What is Morality?

                                                    What is Morality?

Relationship is what lies at the heart of morality.  We are social beings, in constant relationships of various kinds.  Around us is weaved an intricate web of relationships with our families, relatives, neighbours, friends, work colleagues and social authorities. It is when we begin to reflect on these relationships that the whole area of morality presents itself to us as something vital and essential to life and which cannot be ignored.  We start to realise our moral obligations in relation to the presence and needs of those around us.  

                                                  

                                                                           What has happened to Authority?

Many of us grew up in time and culture when obedience was a core value. There was an absolute trust and regard surrounding authority.  Today society has largely moved away from this emphasis, although most people would recognise the need for authority, properly used and humanely exercised.  It is often said that today we have “moved from the experience of authority to the authority of experience."  Generally speaking, people don’t follow a particular course of action simply to obey a law but because doing so rings true to their experience.

Personal Freedom

As we think about ourselves and the world about us, we come to realise that we are fortunate to be free to make choices and take decisions about how we will act, how we will live and how we will treat others.  This is because we are both rational and free. 

Rational meaning we can think things out, use our reason to grasp and understand the realities of life, consider alternatives and plan our responses to the demands of our relationships with others.  Free because it is an essential part of being human that we act out of conscious and free choice, discerned from within and not because it has been dictated to us or forced on us.

The Torah

     The Torah is the body of moral, and ceremonial institutions, laws, and decisions comprised in four of the books of the Pentateuch, [First 5 books of your bible] and ascribed by Christian and Hebrew tradition to Moses.  As early as the Davidic era, the name "torah" was popularly used to designate this compilation, which, however, might not then have embraced all that it now contains.


After the captivity in Babylon, the term became synonymous with the Pentateuch, and has been known as this ever since. Side by side with these meanings are others less comprehensive and more ancient. On the lips of the priests and prophets, torah sometimes referred to the moral and religious prescriptions of the Law alone, or again, to the ceremonial part of it, whether in theory or practice; in short, to any direction written or oral, given in Yahweh's name by one enjoying an official capacity.


Quite naturally, when the period of formal codification set in, (formulation etc) each new code was styled a torah, and these separate toroth (plural) were the stepping-stones to, and afterwards the constituent parts of, the "Torah" or Corpus, which has always been identified with the name of Moses.

The Origin of the Torah


The Torah, as a whole, was neither miraculously communicated from heaven, nor was it laboriously thought out and put together by Moses independently of external influences.  It was the primitive condition of Hebrew society that dictated Israel’s first laws, by leading to the establishment of family and tribal customs. Yet it would be wrong to maintain with too much assurance that the same or a similar collection of laws would have resulted spontaneously and independently from the same natural conditions in any other period or clime.


There had been precedents of just such customs and practices as Israel adopted, among other races with which the founders of Israel’s laws had come in contact, and it seems an irresistible conclusion that, since Israel borrowed its language from its neighbours and could be so easily won over to heathen rites as to defy the vigilance of judges, priests, and prophets, it could not but be influenced by the social and political life of the neighbouring peoples.


No matter how much, or how little can be explained in this way, room must always be left for direct, external, and Divine intervention, i.e. for an historic revelation made by God of Himself to the chosen people, in such a way as to guarantee them a special Providence and direction in working out their high destiny.

The Canon of Scripture

             HOW DID WE GET THE COLLECTION OF BOOKS NOW CALLED
                                     THE OLD TESTAMENT?

The ‘Canon’  

The word ‘canon’ is from the Greek ‘kanon’ meaning rule.   The Bible is seen as the text that rules the Christian life.   As a written text, it is an unchanging point of reference in all the centrifugal forces of culture and history in the millennia of Jewish and Christian belief.   Scripture is often called “The Rule of Faith”.

In the formative period of the People of God of the Old and New Testaments the process of selecting books to form the canon was underway.   The task of selecting and ordering the books written in the Hebrew language was probably begun in the early 4^th century BCE, and it was completed only about 70 CE.  It was then that the guiding list, the ‘canon’ of the Hebrew language scriptures of the Old Testament was fixed.

            Benedict Hegarty, The Bible – Literature and Sacred Text, (Veritas: Dublin) 2003, pp 29-30

                          Where did the chapters and verses system come from?

To make it easy to find one’s way around the Bible, Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, had the idea of dividing each book into numbered chapters: this was done in 1226.   During a carriage journey from Lyons to Paris in 1551, the printer Robert Estienne numbered almost every phrase of these chapters: hence our modern division into verses.

           

            Etienne Charpentier, How to read the Old Testament, (SCM Press: London) 1982, p.7

                        How do you look up a passage in the Bible?

Let’s take an example:   You are reading an article or commentary and it says “as we can see in Gen 1:26.   The books of the Bible are referred to in an abbreviated form e.g. Gen for Genesis, Ex for Exodus, Lev for Leviticus, Num for Numbers and Deut for Deuteronomy etc.

