Susan Niditch. Ethics in the Hebrew Bible and Beyond

This volume by Susan Niditch, Samuel Green Professor of Religion at Amherst College, consists of an introduction and nine chapters that explore how the Hebrew Bible might speak to topics of social concern. It has a brief conclusion, followed by an extensive bibliography and indexes of authors, subjects, and references from the Hebrew Bible and Jewish literature.The introduction presents a helpful survey of recent approaches to the ethics of the Hebrew Bible and potential challenges for its appropriation today, especially when certain texts seem problematic from a contemporary point of view. Niditch carefully reads the biblical text and couples that with discussions of how these passages and moral matters arising from them have been handled in Jewish tradition. She does not consider at all how these texts might be connected to the New Testament. Rather, hers is an exercise in dialoguing with rabbinic commentaries and modern Jewish thinkers. This volume is an interesting entry point to the exegetical processes of the rabbis and to Jewish ethics in the past and today.Niditch’s approach to religious ethics is apparent in the first chapter. Using the book of Ruth and the Cain and Abel story as examples, she underscores how difficult it can be to choose the good in any situation and how complex are the character and role of God in these accounts as well as real life. The next eight chapters can be read as stand-alone reflections on diverse topics, but they also seem to fall nicely into pairs.The issue in chapter 2 is capital punishment, and in chapter 3 it is war. In the former, Niditch reviews the biblical mandates for the death penalty and its parameters, especially the significance of witnesses and premeditation. The Mishnah and Talmud reveal internal debates about its rationale and implementation. Chapter 3 discusses the range of biblical narrative and legal material dealing with war and the “ban” along with how the rabbis and Jews today (including more militant Zionists) categorize different kinds of armed conflict and justify participation in them.Chapter 4 turns to politics, in particular reactions to oppression. The biblical cases Niditch examines are resistance (Moses, Gideon), acceptance (Ezra, Nehemiah), and various women “tricksters” (Tamar, Jael). Why do people opt for different kinds of defiance, what are the limitations of each, how are they empowering? Chapter 5 discusses political leadership as manifested in the book of Judges. Contrary to the common view that the judges as a whole are uniformly criticized, Niditch gleans positive features, even if the characters are flawed. The book also is more ambivalent to the monarchy than many think, as are many of the other historical books. The chapter closes with a look at female rulers, both good and bad.Chapter 6 concerns the creation of the woman and her role in Gen 1–3 in terms of women’s worth and agency within an ancient agrarian world and her culpability for the judgments. A detailed conversation with the treatment in Genesis Rabbah follows. The chapter closes with four ways women scholars engage the biblical portrait of creation, providing examples for each. These range from outright rejection to appropriation through reinterpretation of certain verses to appreciative acceptance to structured, or selective, empathy. Niditch presents these options evenhandedly, although clearly advocating for the full equality of men and women. Infertility, surrogate pregnancies, and abortion are discussed in chapter 7. These are treated with their ancient setting as a backdrop before turning to conundrums within modern Jewish (especially Orthodox) circles.Chapter 8 moves to economic ethics, by which is meant the status and treatment of vulnerable groups. Niditch reviews how each part of the Hebrew Bible canon makes provisions for the poor and fosters a generous attitude. The rabbinic material is varied in its explanations for putting these measures into practice. Chapter 9 treats the environmental realities that would have characterized ancient Israel, both crippling ecological disasters (such as famine and plagues) and abundance. Interestingly, the discussion begins with a look at the book of Jonah (the fish, the sackcloth of the animals’ lament, the shade tree, and God’s mention of the natural world in 4:10–11). Multiple biblical passages also look to a new creation, a new Eden beyond this present fragile and difficult world. For some, certain Jewish liturgies like the Passover can point to the need to care for our ecosystem.A brief chapter of “Closing Thoughts” nicely summarizes the volume’s intent, which is to “point repeatedly to the complexities and ambiguities faced in the areas of moral choice” (p. 166) and to showcase the diverse ways the biblical passages might be understood. For this reviewer, in addition to many exegetical insights, the greatest contribution of this volume is the treatment of the breadth of discussions within classical rabbinic literature and contemporary Jewish considerations, where we witness debate and disagreement on the interpretation of textual details and their implementation. The author has provided us a detailed innovative study and, I would venture, a heretofore unknown window into Jewish ethical thought.