, spying, unsavory alliances, and secret operations—sometimes with assassinations, intensive interrogations, and the development of nuclear weaponry. Reinhold Niebuhr, as much as any other single figure, renewed theological reflection on such matters in the name of “Christian realism.” He challenged the chauvinist nationalism that tempted secular realists to idolatry, and he challenged the idealism that had come to dominate much religious thought and resisted taking military actions against fascism and communism. Nationalism was too easily justifying any and all means, and idealism too quickly claiming its innocence.
Forms of secular realism had emerged in political science, rooted in the political theories of Machiavelli and Hobbes at the time of the Reformation. They argued that political leaders often were required to use evil means in order to serve the common good and to establish or maintain a polity that constrains chaos. The father of modern social thought, Max Weber, echoed these themes when he announced in 1918 that politics was about the accumulation of influence and coercive power and the potential use of force in a given territory. This monopoly on violence is granted so that a viable polity can be established to enhance and defend a society’s well-being and its members’ welfare. Those who seek to be politically effective and oppose the sometimes necessary and legitimate uses of force so that they can remain morally pure are likely to be politically irresponsible. They should return to the monastery.
During the Cold War, noted political theorist and moral philosopher Michael Walzer posed the issues again, raising many of the points already mentioned, but adding his own insights in a way that gave rise to contemporary debates about the Middle East conflicts and the use of torture. He recognized that the problem of “dirty hands” does not appear only in politics; every sphere of life has its own contextual factors that seem to demand actions that are, ordinarily, wrong. But the focus remains on politics because coercive force is intrinsic to it, and the threats of mass destruction may require a justifiable use of counterforce. Some actions may be wrong, and the one who does them may be morally guilty even if they are “the right thing to do.”
Christian Ethicist Scott Paeth recently applied Walzer’s arguments to current debates on torture. He cites one of Walzer’s illustrations. Should a politician (in this case, a male) who believes that torture is wrong authorize the torture of a rebel who knows when and where bombs are scheduled to explode? Walzer argues that if he does, he commits “a moral crime,” but his awareness of and “his willingness to bear . . . his guilt is evidence . . . that he is not too good for politics and that he is good enough. . . . It is by his dirty hands that we know him” (Walzer 169). Paeth sees in Walzer’s argument the basis for criticism of US policies that led to Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, for those authorizing the alleged torture have shown no willingness to acknowledge guilt. His argument also reflects the theological insight that responsible living requires humility, contrition, and forgiveness. To deny this is to falsify ethical reality.
Bibliography
Levinson, S., ed. Torture: A Collection. Oxford University Press, 2004; Luther, M. “Whether Soldiers, Too, Can Be Saved.” In The Christian in Society III. Vol. 46 of Luther’s Works, ed. R. Schultz. Fortress, 1967; Niebuhr, R. The Nature and Destiny of Man. Scribner, 1941; Paeth, S. “ ‘Dirty Hands’ Revisited: Morality, Torture and Abu Ghraib.” JSCE 28, no. 1 (2008): 163-81; Sartre, J.-P. Dirty Hands. In Three Plays. Knopf, 1949; Walzer, M. “Political Action: The Problem of Dirty Hands.” PPA 2 (1973): 160-80; Weber, M. “Politics as a Vocation.” Pages 77-128 in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, trans. and ed. H. Gerth and C. Mills. Routledge, 1977.
Max L. Stackhouse