James is widely recognized as a text in which ethical exhortation receives greater prominence than more abstract reflection on doctrinal matters. There is no scholarly consensus as to whether the letter should be seen as deriving from James, the brother of Jesus and leader of the early Jerusalem church, or as a pseudonymous work from the latter part of the first century.
The opening verses introduce the key theme of undivided commitment to God in all circumstances. Such faithful commitment goes hand in hand with a God-given wisdom that is characteristic of life lived in harmony with the requirements of God’s order of the universe (1:5-8; 3:13-18).
The demands of God’s will for humankind are expressed by a variety of terms, including “the word of truth” (1:18), “the implanted word” (1:21), “the perfect law of liberty” (1:25; 2:12), and “the royal law according to the scripture” (2:8). The use of legal terminology to express God’s will indicates a positive appropriation of the Jewish sense of law as expressing God’s order. It seems likely, however, that such references are colored by an early Christian perspective influenced by the traditions of the sayings of Jesus, given a number of close parallels between the language and concerns of James and of the sayings of Jesus in the Gospels (e.g., Jas. 1:5 and Matt. 7:7; Luke 11:9; Jas. 1:9-10; 4:10 and Matt. 23:12; Luke 14:11; Jas. 1:17 and Matt. 7:11; Jas. 2:5 and Luke 6:20; Jas. 3:1 and Matt. 12:36-37; Jas. 5:1 and Luke 6:24-25; Jas. 5:2 and Matt. 6:19-20; Jas. 5:12 and Matt. 5:34).
The requirement for unqualified dependence on God embraces all aspects of human life. In three central discursive sections of the text, human attitudes and judgment (2:1-13), actions (2:14-26), and speech (3:1-12) are held up for scrutiny, and real or potential shortcomings in the addressees’ conduct are exposed against the standard of faithful commitment to God (2:1, 5-6, 14-17).
The sense of dependence on God is consolidated by a strong conviction of the effectiveness of faithful prayer (1:5-8; 5:13-18), together with the portrayal of God as one whose inherent character is to give (1:5, 17-18). God’s benefactions themselves appear to be part of that relationship of committed dependence on the part of believers: the one who doubts or who asks with dubious motives will not receive (1:6-8; 4:3).
A strong element of dualism informs the ethical exhortations of James, typified by the contrast between friendship with the world and friendship with God (4:4); the readers are urged to resist the devil (4:7), and, humbly accepting God’s complete sovereignty, they will receive God’s reward. An eschatological dimension to such admonitions seems clear (2:5; 5:7-11), but the text’s concerns should also be seen as relating to the immediate circumstances of its readers.
In particular, the context of trials or testing of faith is invoked in 1:2-4, 12-15. Such testing may well relate to the adverse socioeconomic situations elicited by the author a number of times in the letter (1:9-11, 27; 2:2-7, 15-16; 5:4). The contrast between the negative portrayal of the rich and the sense of God’s favor to the poor and humble is striking. In a world of scarce resources, where a high degree of social and economic control was exercised through the relationship between patron and client, the negative view of the rich may be closely related to the imperative of undivided commitment to God: God, not any agent of the transient, human, earthly order, is the one who gives unstintingly and who should be relied on in all circumstances. Human conduct should involve solidarity with the victims of the oppressive and ungodly structures of the present earthly order (1:27; 2:1-9, 14-17) and a renunciation of its values and status symbols (3:13-18; 4:13-5:6).
The ethical message of James is uncompromising. The faith of the Christian inevitably carries the demand of undivided commitment to God in lives lived in accordance with God’s will. The importance of prayer in acknowledging God’s sovereignty and provision is highlighted, as is the call to solidarity with those burdened by the oppressive structures of the human social order.
See also Eschatology and Ethics; Generosity; Hospitality; Justice; New Testament Ethics; Orphans; Poverty and Poor; Speech Ethics; Wealth; Widows; Worldliness
Bibliography
Bauckham, R. James: Wisdom of James, Disciple of Jesus the Sage. NTR. Routledge, 1999; Hartin, P. A Spirituality of Perfection: Faith in Action in the Letter of James. Liturgical Press, 1999; Hutchinson Edgar, D. Has God Not Chosen the Poor? The Social Setting of the Epistle of James. JSNTSup 206. Sheffield Academic Press, 2001; Jackson-McCabe, M. Logos and Law in the Letter of James: The Law of Nature, the Law of Moses, and the Law of Freedom. NovTSup 100. Brill, 2001; Wachob, W. The Voice of Jesus in the Social Rhetoric of James. SNTSMS 106. Cambridge University Press, 2000.
David Hutchinson Edgar
In common parlance, the words jealousy and envy often are used interchangeably, though subtle distinctions can exist between them. The word jealousy, or zeal (Gk. zelos; Lat. zelosus), has a potentially positive sense in that it arises from love. One who is jealous is one who loves something or someone and wishes to guard it vigilantly; the focus of jealousy is the object that is loved. The word envy, however, comes from the Latin invidia (“to look upon”), and more often than not it has a negative connotation (i.e., to look upon with ill will). The focus of envy is the competitor; particularly when a desired object is perceived as being so scarce as to create a zero-sum game, hostility and malice may arise against the rival who appears to stand in one’s way. In spite of the etymological differences in these two words, even the ancient texts are unsystematic in distinguishing them, so it is prudent to treat them together.
Attending to Scripture
Although the words envy and jealousy do not always appear in the biblical narrative, the qualities that they name play an important role. Eve and Adam are tempted to eat the forbidden fruit in hopes that it will make them “like God” in wisdom (Gen. 3:1-7). Their son Cain’s decision to murder his brother, Abel, is presented as a passionate response to God’s acceptance of Abel’s offering and rejection of Cain’s (Gen. 4:1-8). Scripture presents these inauspicious beginnings of humankind as being rooted in a human tendency to “look upon” the possessions of rivals with unjust desire. The OT history books are, accordingly, full of deception and bloody strife, both international and intrafamilial, arising from the desire to crush those who obstruct one’s aspirations to power or prestige (Sarah and Hagar [Gen. 16; 21]; Joseph and his eleven brothers [Gen. 37]; Saul and David [1 Sam. 18:12]; Absalom and David [2 Sam. 15]).
If the biblical narrative presents envy as one of the main roots of humankind’s ongoing downfall, it is therefore unsurprising that Scripture often warns against it (Job 5:2; Prov. 3:31; 23:17). In the wisdom tradition, human envy (qin’a) is presented as more destructive than wrath and anger (Prov. 27:4). In the Gospel accounts, envy on the part of the powerful—the feeling of “displeasure and ill will at the superiority of another person”—is cited as one of the main causes of Jesus’ humiliating arrest, trial, and death (Hagedorn and Neyrey). Early Christian writers generally presented envy and jealousy (phthonos or zelos) as sure signs of godlessness and wickedness (Rom. 1:29; Jas. 3:14-16), and linked them to other antisocial behaviors, including wrath, backbiting, and murder (2 Cor. 12:20; Gal. 5:21). One particular form of envy is greed (or covetousness), which arises with regard to material goods and is a form of idolatry (Col. 3:5).
In contrast, Scripture sometimes represents jealousy as the right of the powerful. The God of Moses commands, “You shall not make for yourself an idol . . . for I the Lord your God am a jealous [qanna] God” (Exod. 20:4-5; Deut. 5:8-9). In his zeal for Israel, God plays the role of Israel’s jealous husband, in vivid and sometimes horrifying detail (Hos. 2-3; Jer. 2-3; Ezek. 16). The ancient Hebrews also had special rituals for testing the fidelity of wives whose husbands were overcome by “a spirit of jealousy [qin’a]” (Num. 5:11-31). Paul, the apostle to the gentiles, writes, “I am jealous [zelo] for you with a godly jealousy [zelos]; for I betrothed you to one husband, so that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin” (2 Cor. 11:2). Thus, whereas envy against one’s rival is never justifiable and always creates trouble, a certain amount of righteous jealousy of the powerful toward their possessions is presented as helpful to maintaining divine and social order.
The Tradition and Scripture Early Christian thinkers such as Origen, Clement of Alexandria, and Athanasius were clear in their denial of the possibility of envy in God. God is completely good and perfect, lacking nothing; since envy arises from a perceived lack it is therefore impossible for God (Petterson). More precise distinctions between envy and jealousy were drawn in the Middle Ages. Thomas Aquinas treats the two topics as entirely separable. Envy, he says, “is sorrow for another’s good,” especially insofar as that good “threatens to be an occasion of harm” to oneself (ST II-II, q. 36, a. 1-4). As such, envy usually arises between people in fairly similar situations who find themselves in close competition (the commoner, e.g., does not envy the king, nor vice versa). The envious desire to surpass a rival is a mortal sin because it is contrary to charity—the desire for the neighbor’s good.