The first figure indicates the chapter, and the second, which is separated by a colon (:) or sometimes a full stop, indicates the verse.

So the passage we want to read (Gen 1:26) is:

And God said: ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth’.

Several passages in continuity over a number of chapters will be referred to in this way:   Num 4:11 – 5:16

Lev 2:13, 14 means read these two verses that follow from each other.

Deut 16: 12, 17, 21 is The Book of Deuteronomy, Chapter 16 and verses 12, 17, 21.

Ex 14:7f. means read Chapter 14 of the Book of Exodus and the following verse.

Gen 7:6ff means read Chapter 7 of The Book of Genesis, verses 6 and so on….

                    Is the Bible a Book?

It is often referred to as ‘the Good Book’ but it is in fact a library, consisting of seventy three books, written over a span of a thousand years.  But it is more than a fixed library.  It is a world we have to enter for ourselves, an adventure to which we are summoned; for a people seized with a passion for God.

     Who wrote the Book of Genesis?

There was no one author, but several.  The people of Israel were formed through time by the gathering of nomadic tribes which neither knew how to read or write.  They brought along with them the memories of their forebears and the signs God realized among them; these memories were orally transmitted.

When these tribes settled in Palestine, they gradually entered into a new culture of writing. Scribes surrounding the king wrote the laws and the beliefs of the nation. During King Solomon’s reign (10^th Century B.C.) and unknown writer called “the Yahwist” wrote a first history of God’s people.  In doing so he freely used Babylonian literature and its poetry about the first couple and the Flood.  The author used a part but deeply transformed them, so that these stories, as comparisons, would express God’s plans for his creation.

Later this old account was supplemented with others coming from different traditions. As a result we sometimes find repetitions.  Much later, when the Jews returned from exile in Babylon (5^th century before Christ), their priests added many paragraphs.  The priests were the authors of the poem about creation in seven days, where Genesis and the Bible begin.

            -Introduction to The Christian Community Bible. Catholic Pastoral Edition, (Claretian Publications: Phillipines) 1999 p.3

  
  Is there Myth in the Bible?

Let us first examine what we mean by ‘myth’.  The ancient myths appear as stories presenting gods, goddesses and ancient heroes.  They are concerned about the great questions that we ask ourselves. Where did this world come from?  Why do men and women exist?  Why is there suffering and death?   What relationship do human beings have to the Divine?

The Bible took up this powerful way of examining and expressing our efforts to deal with these profound questions, but the biblical authors took some myths and gave them a whole new meaning and context that centered on their faith in Yahweh/Elohim as the all-pervading presence in the world and in their lives.  All of these mythical stories are extremely important and not to be dismissed as ‘just myth’.  Inspired by these great myths, notably in the creation stories, the Bible rethinks them as a function of its faith in a sole God who intervenes in our history and wills for us to be free.

For your Own Reflection and Enrichment of Spirit

1.         Read Gen 7: 1 – 8:22

            What image of God do you find reflected in these two chapters?

2         Read Gen 11: 1-9

What do you think lies behind this passage?

What characteristics of Yahweh does it bring to the fore?

3.          Take some time out to reflect on some of the questions raised in your mind from

        this week’s session.  

       Write down the question which concerns you most.

For Consideration

The Jewish Antiquities – by Flavius Josephus  (c.37 - 100 AD)

“Now, there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works; a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure.   He drew over to him, both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles.  He was the Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold, these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.”

How Lovely is Your Dwelling Place - Psalm 84

How lovely is your dwelling place, 

   O Lord of hosts! 

My soul longs, indeed it faints

2

   for the courts of the Lord;

my heart and my flesh sing for joy

   to the living God.

Even the sparrow finds a home,

3

   and the swallow a nest for herself,

   where she may lay her young,

at your altars, O Lord of hosts,

   my King and my God. 

Happy are those who live in your house,

4

   ever singing your praise.

         

Happy are those whose strength is in you,

5

   in whose heart are the highways to Zion. 

As they go through the valley of Baca

6

   they make it a place of springs;

   the early rain also covers it with pools. 

They go from strength to strength;

7

   the God of gods will be seen in Zion.

O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer;

8

   give ear, O God of Jacob!

          

Behold our shield, O God;

9

   look on the face of your anointed.

For a day in your courts is better

10

   than a thousand elsewhere.

I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God

   than live in the tents of wickedness. 

For the Lord God is a sun and shield;

11

   he bestows favour and honour.

No good thing does the Lord withhold

   from those who walk uprightly. 

Prayer is to make us Ready

• The purpose of prayer is not to inform our Lord what you desire, for He knows all your needs. It is to render you able and ready to receive the grace which our Lord will freely give you. This grace cannot be experienced until you have been refined and purified by the fire of desire in devout prayer. For although prayer is not the cause for which our Lord gives grace, it is nevertheless the means by which grace, freely given, comes to the soul.


o Book I, ch. 24 (p. 28)

(The Ladder of Perfection, Walter Hilton, English Carthusian) (1494)