Mithrae wrote:
Assuming that these are the words of God in order to justify what would in any other case be the vice of authoritarianism isn't really a good argument for their universal and timeless wisdom. By that standard, "kill your son" would be good and wise advice, supposedly. And while many critics seemingly agree with you that it would be good for a God to hand down absolute unquestionable truths and laws on plates of gold, I would argue on the contrary that such stifling of human inquiry, error and diversity would rob us of any opportunity to grow up as societies and as a species: Judging by the change in tone between the old and new testaments it seems that from his dubious earlier dealings with our species Yahweh eventually reached a similar conclusion.
I don’t want to take us too far down the rabbit hole of ethical philosophy, but most forms of theism call God the foundation of ethics. That is, God could no more say that “Murder is good,� than He could say “Pie is exactly 3.� It would either defy His eternal nature or rewrite the nature of our reality (depending on which side of a famous Dilemma we come down on).
Mithrae wrote:
Self-interest is
one of the rational underpinnings for moral behaviour, in secular ethics ('enlightened' self-interest) and rather more selfishly in Christianity (the carrot and stick of heaven and hell). Empathy is another, in both cases. I'll admit that you could argue that both are indirectly implied in the Torah and even in this passage specifically, but pretty well eclipsed by the authoritarianism.
Again, I don’t want to pull us too far off topic, but every form of orthodox Christianity I know rejects the “carrot and stick� view of ethics. Heaven is viewed as gift of grace, not an earned reward. Debating the merits of enlightened self-interest would require its own thread. For this thread I will only say that adding it to this passage would take away from the wisdom of the words, not add to it.
Mithrae wrote:
They're certainly a good foundation, when isolated from much of the rest of the content in Leviticus; the very next verse for example goes on to discuss how to deal with a man who violates a slave promised to another (he has to kill a sheep to make it okay). But again, they are explicitly about
intra-national dealings with no similar justice or respect accorded foreign nations; it's hard to see how that could be considered universal.
There is an interesting debate about the overall ethic of the Torah, but that’s not the topic of this thread. Even if there are problems with other passages, that doesn’t stop this passage from being wise.
Addressing intra-national dealings seems very wise. All people should start by showing love to their own community. This doesn’t detract from showing love to the wider world. However, it is much easier to love someone on the other side of the globe, since I don’t have to do much to show that love. It is mostly a love of words and perhaps a small amount of financial support. Loving a grumpy neighbor, a disruptive family down the street, or the person sitting next to me on a bus is not so easy.
Mithrae wrote:
I'm not sure that anyone here has said of other words even that they are universal and timeless wisdom? Let alone that they derive from God himself! In any case, if it were true that even the best of more recent wisdom doesn't measure up as being truly universal, what does that say about a considerably less impressive patchwork of primitive laws, myths and liturgy with occasional insights and occasional outright barbarity?
It says to me that the words of the Bible are not less impressive. If we can find no words that meet the standard then problem is likely not with the words (including the words in the Bible), but rather the problem is with the standard. We are using a standard designed to find failure, and there are no conceivable words which could ever measure up.
All wisdom requires caveats. There are no absolutely universal wise words. Rather, underlying principles of love, justice, kindness, faith, hope, joy, self-control and the like must be reinterpreted and applied to the individual circumstances of life.
If we take this more reasonable, less stringent standard then I would cite virtually the whole of the New Testament as wise words.
Understand that you might believe. Believe that you might understand. –Augustine of Hippo