But jealousy or zeal, Thomas purports, is a passion that can be either righteous or evil. It “arises from the intensity of love [rather than of hatred],” and “an intense love seeks to remove everything that opposes it” (ST I-II, q. 28, a. 4). With regard to jealousy, therefore, its rightness or wrongness is determined by its subject and object. The zeal that arises from a vicious person’s disordered love (such as envy or concupiscence) is problematic, but a virtuous person can be zealous for something truly good, such as God or friendship. Unlike envy, jealousy does not necessarily entail a lack of something and a concomitant desire to wrest that thing away from someone else. On the contrary, jealousy assumes that one already (rightly) possesses some good and refers to an attitude of loving vigilance toward it.
Part of the reason these terms are often closely associated seems to be the fact that they sit on the same fine line between virtue and vice, between the possibility of justification and the dangers of inordinate self-love. The act of looking upon something with a desire to grasp it for oneself is obviously related to a host of sins, including covetousness, ingratitude, immoderate love, idolatry, and pride. But envy does not necessarily entail the desire to take a good away from someone else (one might envy a friend’s having a spouse and children, even if one does not desire those particular children or spouse). Likewise, even when jealousy may be justified (as in the case of one’s property or family), it often fosters destructive behavior rather than acts of kindness and mercy.
Contemporary Application
In psychology, both jealousy and envy can be broadly characterized in terms of threats to selfesteem, although scientists draw distinctions as well. Envy might be considered a primal urge or emotion that “occurs when a desired advantage enjoyed by another person or group of persons causes a person to feel a painful blend of inferiority, hostility, and resentment” (Smith and Kim 60). Envy’s “more sophisticated” or “domesticated” cousin, jealousy, builds on this primal emotion by adding some degree of rational valuation or justification (Burke).
Experience demonstrates that jealousy and envy, whether oriented toward money or material property, prestige or honor, or a spouse or lover, have similarly unedifying tendencies. In the long history of humankind, zealous desire for wealth or power has inspired theft and colonialism; zealous love of country or religion has justified xenophobia and genocide; and zealous demands for loyalty (e.g., of a spouse) or honor (e.g., of manhood) have sanctioned countless acts of unspeakable violence. Inherent in envy is an underlying posture of self-centeredness that regards one’s own good as being of supreme importance. Although jealousy can be intellectually justifiable when directed toward something greater than or outside oneself (such as God or country), more often than not it leads to the overwhelmingly negative effects of rivalry, hostility, bitterness, anxiety, resentment, abuse, and intolerance. Christians’ time therefore is better spent in cultivating humility than in justifying jealousy. The antidote to these negative emotions is found in love (1 Cor. 13:4) and fear of God (Exod. 18:21).
See also Seven Deadly Sins
Bibliography
Burke, N. “On the Domestication of Envy.” Psychoanalytic Psychology 17 (2000): 497—511; Hagedorn, A., and J. Neyrey. “ ‘It Was out of Envy That They Handed Jesus Over’ (Mark 15:10): The Anatomy of Envy and the Gospel of Mark.” JSNT 69 (1998): 15-56; Petterson, A. “A Good Being Would Envy None Life: Athanasius on the Goodness of God.” ThTo 55 (1998): 59-68; Smith, R., and S. Kim. “Comprehending Envy.” Psychological Bulletin 133 (2007): 46-64.
Kathryn D. Blanchard
The book of Jeremiah presents poetic oracles, sermons, and discourses in Deuteronomistic style, and narrative material from the last days of Judah and Jerusalem before the final assault of the Babylonians in 587 BCE. Chapters 1-25 contain oracles of judgment and doom, arranged in thematic collections, introduced by prose sermons (Stulman), and ending with a prose oracle of judgment against the whole world. Chapters 26-45 consist primarily of prose narratives that illustrate the kings’ and the people’s lack of reception of the prophetic warnings and its consequence, the fall of Jerusalem. Chapters 46-51 present oracles against the nations that surround Judah; chapter 52 repeats the narrative of the fall of Jerusalem, 2 Kgs. 24-25. Two poetic collections deserve special interest, the so-called Confessions of Jeremiah (11:18-12:6; 15:10-21; 17:14-18; 18:18-23; 20:7-18) and Book of Consolation (chaps. 30-31).
Jeremiah traditionally is dated to the late monarchic and early exilic periods. The prophet is
believed to have received his calling in 627 BCE (1:5-19); his death is untold in the biblical text. The dating and authorship are disputed in recent scholarship, since a valid distribution of authentic and redactional layers is considered to be uncertain at best. The differences between the Hebrew (MT) and the Greek (LXX) versions also warrant that Jeremiah be read on the background of and as a witness to an innertextual theological discussion that ran for at least four centuries after the time of the prophet.
The basic message of Jeremiah is that the people have abandoned the covenantal relationship with Yahweh (in English Bibles, “the Lord”), their only God, and have followed foreign gods. Therefore, God will send foreign armies to wage war against them. By and large, as opposed to Amos, for example, social, cultic, or moral conduct is not the primary concern in Jeremiah. Ethical questions are subsumed under the covenantal headline, ethical or moral transgressions being viewed as consequences of apostasy.
Our primary direct source to ethics in Jeremiah is the so-called Temple Sermon in Jer. 7. The prophet urges the people to amend their ways and their doings (7:3), summed up in acting justly one with another; not oppressing the alien, the orphan, and the widow; not shedding innocent blood in this place (i.e., the temple/the land); and not following other gods (7:5-6). These recommendations represent the basic Deuteronomic ethos of protecting vulnerable social groups in society, so closely contingent with common ancient Near Eastern law. As examples of the people’s transgressions, the prophet uses a short version of the Decalogue (cf. Deut. 5). He accuses the people of stealing, murdering, committing adultery, swearing falsely, making offerings to Baal, and going after other gods, and then believing that their trust in cultic observance will save them nevertheless (7:9-10). True observance of the law is manifested in keeping both the religious and the ethical commandments.
Accusations of ethical misdemeanors (e.g., greed for unjust gain [8:10]) are raised against the ruling classes, most of all the kings. In chapter 22, a collection of oracles about the monarchy, King Jehoiakim is accused of building his house by unrighteousness and injustice, making his neighbor work for nothing, and thus transgressing his social responsibility. Moreover, his house is built with excessive luxury, as a spacious house with paneling in painted cedar, in order to show off royal opulence. By contrast, his father, King Josiah, is touted as an example of good governance. He lived more modestly, and he implemented justice and righteousness and took care of the cause of the poor and needy, whereas Jehoiakim’s “eyes and heart are only on dishonest gain, for shedding innocent blood, and for practicing oppression and violence” (22:17). Thus, the ethical demands made of a ruler in Jeremiah are in accordance with the
Deuteronomistic ideal, which puts limitations on royal authority and admonishes the king not to acquire several wives or silver and gold in great quantity, in order to keep his heart with the Lord, “neither exalting himself above other members of the community nor turning aside from the commandment” (Deut. 17:20).
All in all, modesty seems to be an ideal in Jeremiah, and drunkenness, for example, being seen as a disgraceful state that makes the offender vulnerable to punishment, a potent display of divine rage (Jer. 25:15-29).
In the late oracle Jer. 31:31-34, the Lord promises that some day in the future he will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah: “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” The new covenant is aimed at creating a relationship between God and his people that is not subject to the uncertainties and damage afforded by the human propensity to sin. The knowledge of the Lord, internalized in the people, will lead to a life of justice and righteousness. In the NT, this new covenant is understood as fulfilled in the Lord’s Supper (e.g., 1 Cor. 11:25), and the idiom has named the two biblical collections, the Old and New Testaments (Gk. diatheke; Lat. testamentum).
From a modern perspective, Jeremiah can be an unpleasant book to read, given its violent and sexually offensive language. The relationship between God and God’s people often is pictured in metaphors of war, cruelty, environmental catastrophes, and matrimonial violence. Israel, which once was God’s wife, is portrayed as a wild ass in heat and as a whore, whose master has every right to punish her (chap. 2). For this reason, criticism is raised from both feminist and ideological-critical exegetes against some parts of the message of Jeremiah. Only in a few chapters, primarily in the Book of Consolation, do we find testimony of a forgiving God who cares for the exiled people. In the end, however, the powerful image of God crying like a mother for daughter Zion (8:18-22) adds a nuance of feminine empathy to the image of the OT God as an angry sovereign.
See also Covenant; Exile; Idolatry; Land; Old Testament Ethics
Bibliography
Stulman, L. Jeremiah. AOTC. Abingdon, 2005.
