Moses: Encyclopedia II - Moses - Ethical dilemmas

Moses - Ethical dilemmas

If the Bible gives an accurate description of Moses' views, then by "modern standards" some of his commands might amount to calls for murder, war crimes or slavery. For instance, according to Numbers 31:15-18, he called for the massacre of boys and the enslavement of female children to Israelite veterans of the Midian war ("kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the little girls among the women, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves"). It is important to note, however, that such ethical dilemmas can be cited without an adequate understanding of the historical context. In contrast, believers in the accuracy of the Bible can use assumptions to discourage exploration. But religion's opponents can also discourage further exploration by making debatable assumptions about a text, classifying the intent of the text as immoral, and thereby dismissing the text as unreliable. In the above example some readers may infer an implied equality between slavery under Mosaic law and "slavery" as understood in the New World. An apparent ethical contradiction should not be casually dismissed, but neither should it be casually assumed.

For both Jews and Christians, the five books claimed by Exra to have been written by Moses are holy books revealed by God, and the message within them is eternal. Others deny this claim, for instance in the apocryphal 2nd Esdras, or 4th Ezra, Ezra is credited with writing the Torah. An intermediate position is taken by Unitarian Universalists, and others who regarded as a sacred text, but not as a divinely revealed inerrant work. Adherents of all these faiths understand the serious ethical dilemmas that arise when reading certain parts of the Bible. As such, Jews and Christians have developed a number of responses to understanding such texts. There are two basic positions that one can assume when approaching such texts, both of which offer a variety of responses.

One using the traditional approach was originally called a fundamentalist. The fundamentalist term has evolved to reflect other meanings however, including that of "a person with an unthinking devotion to an agenda without regard to reason." The traditional approach assumes that Biblical characters, the situations described, and the words said took place exactly as the Bible says. The Bible is believed to be divinely revealed inerrant truth, unique among historical texts. This view does not exempt humans from a carefully reasoned examination of the scriptures, however, and in fact requires it. Translation, historical context and assumptions, and the definition and applicability of terms used in the original text not only affect what the Bible "says," they define it.

A fundamentalist may believe there is one valid source (organization, person, etc.) for the interpretation of the "truths" of the Bible. This Christian view implies however that a "literal interpretation of the Bible" is an oxymoron. The important characteristic of this view is considered to come from the Bible itself--that scripture is useful in the context of personal applicability (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Thus, blind adherence to an organization's or one's own static interpretation is rejected in this view, as devotion to the "living" God prohibits devotion to a static ideology. This Christian view implies that the Bible is unique among texts in its truthful nature (lack of falsehood), while simultaneously implying that truth is meaningful only in living application through a personal relationship to God - attempting to adhere to a static set of moral laws is believed to lead to death (see, ie, Romans 7). This Christian view believes one arrives at this view by a person "answering the call of God," who speaks to all mankind through revelation, where revelation is never contradictory and consists of both the Bible and experience gained through life. When faced with an ethical dilemma in Moses's writings, a traditional Christian might employ critical examination of available historical context, critical examination of how the writing should be translated, and critical examination of his or her understanding of God's nature to determine what the passage means, all the while believing the Bible contains no falsehood. For an example of this process applied to the Midian war, see this exploration of Moses's writing from a traditional Christian point of view: Moses and the Midianites. Moses, in this view, was considered a good man not because of his ethics, but because of his trust in God. In this view, only Jesus was a good man for what he did, the rest of mankind (including Moses and his contemporaries) can only become good by believing and trusting God. This so-called traditional Christian view believes that one who honestly looks for God will find God, as this is stated in the Bible, and that honest, rational exploration yields the Bible as the most rational explanation for human experience.

So-called Liberal Christian denominations and congregations reject this view. They hold that the texts of the Bible were possibly edited together from a number of sources over a long period of time, and the authorship and timing of the Torah is debated. Many hold the documentary hypothesis that there were two principle sources of the Torah, a J source, referring to God as Yahweh (Jahweh in German), reflecting the traditions of the southern kingdom of Judea, and an E Source, referring to God as Elohim, reflecting to a greater extent the concerns of the northern kingdom of Israel. Others suggest a single "primary history" tradition, possibly assembled during the Babylonian captivity or even later. In these view, the situations described in the Bible do not necessarily represent divinely inspired truth but may instead represent the views of the editors of the Bible.

There are also a variety of intermediate views to these positions, accepted by major denominations such as Catholics, Lutherans and Anglicans of different persuasions.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Ethical dilemmas", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki