Christopher J. H. Wright - Old Testament Ethics for the People of God

Some authors preface their works with an apology or justication for adding another volume to the literature on their subject. At least I feel I am spared that duty since the subject of Old Testament ethics has scarcely any literature to add to. There are many academic articles and special studies, of course, that bear on the ethical signicance of the Old Testament, as the bibliographies show. But I am not aware of any recent attempt to present an overview of the subject as a whole. So, without pretending to have exhausted the subject in depth or detail, I have attempted to provide a comprehensive framework within which Old Testament ethics can be organized and understood. The student should nd in the bibliographies sufficient resources to take his study to deeper and wider dimensions.

In the interests of the general reader I have avoided as far as possible the use of technical vocabulary and dense footnotes. The only technical term I have consciously allowed myself is paradigm and its derivative, paradigmatic. I can nd no simpler word to express the points I wish to make concerning a method of understanding and applying the Old Testament. The term is fully dened and explained as soon as it rears its head in chapter 2. Likewise, one or two other more familiar items of theological vocabulary are explained as they arise.

Two other points need to be made. First, a glance at the table of contents will show that most of the material is concerned with social aspects of the ethics of the Old Testament. Only in the last chapter do we look at personal or individual ethics. This may be somewhat unbalanced, since undoubtedly a lot more could be said on the personal ethical demands to be found in the Old Testament. The emphasis is, nevertheless, quite deliberate, and based on the conviction that the primary ethical thrust of the Old Testament is in fact social. The Old Testament is the story of a people Gods people; and all the morally memorable tales of individuals are part of that wider story. God called a whole society to be a people for his own possession, to live before him in the midst of the nations of the earth. So, as the title indicates, the Old Testament is absorbed with what it means to be the living people of the living God.

The second point relates to the subtitle and the chapters in Part Two. I am convinced that the Old Testament, when properly understood and applied as part of the whole canon of Scripture, has a vital relevance for the whole range of our ethical concerns. My aim in this book is to point out ways in which it can be validly applied, to suggest directions for such applications, rather than to follow those directions through to detailed conclusions in each sphere. I am not an economist, nor a politician, lawyer or sociologist, and claim no special expertise in these areas. But my hope is that Christians who do work in these and other elds will be stimulated by what is offered here to a more coherent and effective application of biblical theology and ethics to the particulars of their own environment.

Many of the ideas of this book were rst aired and shared in the congenially critical context of various study groups of the Shaftesbury Project. I am most grateful to the members of those groups for their stimulus over the past years, and also to the Shaftesbury Project itself for permission to modify and revise material they originally published as working papers.

I also wish to record my gratitude to the kind ladies of Tonbridge who typed the manuscript: Sheila Armstrong, Sue Bladon, Kathie Portlock and Frances Weller. My thanks also go to Brian and Megan Adams, Kenneth and Margaret Gubbins, Lawrence and Margaret Pope and David and Clare Wenham, who provided hospitality of various kinds for me during the writing of the book. I greatly appreciated the careful scrutiny of the Revd David Field and Dr Gordon Wenham who read the original typescript and made a large number of very helpful comments. Their suggestions helped me to clarify or improve what I wanted to say at a number of points. The book owes its indexes to the labours of some of my students at All Nations.

Only an authors family shares the full burden of the writing of a book, but my own family has gone beyond such patient forbearance and has turned some of the warmer principles of Old Testament ethics into a living experience of great joy. So with gratitude and affection this book is dedicated to them all.

Christopher J. H. Wright