Else K. Holt
Job
The question of ethics is implied at the outset of the book of Job as the narrator speaks of Job’s character: he is a man who is “blameless and upright” and who “fears God and turns away from evil” (1:1, 8; 2:3). This fourfold affirmation suggests that Job was the quintessential faithful and ethical person—personally (blameless) and socially (just), religiously (fearer of God) and morally (one who avoided wrong). Despite Job’s meticulous actions to ensure that nothing ever goes wrong (1:5), however, a capricious agreement in heaven leads to a series of misfortunes that befall him and his family (1:6-2:9). In particular, he is afflicted “with loathsome sores . . . from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head” (2:7), a poignant spectacle because that precise affliction is found elsewhere only as a curse for those who violate the covenant (Deut. 28:35). The rest of the book then debates two key issues: the relevance of the doctrine of retribution in this case, and the proper response in the face of such suffering.
Job’s afflictions lead his friends to suspect that something must be amiss in his conduct, even if they do not know what that might be. Their best response is that he should not blame God but rather look deeper within himself, and even if he fails to discover the problem, he should turn to God anyway in praise and in hope of divine forgiveness and restoration. It is the traditional response that we find already in the various “exemplary sufferer” texts from elsewhere in the ancient Near East. The premise is that it is impossible that anyone be without sin, so in the face of unexplained suffering, one should simply count on divine mercy (cf. 1 John 1:8-9). One must look beyond oneself, beyond any efforts to prove one’s faithfulness and just conduct, and count instead on God’s faithfulness and just conduct.
The reader knows from the prologue, though, that Job is suffering not because of any wrong that he has committed. Job himself, while not denying the possibility that he might have erred, is unwilling to simply accept the premise of traditional doctrine. He sees his friends not as comforters but as tormentors. In his rebuke of them he offers a profound ethic of friendship: “To one who is discouraged, steadfast love comes from one’s friends, even if that one may have abandoned the fear of Shaddai” (6:14 [all translations mine]). For Job, God has seemed like an enemy. Whatever “steadfast love” (the biblical term for unwavering loyalty) Job will experience now, therefore, will come not from the deity directly; it will have to come from friends, if it comes at all. In times of deep despair, when God seems utterly inimical, when faith seems impossible, true friendship that does not depend on one’s confessional stance, friendship that does not depend on one’s theology, may be the very manifestation of grace. In Job’s view, though, the friends are not true and cannot be trusted: “Surely you are not [confounded? trustworthy?], for you see trauma and you feared” (6:21).
The allusion to fear harks back to the “fear” in 6:14, where Job speaks of a friendship that manifests steadfast love to one who is desperate, even if that one should forsake “the fear of Shaddai.” Job is suggesting that his friends are the ones who fear, not in the sense of being pious, but in the sense of being timid. They fear simply because they have seen Job’s trauma, meaning not just his physical condition, but, even more, his apparent abandonment of piety. They fear the blatant theological contradiction that Job embodies in his broken self. Job has portrayed himself as a theological “whistleblower,” who is not afraid to face the truth and “tell it like it is,” whatever the consequences of doing so (6:10). In that sense, he is not a fearer, and perhaps because of that the friends might have regarded him as impious, one who does not fear. To Job, however, people who are afraid of confronting the tough, faith-shattering questions are not fearers of God. Rather, they are simply fearers, theological cowards, for they fear the truth.
There are profound theoethical reflections like this scattered throughout the book. The most important passage in this regard, though, is Job’s oath of innocence in chap. 31, where he goes through a detailed list of crimes that may be committed by anyone, and he denies them all. Yet what is important is not the list itself, what one should or should not do, but how Job goes about his ethical reflection.
He begins with a series of possible sexual offenses, beginning with lust. He claims that he not only has been proper in his conduct, but he even has covenanted with his eyes not to desire (31:1). He speaks thus not only of guilt that is visible, exterior; he speaks rather of interiority (cf. Matt. 5:27-28). Importantly, the basis of such a profound commitment is theological: “What is the portion of God above? What is the lot of Shaddai on high?” (31:2). That is, God has assigned each individual a portion, an area of responsibility (so the Hebrew term implies), and one must honor that assignment.
What Job sets forth in 31:1-12 is his defense of his integrity. He is, therefore, unwittingly corroborating the narrator’s and God’s judgment that he is blameless. Yet he is also “just”—that is, proper as regards his treatment of others (31:13-18). He speaks of not rejecting the just cause of his male or female servants when they bring a complaint, and he makes it clear that his is a theological ethic: “How shall I act, since God will arise; since God calls one into account, how shall I answer Him?” (31:14). It is an ethic grounded in creation theology: “Surely in the belly the Creator of me created them [Job’s servants], and He has formed us in the womb as one” (31:15). What this means, then, is that we must treat others justly out of respect for God’s creation, since God is the Creator of all people, regardless of their class or stature. All are created in “the belly,” which refers not just to the belly of a human being, but to the realm of God’s cosmic rule (see Ps. 139:13, 15).
Job asserts that he has been just to the needy and the defenseless. His words in 31:16-17 are choked with emotion: “[I’ll be damned] if I have turned away from the desires of the weak, extinguished the longings of the widow, eaten my morsels by myself, while the fatherless did not partake of it!” In the next verse he states, “For from my youth He has reared me like a father; so from the womb of my mother I will guide her [the widow].” In Job’s appeal to creation a few verses earlier, he argues that he as a master treats his slaves respectfully because God is the Creator of them all “in the belly.” Now Job moves from birth to parental nurture. He does not treat others unjustly, because God is the parent of all. Indeed, because God is father, Job has been father to the fatherless, and because God is mother, Job has been a mother, a guide to those who need guidance.
The book of Job recognizes as well that God is utterly transcendent and mysterious, and that the divine will may be unknowable. Yet, if that is the case, does human conduct, whether good or bad, matter at all? Does ethics matter if God is unknowable and God’s will unknown? Job poses the question crudely, asking whether sinful conduct has negative consequences for God: “If I have sinned, what can I do to you, O guardian of humanity?” (7:20). Eliphaz later reframes the question to make an opposite point, asking how Job’s good conduct might have a positive impact on God: “Is it a pleasure to Shaddai that you are righteous, or is it a benefit that your ways are blameless?” (22:3). Elihu deduces, however, as if responding to both formulations, that Job was wondering whether there is any use for humans to be in God’s favor (34:9). These are questions of ethics when God is silent and hidden in the face of human suffering, and Elihu’s own proffer is theologically profound and ethically principled:
If you sin, how do you affect Him?
If your transgressions are many, what do you do to Him?
If you are righteous, what do you give Him?
Or what does He receive from your hand?
Your wickedness is for people like yourself,
So your righteousness is for human beings. (35:6—8)
To Elihu, ethics has consequences not for oneself, but for others in the human race. Just as one’s wickedness affects others, so too one’s righteousness affects others. Thus, Elihu advocates an ethic that is not self-interested: righteous conduct is not for one’s own benefit, nor is it even for God’s sake. Rather, one acts ethically simply for the common good.
See also Creation Ethics; Justice, Retributive; Old Testament Ethics; Suffering; Theodicy
Choon-Leong Seow
The short but complex book associated with the prophet Joel has generated much scholarly discussion on a variety of issues, such as the date of the book, the nature of the locust invasion (real or symbolic), the unity of the book, and the relevance of its message. Particularly challenging is the prophet’s insistence on judgment and punishment without ever specifying the transgression of the people. The placement of the book between Hosea and Amos may be due more to its thematic affinity than chronological proximity. In the absence of specific information, it is likely that the parameters for the date of the book lie somewhere between the sixth and fourth centuries BCE. The two-part division in the book (1:1-2:27; 2:28-3:21), each part with a contrasting message, tone, or mood, need not entail different authorship. The first part may be seen as relating to a crisis and resolution as experienced by the prophet’s community, while the remainder of the book may be seen as presenting the prophet’s broader vision for the future.
From an ethical perspective, three themes deserve mention. First, Joel sees a close connection between people’s lives and the environment. When nature/land is affected, people’s lives are affected, and the reverse would be true as well. The root cause for this is the lack of proper relationship to God. The assurance of new life in terms of economic renewal (2:18-27) is the result of Yahweh’s response to the crisis. Second, in the passage on the outpouring of Spirit, Joel offers a vision that is barrier-breaking. The promise of the prophet is for the empowering of “all flesh” (2:28). By further specifying the recipients—sons and daughters, old and young, male and female servants—the prophet reinforces the idea that the outpouring of the Spirit knows no discrimination based on sex, age, or class. Third, Joel goes on to say that the Spirit is given for the purpose of prophesying and receiving dreams and visions. The recipients of the Spirit will be a nation of prophets. The use of the terms dreams and visions shifts the focus to something that is essential to prophecy. Prophecy often is understood merely as social critique or ethical urging. Joel goes one step beyond in calling for a broader vision. In its fundamental sense, prophecy is the ability to see the invisible—an alternative vision. The prophet Joel’s vision is barrier-breaking as it seeks to redefine social perceptions, attitudes, and structures, thereby paving the way for a new ethic.
See also Ecological Ethics; Egalitarianism; Judgment; Justice, Retributive; Old Testament Ethics; Reward and Retribution
Bibliography
Barton, J. Joel and Obadiah. OTL. Westminster John Knox, 2001; Birch, B. Hosea, Joel, and Amos. WestBC. Westminster John Knox, 1997; Crenshaw, J. Joel. AB 24C. Doubleday, 1995; Mason, R. Zephaniah, Habakkuk, Joel. OTG. JSOT Press, 1994; Wolff, H. Joel and Amos. Trans. W Janzen, S. McBride, and C. Muenchow. Hermeneia. Fortress, 1977.
D. N. Premnath
The identity of the author of the Fourth Gospel remains obscure. An author appears in the text as the “disciple” (21:24), but little can be verified about this witness. The dominant view among NT scholars is that John is the product of communal development of tradition, whoever its final redactor might have been.
Rather than seeing John’s Gospel as a source for ethics, many have accused John of loving Christians and hating Jews. John is charged with characterizing Jews as children of the devil and as unbelievers (8:44-45). Granted, in the history of interpretation John has been shamefully used against Jewish people. But is such usage of John appropriate? Nowhere does John mention hating Jews. Hatred is expressed only the other way around: the world hates Jesus and his followers. Furthermore, when Jesus tells some Jews that they are from their father the devil, he does not characterize Judaism. Specific Jewish characters are not the Jewish people; rather, they are some Jews who are actually identified earlier as believers (8:31). This text is quite important for Johannine ethics because, for John, what one is and does derives from a relationship with a parent: either the devil or God. The text characterizes behavior, not Jews or “the Jewish people.” Furthermore, against the notion that John is anti-Jewish, Jesus is called “king of the Jews” (19:19), and he dies for the nation in order to gather dispersed Israelites (11:51-52).
One approach to biblical ethics focuses on moral law. For John, law should not be broken (7:23). However, law alone is insufficient. It must be interpreted and practiced appropriately, and it is subject to misuse (19:7). Many interpreters take Jesus’ reference to “your law” in 8:17; 10:34 as distancing Jesus from the Jewish law. More likely, just as Moses appeals to Israelites on the basis of the “Lord your God” (e.g., Deut. 4:10), Jesus appeals to his interlocutors on the basis of their fundamental obligation to their own law. But in such a case the law reveals deficiencies more than produces rectitude. Furthermore, grace and truth go beyond law (1:17). The fact that the story of the woman caught in adultery (7:51-8:11) does not appear in the earliest and best manuscripts has not
kept it from being used as a basis for qualifying law with mercy (see 7:23).
For many interpreters, John is more attuned with grounding living in principles, particularly belief, truth, and love. In fact, love becomes a “new commandment” from Jesus (13:34). But in light of other metaphors (shepherd and sheep, vine and branches), belief, truth, and love hardly remain “principles”; rather, they point to believing, truth, and love as relationships.
Emulating characters is difficult in John in that the characters frequently are ambiguous (Nicode-mus affirms J esus’ identity and signs but does not understand his teaching or receive his testimony [3:1-14]), faulty (a man whom Jesus heals gives him away [5:15]), unable to understand (Peter refuses to let Jesus wash his feet [13:8-10]), and disloyal (Peter denies Jesus [18:25-27]). According to many translations, however, in washing his disciples’ feet Jesus gives an “example” (hypodeigma [13:15]) for how they should live. Although hy-podeigma frequently means “example,” here it evokes considerations surpassing an example to be imitated. The foot-washing is to be understood only in the future (Jesus’ resurrection?). A lack of understanding is rarely problematic for imitation. Moreover, the anticipated outcome is mutuality, not one-way imitation. Against a Jewish background, hypodeigma may be rendered “revelatory pattern.”
John provides bases for critiquing social norms. Jesus’ interaction with a Samaritan woman contravenes norms of gender and ethnicity (John 4:1-42). Sabbath controversies likewise imply critiques of norms. Jesus rejects the marginalization of a man born blind as a social anomaly (“sin” [9:1-3]). John also undermines imperialism. At Jesus’ trial Pilate asks a basic Johannine question: “Where are you from?” (19:9). Given the thematic development of Jesus’ origin, his response subordinates imperial power to God.
John’s portrayal of reality is heavily symbolic. Reality is viewed in terms of sharp oppositions: light/darkness, above/below, truth/falsehood, eternal life/death. On the negative side, visual, spatial, and temporal dimensions of reality imply complicity in evil: “And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil” (3:19). Human behavior is influenced by relationships with such dimensions of reality.
The positive axis of these oppositions corresponds to a relationship with God in which God is the source, motivation, and empowerment for ethics: “But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God” (3:21). When people ask, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” (6:28), Jesus presents himself as the middle term through which human beings live in a relationship with God.
One purpose of John is to engender an encounter with Jesus (20:31). Ethics as the fruit of a relationship with Jesus and with God is inseparable from this encounter. Repeatedly, this relationship is described as “following,” but other metaphors reflect encounters with Jesus and living in a mutuality with him. The good shepherd knows his own, and his own know him (10:14). Jesus is the vine; his disciples are the branches (15:5). He abides in them and they in him, and this relationship bears fruit (15:4).
See also Anti-Semitism; Love, Love Command; New Testament Ethics
Bibliography
Carter, W. John: Storyteller, Interpreter, Evangelist. Hendrickson, 2006; Hays, R. The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross, and New Creation: A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics. HarperSanFrancisco, 1996; Matera, F. New Testament Ethics: The Legacies of Jesus and Paul. Westminster John Knox, 1996; Rensberger, D. Johannine Faith and Liberating Community. Westminster, 1988; Schneiders, S. Written That You May Believe: Encountering Jesus in the Fourth Gospel. Crossroad, 2003; Thompson, M. The God of the Gospel of John. Eerdmans, 2001.
Robert L. Brawley
The Johannine Epistles proclaim the person and work of Jesus Christ and the relationship of the reader to him and to the Father. God is both light and love, and God’s love is demonstrated through Jesus’ sacrifice, which forgives sins (1 John 4:7-11). This sacrifice is the means by which believers live in love, truth, and purity with God and one another. God’s love enables those who immerse their lives in God to resist sin and to be like God in character during this life (1 John 3:9). In addition, remaining within the sphere of God’s love allows believers to live without fear of death and final judgment (1 John 4:17-18). All three of the epistles emphasize the importance of walking in the truth of one’s relationship with Christ (1 John 3:18; 2 John 4; 3 John 4).
These epistles exhort readers to live ethically because of their relationship with God. The foremost aim of believers is to live a life that can be described as “walking with God.” In 1 John, this life is made available through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ (2:2), his advocacy for those who sin, including both believers and the whole world (2:2), and by the confession of sin (1:9). The same sacrificial blood that allows believers to walk with God also enables the believer to live in right relationship with others (1:7). It is the believers’ relationship with Jesus and through Jesus with the Father that enables them to live in justice, love, truth, and purity (significant themes in the Johan-nine Epistles). Jesus becomes the source for loving God and loving fellow believers.
Those who want to know if they are living a life that is immersed in God should look to their own actions (1 John 3:14, 18). Love of God is evidenced through obedience rather than solely by verbal affirmation (1 John 2:3). Believers are to obey the “word of God,” understood as the command to love God and other believers (1 John 4:21) as well as the instruction to follow the exemplary way of Jesus’ sacrifice (1 John 2:6; 3:16). Believers demonstrate their love of God by obeying God’s command to love their fellow believers. This is demonstrated in hospitality (2 John 10; 3 John 6) and by the sacrifice of one’s life on behalf of others, if needed (1 John 3:16). Conversely, believers demonstrate their true allegiances, with all that is apart from God (“the world”), when they engage in hateful behavior toward others.
Speech is also a significant ethical topic of these epistles. In 1 John a contrast is established between those who make false claims about their relationship with God and the failure to live by the truth, and 2 John is concerned about those who deceive the church (v. 7). The truth of statements is determined by the lifestyle of the speaker (1 John 1:6) and by the assertions that the speaker makes about Jesus (1 John 2:22-23), particularly Jesus’ incarnation and his relationship to the Father.
In 1 John there are abundant contrasts between love and hate, light and darkness, truth and lying. In a similar vein, 1 John indicates that those who confess their sins are forgiven and cleansed by God (1:8) and also claims that those who know God do not sin (2:1; 3:6, 9). This apparent contradiction has been the source for significant discussions about whether believers sin. Catholic tradition and many Protestant traditions assert that believers attain perfection either at death or upon entrance into heaven. This understanding attends well to the act of confession on the part of believers but does not easily explain the meaning of 1 John 3:6-9, with its emphasis on the sinless believer. The Wesleyan tradition claims that it is possible for believers to reach perfection in this life by being completely immersed in God’s love and glory. This understanding attends well to 1 John 3:6-9 but has to assert that the confession referred to in 1 John 1:8 happens at conversion. The seeming contradiction contrasts the hope that believers will abide in God to such an extent in this life that they will not sin with the reminder that Jesus’ sacrifice and advocacy are available for believers also if they have need.
The Johannine Epistles call believers to right relationship with God and others through the work of Jesus. This includes loving others, speaking truth and resisting deceit, imitating Jesus, practicing hospitality, and avoiding all that is counter to God. In the mingling of love, truth, and obedience comes the assurance of relationship with God as God’s children.
See also Deception; Hospitality; Love, Love Command; New Testament Ethics; Perfection; Sanctification; Truthfulness, Truth-Telling; Wesleyan Ethics; World
Bibliography
Smalley, S. 1, 2, 3 John. WBC 51. Word, 2007; Wesley, J. “The Great Privilege of Those That Are Born of God.” Pages 431-43 in The Works of John Wesley: Sermons, ed. A. Outler. Abingdon, 1984.
Ruth Anne Reese
Commanded by God to proclaim divine judgment to the Assyrian city Nineveh, Jonah refuses. He flees by ship, but he is jettisoned by its sailors when they learn that he is the cause of the storm that is threatening them. Rescued when swallowed by a large fish, Jonah prays for deliverance and is deposited on dry ground. God reissues the Nineveh assignment, and Jonah obeys. His words are few but effective. The city turns from its evil ways, and the destruction threatened does not happen. The book ends inconclusively with Jonah and God discussing the nature of mercy.
The most pressing ethical questions concern relations with opponents: God with sinners (here, Ninevites and Jonah); Jews (here, Jonah) with oppressors.
The book makes clear that God threatens the Ninevites due to their (unspecified) evil. Clearer still, God responds to Ninevite repentance and defers punishment. For the ancients, God serves as explanatory factor for events poorly understood. Here, punishment is threatened, mercy shown.
Commentators vary widely about Jonah’s feelings toward those to whom he preaches. Granting that he declined his assignment at first, there is no suggestion that his eventual preaching was grudging or resentful. He preaches five Hebrew words: laconic but sufficient. We are not told Jonah’s response when Nineveh responded to his preaching. Any certitude that Jonah wished ill to Israel’s enemy is misplaced until chap. 4. With preaching and repentance accomplished, Jonah becomes displeased, though Hebrew syntax leaves the object of his anger ambiguous. He complains to God about divine graciousness, providing it as the reason for his initial flight. Jonah takes shelter outside Nineveh, in a hut, shaded by a vine. But when a worm eats the vine and the sun beats down on Jonah, he prays in anger again. God speaks with him, asking a question, offering an analogy. God probes by analogy the nature of divine mercy, asking rather than telling Jonah how mercy may be relevant. The story ends with God’s question to Jonah, whose nonresponse prompts the reader to ponder why God might show concern. Scholars confirm that the story is about compassion without agreeing on the relevance of what God has said.
Many (more Christians than Jews) hold that the book’s point is that Jews ought to be more open to gentiles. But others have recently argued that the book, written plausibly after the destruction of the city of Nineveh (612 BCE), might reflect worry by the citizens of postexilic Jerusalem, who knew that their own city, like Nineveh, had been both rebuked for its sins and reprieved by God. If Nineveh could collapse even after being spared, might the same fate be in store for Jerusalem? How could they avoid a fate that might be deserved but was dreaded? How can Jerusalem’s citizens learn God’s ways, even if all they have are clueless prophets?
Finally, with so many questions open in a book that seems at first glance simple, readers may recognize that their interpretive choices are ethically self-diagnostic. If Jonah emerges as a disobedient cynic, grudging mercy, sulking over God’s goodness, that suggests what a reader wants to see. If the prophetic character is constructed more respectfully, as someone caught amid poor choices and hoping to make the best of what falls his way while remaining in prayerful dialogue with God, that is more promising.
See also Old Testament Ethics; Repentance Bibliography
Green, B. Jonah’s Journeys. Liturgical Press, 2005; Sasson, J. Jonah. AB 24B. Doubleday, 1990.
Barbara Green
Few biblical books present readers with challenges as varied and vexing as does the book of Joshua. The overall structure seems simple enough: a theological prologue (1:1-18); an account of Israel’s conquest of the land (2:1-12:24); an overview of the allotment, delineation, and occupation of tribal territories (13:1-21:45); and a closing collection of miscellaneous materials (22:1-24:33). The content of the book, however, raises multiple perspectives on what happened and how the events are to be understood. Chief among these is the clash between materials that present Israel’s occupation as a conquest of the entire land through victories over helpless Canaanites (e.g., 10:28-12:24; 21:43-45), and others that describe vast tracts of land outside Israel’s possession and a more robust resistance from the indigenous peoples (e.g., 13:2-6; 17:14-18; 19:47-48).
The book’s disparate perspectives are the result of a long and complex process of composition that was not completed probably until Israel’s return from exile in Babylon. Joshua, in short, bears the traces of Israel’s theological reflection on its traditions of violent origins and of the nation’s thinking through and recasting the traditions in light of its experience with God. Remarkably, conflicting perspectives and memories have not been harmonized but rather have been allowed to stand in tension with each other in the canonical text.
Theological and Moral Tensions Joshua presents Israel’s occupation of Canaan as a campaign of invasion, conquest, and extermination initiated by God and prosecuted in obedience
to divine commandments. The Lord is prominent in the book as the divine warrior, one of the most ancient and ubiquitous images of God in the OT. In this role, the Lord confirms his faithfulness and demonstrates his power to fulfill his promises to Israel’s ancestors. The Lord’s victories over the opposing forces give him claim to the land by right of conquest. This claim in turn establishes the foundation for the affirmation that the Lord gives the land to Israel and determines what areas each of its tribes and clans will settle. For its part, Israel achieves success as it responds to God’s initiative, acts in unity with God and within itself, and strictly observes the words of Moses. The conquest of the land, therefore, combines militant triumphalism with doxology, particularly in the Deuteronomistic speeches that open the book (1:1-18) and the accounts of victories over cities and kings (6:1-27; 8:1-29; 10:6-12:24).
Other texts, however, display uneasiness with the ostensive triumphalism of the conquest narrative and subtly undercut its claims. Three anecdotes precede each of the first three battle accounts at Jericho, Ai, and Gibeon (2:1-24; 7:1-26; 9:1-27). The three stories follow a parallel structure that centers thematically on exposing what is hidden. The first and third present encounters with indigenous peoples who praise Israel’s God and display exemplary Israelite virtues (Rahab and the Gibeonite emissaries), while the second relates a sacrilege committed by a pedigreed Israelite (Achan). Read together, the three stories put a human face on both perpetrators and victims and challenge the ethnic separatism that demonizes Canaanites and sanctifies Israelites. The stories work together with summary comments that recast Israel’s battles as defensive operations against increasingly aggressive kings (5:1; 9:1-2; 10:1-5; 11:1-5) and with a sophisticated reworking of the conquest narrative that gradually recasts the kings of Canaan, rather than its peoples, as the hostile force that Israel must overcome in the land.
At a fundamental level, Joshua is a narrative of origins that, on the one hand, lays claim to a homeland and a distinctive destiny and, on the other, constructs national identity over against the indigenous other (the peoples of the land). Joshua depicts Israel’s encounter with difference and tests three primary identity markers: ethnicity, territory, and religious observance. In the course of the narrative each proves unable to provide a stable foundation on which to ground identity and action. Although ethnic exclusivity finds expression through Joshua’s warnings that Israelites must keep their distance from Canaanites (23:1-16), the portrayals of Rahab and the Gibeonites oppose this notion of identity by presenting the reader with Canaanites who praise Israel’s God and display exemplary Israelite virtues. These depictions, along with the reports of aliens within Israel (6:25; 8:30-35; 9:27), counter the sense that the nation is or should be ethnically homogenous. A similar dynamic holds true for territorial identity. Although boundaries define the extent of Israel’s land and enclose tribal inheritances, few areas exhibit territorial integrity. Multiple references to unoccupied land and surviving peoples belie a simple correspondence between people and land. Finally, instances of Israelite disobedience and bickering over right religious practice counter depictions of meticulous obedience to divine commands, highlighting the difficulties involved in interpreting them correctly (e.g., 7:1-12; 22:10-34).
The difficulty of discerning divine priorities amid conflicting imperatives comes to a head when Joshua, twice, must decide whether to honor an oath to spare the lives of Canaanites (2:12-14; 6:22-25; 9:15-27). In both cases Joshua rules that Israel must keep the oath, even though doing so directly violates the commands of Moses that dictate how Israel must deal with the indigenous inhabitants (cf. Deut. 7:1-6; 20:16-18). In so doing, Joshua implicitly elevates mercy above the strict application of the law. As the narrative moves toward its conclusion, devotion to the one God emerges as the sole defining characteristic of the people of God. Joshua concludes with a climactic scene of covenant renewal (24:1-28), which portrays Israel as a people who choose the God who has chosen them.
Joshua as a Resource for Ethical Reflection
Joshua is a difficult and problematic book for Christians living in an age haunted by memories of genocidal conflicts and programs of colonization. It has, in many cases, directly or indirectly shaped the thinking and action of those who identify with biblical Israel. Given Christian complicity with such enterprises, grounded in declarations that “God is with us,” would it not be safer to ignore this book’s account of a warlike God who commands extermination and ethnic cleansing?
Modern theological reflection on Joshua generally has attempted to defuse its violent theology by placing the book within a historical and developmental framework. This allows one to read the book as a primitive expression of Israel’s religious thought that has minimal relevance when set against other biblical texts that reflect a more mature ethical sensibility. It has also been argued that the prosecution of war in Joshua reflects a more thoughtful and humane prosecution of war when set against the brutal societies of the ancient Near East. Within a theology of progressive revelation, God’s participation in the conquest has been viewed as a necessary divine accommodation that no longer applies in light of God’s full revelation in Jesus Christ. These and other similar approaches effectively discredit strategies that use Joshua in support of violent or exclusionary agendas.
Recent study of Joshua has opened new trajectories by recognizing its narrativity and taking seriously its conflicting theological perspectives. Postcolonial readers of Joshua have seen in the book a biblical portrayal of the violence and dispossession that they have experienced at the hands of imperial powers. Other readers have noted the interplay of opposing perspectives within the book, one that advances claims to territory by right of conquest and another that undercuts these claims and exposes the rhetoric of militant nationalism. Read as narrative, Joshua does not so much constitute a template for the extraction of moral principles as it does a testimony of God’s involvement in the life of a nation, one that draws readers into a long and contentious conversation about what it means to live as God’s people in a violent world.
The patristic metaphor of Scripture as a mirror, which reflects our beauty and ugliness, offers a powerful point of reference for reading Joshua in the contemporary context. In this sense, Joshua reflects a nation that both constructs and critiques a narrative of origin configured by convictions of divine election and destiny. Joshua does not mute the militant triumphalism that infuses Israel’s memories of violent origins, as the convictions it articulates had become fundamental components of Israel’s national identity. It does, however, bring these sentiments under a subtle and powerful criticism that unmasks the perspectives, commitments, and rhetoric that emanate from them. Joshua therefore constitutes a vital theological resource for every nation that, like Israel, seeks to come to terms with the violence of its past and to rethink its own narratives of exclusion and imperialism.
See also Colonialism and Postcolonialism; Conquest; Deuteronomistic History; Holy War; Land; Old Testament Ethics
Bibliography
Creach, J. Joshua. IBC. John Knox, 2003; Goetz, R. “Joshua, Calvin and Genocide.” ThTo 32 (1975): 263—74; Hawk, L. “Conquest Reconfigured: Recasting Warfare in the Redaction of Joshua.” Pages 145—60 in Writing and Reading War: Rhetoric, Gender, and Ethics in Biblical and Modern Contexts, ed. B. Kelle and F. Ames. SBLSymS 42. Society of Biblical Literature, 2008; idem. Joshua. Berit
Olam. Liturgical Press, 2000; Nelson, R. Joshua. OTL. Westminster John Knox, 1997; Polzin, R. Moses and the Deuteronomist: A Literary Study of the Deuteronomistic History. Seabury, 1980; Prior, M. The Bible and Colonialism: A Moral Critique. BibSem 48. Sheffield Academic Press, 1997; Warrior, R. “A Native American Perspective: Canaanites, Cowboys, and Indians.” Pages 135-43 in Voices from the Margin: Interpreting the Bible in the Third World, ed. R. Sugirtharajah. 3rd ed. Orbis, 2006.
L. Daniel Hawk
Jubilee was a yearlong sabbatical every half century in ancient Israel devoted to ecological, economic, and social rest, release, and redemption.
Biblical Jubilee
Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Deuteronomic law stipulates every seventh year as a period of debt remission (Heb. semitta; Gk. aphesis [Deut. 15:12]), including the emancipation of Israelite slaves, male or female (Deut. 15:12-18). The goal of this sabbatical legislation envisions liberal sharing in the land’s bounty, graciously given by the redemptive “Lord your God,” such that “there will be no one in need among you” (Deut. 15:4; cf. Acts 4:34).
In the regulations of Lev. 25, the septennial sabbatical primarily provides ecological rest for the land: complete suspension of fresh sowing in the fields, pruning of vineyards, and reaping of harvests (vv. 1-5). Intensifying the seventh-year respite, the regulations also call for a supersabbatical every fiftieth year, proclaiming “liberty [Heb. deror; Gk. aphesis] throughout the land to all its inhabitants” and heralding by sound of a trumpet (Heb. sopar) a year of “jubilee” (Heb. yobel, lit., “ram’s horn”) (vv. 8-10). In addition to rest for the land (vv. 11-12), the Jubilee stipulates (1) return of property to its original owners and clans (vv. 13-17); (2) redemption of sold and foreclosed property (vv. 25-28); and (3) release of those forced into service because of extreme poverty (vv. 39-43). In the years preceding the Jubilee, debtors should not be charged interest (vv. 36-37), and land must be bought and sold justly and equitably (vv. 14-17 [“you shall not cheat one another”]).
On the calendar the Jubilee Year begins, significantly, on the Day of Atonement (Lev. 25:9), suggesting the “return to cosmic purity” (see Ka-washima) or reestablishment of God’s “very good” order for all creation (cf. Gen. 1:1-2:4). As with the Deuteronomic sabbatical, motivation for the Levitical Jubilee remains theologically rooted in God’s exclusive proprietorship of the land (“the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants” [Lev. 25:23]) and God’s redeemed people (“my servants whom I brought out from the land of Egypt” [Lev. 25:55]).
Isaiah and Luke. In the context of exile, the latter chapters of Isaiah envision the people’s restoration to their homeland as a new, climactic (eschatological) Jubilee. As the Lord’s Spirit-anointed messenger, the prophet proclaims good news of “liberty [Heb. deror; Gk. aphesis] to the captives . . . release to the prisoners . . . the year of the Lord’s favor” (Isa. 61:1-2)—that is, the Jubilee Year. Here God provides not so much the motives for the community’s liberation/restoration of the land and one another as the means for realizing such liberation/restoration afresh: this is a new exodus (including God’s “vengeance” against Israel’s oppressive enemies [Isa. 61:2b]), inspiring the people’s enactment of future Jubilees.
At the outset of his public ministry in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus announces the immediate (“today”) fulfillment of Isaiah’s Jubilee vision, citing the text of Isa. 61:1-2a (minus the “vengeance” component in v. 2b) spliced with another liberation line from Isa. 58:6 (lit., “to send [out] the oppressed in liberty/freedom [Gk. aphesis]”) (Luke 4:18-21). Jesus further glosses the Jubilee image with the restorative miracles of Elijah and Elisha on behalf of a poor Sidonian widow beset by famine and a powerful Syrian officer afflicted with leprosy (Luke 4:25-27). Jesus thus heralds a universal Jubilee across boundaries of territory, ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status as the programmatic goal of his mission. The balance of Luke’s narrative abundantly illustrates Jesus’ commitment to liberating the oppressed, including, in the manner of Elijah and Elisha, feedings, healings, and restoration of needy widows, lepers, and “foreign” officials (Luke 5:12-16; 7:1-17, 21-22; 9:10-17; 17:11-19). Moreover, the Levitical link between the Day of Atonement and the Jubilee Year crystallizes in J esus’ mediating the remission/forgiveness (aphiemi, aphesis) of debts/sins against God and one another (Luke 5:17-26; 7:36-50; 11:4; 23:34; 24:47). Thus, as well as being universal, Jesus’ Jubilee is as holistic, integrating spiritual, physical, psychological, social, economic, and ecological liberty.
Practical Jubilee
Although case law in Lev. 27:16-25 and Num. 36:1-4 suggests that the Jubilee was regarded as an actual duty and not merely a utopian ideal, we cannot be certain how often a full Jubilee Year was enacted in Israel’s history. The Hebrew prophets’ regular tirades against social oppression, exploitation, and unjust distribution of land and wealth intimate a frequent flouting of Jubilee principle and practice. For the Jubilee to work, landlords, slave owners, employers, financial brokers, and other controllers of means of production must buy into the communitarian vision and “release” their accumulative stranglehold on material and human resources. But both history and theology teach that the powers that be do not let go easily or naturally—every fiftieth year or any year. And even among the well intentioned, a host of practical, bureaucratic entanglements complicate a Jubilee agenda. The declaration of the Great Jubilee of the year 2000 by Pope John Paul II admirably called for a worldwide renewal of reconciliation, forgiveness, and charity. But, as with all Jubilees in the current era, it was up against the juggernaut of a staggeringly complex global economy driven by multinational and geopolitical corporate interests.
But however difficult the practical outworking of Jubilee might seem today, the theological foundations remain clear and firm in the creator and redeemer God. Since earth and all its “fullness” belong to God (Ps. 24:1) in perpetuity, all God’s creatures, not least human beings, are tenants on God’s property and directly responsible to God for just and equitable ecological management. Moreover, as redeemed servants of the forgiving God fiercely committed to liberty from all forms of oppressive enslavement, we must readily “forgive/ release [aphiemi] everyone indebted to us” (Luke 11:4) and resist tendencies to hoard God’s bounty and dominate God’s children.
See also Debt; Ecological Ethics; Economic Ethics; Koinonia; Land; Loans; Poverty and Poor; Property and Possessions; Sabbath; Wealth
Bibliography
Kawashima, R. “The Jubilee Year and the Return of Cosmic Purity.” CBQ 65 (2003): 370-89; Kinsler, R., and
G. Kinsler. The Biblical Jubilee and the Struggle for Life: An Invitation to Personal, Ecclesial, and Social Transformation. Orbis, 1999; Leiter, D. “The Year of Jubilee and the 21st Century.” Brethren Life and Thought 47 (2002): 164-86; North, R. The Biblical Jubilee . . . after Fifty Years. AnBib 145. Editrice Pontificio Biblico, 2000; Ringe, S. Jesus, Liberation, and the Biblical Jubilee: Images for Ethics and Christology. Fortress, 1985; Sanders, J. “From Isaiah 61 to Luke 4.” Pages 46-69 in Luke and Scripture: The Function of Sacred Tradition in Luke-Acts, ed. C. Evans and J. Sanders. Fortress, 1993; idem. “Sins, Debts, and Jubilee Release.” Pages 84-92 in Luke and Scripture: The Function of Sacred Tradition in Luke-Acts, ed. C. Evans and J. Sanders. Fortress, 1993.
F. Scott Spencer
Jude is a small jewel of pastoral theology, giving guidance to a community in danger of falling out of step with the apostolic faith. This apostasy is described more as an ethical corruption than a doctrinal drift, but both are present. As elsewhere in the NT, “the faith once delivered” refers to more than a synopsis of apostolic teaching; it also incorporates a significant ethical component. Doctrinal corruption and ethical corruption are inseparable twins, always present together.
The source of the corruption is a new group of leaders in the church. These teachers have been accepted as members of the community (v. 12), but Jude is committed to exposing them as immoral corrupters of the community who teach unsound doctrine, plainly seen in the illicit lifestyle that they practice and promote (v. 4). To clarify the danger that these teachers pose to the community, Jude likens them to three reprehensible exemplars from the history of Israel: Cain, Balaam, and Korah (v. 11). In contemporary Jewish apocalyptic literature these three were depicted as deceivers who led Israel astray. Jude intimates that the fate of some in the community will mimic those in Israel who were party to the exodus but died in the desert for their unbelief (v. 5). The pastoral impulse behind this threat of judgment is to clarify the seriousness of the corruption in their midst and to facilitate a return to apostolic beliefs and praxis.
See also Eschatology and Ethics; Judgment; Moral Formation; New Testament Ethics; Sanctification; Vice; Virtue(s); Virtue Ethics
Bibliography
Bauckham, R. Jude, 2 Peter. WBC 50. Word, 1983; Green, G. Jude and 2 Peter. BECNT. Baker Academic, 2008; Reese, R. 2 Peter and Jude. THNTC. Eerdmans, 2007.
J. de Waal Dryden
The book of Judges portrays the disintegration of a nation that has lost its center. In vivid contrast to the unified Israel that triumphs and occupies the land described in Joshua, Judges begins with a depiction of a nation fragmented into tribes, each preoccupied with its own territory (1:1-36). It then moves immediately to a divine rebuke for covenantal disobedience (2:1-5), the death of the leader who has unified the people (2:6-10), and a programmatic introduction that presents the era as a constant cycle of apostasy, chastisement, and deliverance (2:11-23).
The core of the book comprises accounts of the judges that God raised up to deliver Israel (3:116:31). The term judge does not here necessarily entail judicial authority but rather refers to the individual’s mission to bring justice via deliverance to oppressed Israel. The first of these, Othniel, is rendered as the paradigmatic savior but without elaboration (3:7-11). Subsequent judges exhibit a quirk or flaw that, with each one, becomes increasingly grotesque and destructive. Ehud is lefthanded (and thus, suggestively, sinister), which enables him to assassinate a Moabite tyrant behind closed doors (3:12-30). Deborah is a “mother in Israel” who gloats in bloodthirsty detail over the death of Sisera at the hands of Jael, a woman who sheltered the Canaanite commander, gave him milk, tucked him in, and then shattered his skull while he slept (4:1-5:31). Gideon arises from humble beginnings but barely averts intertribal conflict, constructs an ephod that leads Israel into idolatry, and sires a son, Abimelech (meaning “my father is king”), who attempts to make himself king (6:11-9:57). Jephthah, the son of a prostitute, sacrifices his daughter to fulfill a vow and participates in intertribal warfare (11:1-12:7). Samson is an impetuous loner, obsessed with danger and forbidden women, who rallies no one to the cause and enacts his deeds of deliverance out of a desire to get revenge on the Philistines (13:1-16:31).
The book ends with two narratives that depict the dissolution of the fundamental social bonds that configure tribal Israel. The first begins with Micah, a man who steals a huge sum of silver from his mother. The story then relates the dedication of silver to the Lord in the form of an idol and the installation of a family member as priest, and features a Levite who sells his services to the highest bidder and a dispossessed tribe (Dan) that wipes out a town outside its allotted territory (17:1-18:31). The second reports a mob attack on travelers, the gang rape of a young woman and her dismemberment by her Levite lover (he is hardly a lover [husband instead?], she is a secondary wife), the near annihilation of Benjamin by the other tribes, the destruction of an Israelite town for its nonparticipation in the conflict, and the kidnapping of women who are celebrating a religious festival (19:1-21:25).
Judges concludes with a comment that summarizes the spirit of the times: “In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes” (21:25 [cf. 17:6; 18:1; 19:1]). The statement is provocatively ambiguous. Does it imply that a tribal society was unworkable and thus infer that monarchy is a preferable social configuration? Or does it comment on the anarchy that ensued when Israel rejected the Lord as king (cf. 1 Sam. 8:7)? Viewed as social commentary, the statement illumines the contesting perspectives about Israel’s polity (the kin-based society of tribal Israel and charismatic leadership versus the mediating institutions of dynastic monarchy) that constitute an important dynamic throughout the book. Viewed as theological commentary, it links Israel’s persistent refusal to accord the Lord his rightful place at the center of communal life with the degeneration of Israelite leadership and society.
Faced with Israel’s recalcitrance, the Lord repeatedly displays his supremacy by accomplishing his saving purposes in spite of the failings of his chosen deliverers. Difficult for many readers is the fact that imbuement of the Lord’s spirit empowers judges to deliver Israel but does not result in the transformation of their moral or spiritual dispositions. Moreover, none of the judges succeed in restoring Israel to long-term devotion to God. Rather, the judges themselves are enmeshed in the nation’s persistent attempts to chart its own destiny apart from the claims of the Lord. God is also drawn into the cycle through repeated attempts to restore Israel and, it seems, must even use surreptitious means to initiate deliverance through his chosen leaders (a case in point being the narrator’s comment that Samson’s infatuation with a Philistine woman “was from the Lord; for he was seeking a pretext to act against the Philistines” [14:4]).
The social consequences of “doing what is right in one’s own eyes” (as opposed to the Lord’s) are portrayed in stark and often symbolic terms. The perversion of fundamental values figures prominently in many accounts, with shocking effect. Deborah and Jael express their “motherly” attributes in bloodthirsty ways. Gideon the idol-destroyer becomes an idol-maker. Jephthah kills his own daughter. A Levite throws his concubine to a threatening mob after tenderly wooing her. (Women, it should be noted, bear the brunt of the violence that breaks out as the fabric of Israelite society unravels.) The symbolic threads converge in Samson, the personification of Israel, whose story is propelled by the interplay of forbidden sex, danger, and death.
As a whole, Judges draws an inseparable and reciprocal connection between devotion to God, strong central leadership, and national unity and well-being. It thus presents modern secular societies with a cautionary tale about the central importance of religious faith and the consequences that may ensue when faith in God is shunted to the periphery.
See also Narrative Ethics, Biblical; Old Testament Ethics
Bibliography
Bal, M. Death and Dissymmetry: The Politics of Coherence in the Book of Judges. CSHJ. University of Chicago, 1988; Block, D. Judges. NAC. Broadman & Holman, 2002; Brettler, M. “The Book of Judges: Literature as Politics.” JBL 108 (1989): 395-418; Exum, J. “The Centre Cannot Hold: Thematic and Textual Instabilities in Judges.” CBQ 52 (1990): 410-31; Schneider, T. Judges. Berit Olam. Liturgical Press, 2000.
L. Daniel Hawk
Christian creeds profess a belief in Christ’s return to judge the living and the dead. This foundational belief rests on the concept of judgment that emerged in the developing traditions of Israel and the early Christians. This survey will illustrate this developmental concept of judgment.
Judgment in the Old Testament Judgment (Heb. mispat) is connected to the covenant between God and the people of Israel. In selecting Israel as the chosen people, God entered a covenant relationship with them as Lord and Judge. The various laws in the Torah expressed God’s will for the way Israel was to remain true to this covenantal relationship. Consequently, God’s judgment related to the way Israel remained faithful or unfaithful to this covenant relationship.
As Israel’s partner in the covenant, God is first and foremost the defender of his people. When Israel appeals to God’s judgment, it is more to his mercy and compassion (hesed) than to his role as judge. When David had the opportunity to harm Saul, David refused to do so, leaving judgment to God: “May the Lord judge between me and you! May the Lord avenge me on you; but my hand shall not be against you” (1 Sam. 24:12). God judged on behalf of David and delivered him from his enemies (2 Sam. 18:31). Throughout Israel’s history, God’s judgment gave priority to defending the poor and outcasts of the society. Since they had no one to defend them, God’s judgment defended them: “For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing” (Deut. 10:17-18). Often the psalms call on the Lord to vindicate the petitioner: “Judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me” (Ps. 7:8).
God’s judgment of Israel also involves punishment. The book of Ezekiel focuses exclusively on this aspect of God’s judgment (Ezek. 5:7-12). The prophets often use the imagery of court proceedings to illustrate what has gone wrong in the covenant relationship. God appears not so much in the role of judge who metes out judgment, but as the one who accuses Israel for the ways the nation has turned from the covenant: “Hear, O heavens, and listen, O earth; for the Lord has spoken: I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me” (Isa. 1:2). The book of Job provides deeper insight into God’s judgments. Convinced of his innocence, Job pleads with God to hear his case and explain his sufferings (Job 30:16-23). God responds by pointing to the mystery of his ways (Job 38:1-41:34), and Job discovers new insight into God’s judgments. Since humans cannot fathom the depth of God’s actions and decisions, Job submits to the mysterious nature of God’s judgments: “Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know” (Job 42:3).
God is also judge of the nations of earth: “But the Lord sits enthroned forever, he has established his throne for judgment. He judges the world with righteousness; he judges the peoples with equity” (Ps. 9:7-8). Some postexilic prophets prophesied a final judgment that would encompass the sinners of the entire world and those who caused suffering for God’s people. The prophet Isaiah envisages God judging the world by fire (Isa. 66:16). In the apocalyptic literature between the two Testaments the concept of a judgment on all nations of the earth becomes prominent, and speculations develop regarding the nature of this judgment. As the earth is brought to a destructive end, God’s Messiah, or “one like a Son of Man,” arrives to pass judgment on those who have died and those who are alive (Dan. 7:13-14).
Judgment in the New Testament
The NT writings continue Israel’s thought on God’s judgment (Gk. krino [verb], krisis [noun]). In Jesus’ preaching in the Synoptic Gospels the concept of judgment appears more frequently in Matthew and Luke than in Mark. Judgment often takes on the meaning of condemnation, whereby Jesus’ opponents, such as the Pharisees, are threatened with a judgment that embraces being condemned to hell: “You snakes, you brood of vipers! How can you escape being sentenced to hell [apo tes kriseos tesgeennes]” (lit., “from the judgment of Gehenna” [Matt. 23:33]).
Jesus’ preaching also announced a second coming of the Son of Man to bring about God’s kingdom in its fullest state. As in Israel’s apocalyptic texts, the future judgment is described in catastrophic terms of cosmic destruction that initiates the end and a judgment on the righteous and the wicked. Probably the most memorable of Jesus’ parables embracing the end times is that of the parable of the judgment of the nations (Matt. 25:31-46). Although the word judgment (krisis) does not occur in this parable, the imagery is clearly evident in the separation of those who have acted in the name of Jesus from those who have not. The basis for their separation rests not on the fulfillment of legal obligations, but rather on living out the law of love of neighbor in the manner of Jesus, who demonstrated love especially for the less fortunate of society.
In the Gospel of John, the focus is not on the future, but on present judgment. A certain paradox emerges regarding the judgment. On the one hand, God sent his Son not to judge the world, but to save it (John 3:17). Jesus himself reiterates the same thought: “I do not judge anyone who hears my words and does not keep them, for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world” (John 12:47). On the other hand, Jesus does say, “I came into this world for judgment” (John 9:39). This paradox finds its resolution in understanding that people, in the very act of rejecting faith in Jesus, pronounce judgment on themselves. The act of believing or not believing in Jesus is one of self-judgment.
Foundational to Paul’s thinking is God’s judgment arising from Adam and embracing the whole human race (Rom. 5:16). All who are in Christ Jesus escape this universal condemnation (Rom. 8:1) through the effects of Christ’s death. The Spirit communicates these effects to the believer: “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit” (Rom. 8:5). For Paul, a future judgment is also imminent. Paul calls this coming judgment “the day of the Lord” (2 Cor. 1:14; 1 Thess. 5:2). On that day believers in Christ J esus will be saved, while those who follow wickedness will experience God’s wrath (Rom. 2:7-8). Of special importance in examining Paul’s understanding of God’s judgment is his acknowledgment that it is beyond our understanding: “O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” (Rom. 11:33).
For the book of Revelation, the concept of judgment lies in the trajectory of Israel’s apocalyptic traditions and paints a frightening picture of God’s judgment at the end of time. Central to God’s final judgment of humanity is how they have led their lives (Rev. 20:12). Those who had remained true to the word of God cry out for God’s judgment on those who persecuted them: “Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long will it be before you judge and avenge our blood on the inhabitants of the earth?” (Rev. 6:10). The book of Revelation also acts as a reminder to believers to persevere in their commitment to Christ. The letters to the seven churches (Rev. 2:1-3:22) challenge them to remain ever faithful. To the church at Ephesus the Son of Man says, “Remember then from what you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first” (Rev. 2:5).
Summary
This survey of the concept of judgment in the biblical writings shows numerous aspects. A central focus does emerge, however, within the context of a covenantal relationship with the God of Israel and in the relationship of the believer to the person of Jesus Christ. Just as the writings of the people of Israel stress the need to remain faithful in their relationship with the God of the covenant, so the followers of Jesus are also called to fidelity in their relationship with him. This fidelity is illustrated through the imitation of Jesus’ life (Matt. 25:3146) and in belief in the person of Jesus (Gospel of John). The Scriptures stress this central vision, this way of life, which is led in relationship to God (the people of Israel) or to Christ (NT). One’s actions bear witness to this relationship.
The biblical writers use graphic imagery in describing the last judgment. These images belong to the realm of the biblical world, but the eschatological vision remains central to the biblical belief: God’s judgment lies outside history and brings history to an end. A final judgment remains essential to proclaim God’s triumph over evil. If evil is not finally overcome, then evil is as eternal as God is. From the beginning of time, humans have rejected God and have been judged worthy of condemnation (Rom. 5:16-18). No one is able to restore this relationship with God. The Son of God came as a human being and through his death condemned sin and liberated humans from sin’s effects (Rom. 8:3). For those who have become God’s children (John 1:12), there is nothing to fear on the final day of judgment. As the Johannine writer eloquently says, “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:16-17).
See also Covenant; Eschatology and Ethics; Fidelity; Justice, Restorative; Justice, Retributive
Bibliography
Hays, R. The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross, and New Creation; A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics. Harper SanFrancisco, 1996; Travis, S. The Limits of Divine
Retribution in New Testament Thought. Hendrickson, 2009; von Balthasar, H. Urs. The Last Act. Vol. 5 of Theo-Drama: Theological Dramatic Theory. Trans. G. Harrison. Ignatius Press, 1998.
Patrick Hartin