New Testament Ethics: Revisiting The Moral Vision of the New Testament (Edited by Cherryl Hunt, et al) - A Review
What is the New Testament's
"Moral Vision"? To answer that question, one must take into
consideration the Gospel portrayals of Jesus, Paul's moral/ethical vision, that
of James, along with other New Testament authors. Three decades ago, Richard
Hays offered his view on this question. While that text has been very influential,
much has happened in the intervening years suggesting that revisiting Hays’
view of New Testament ethics would be a good thing. This is especially true in
light of his recent death. An attempt to engage with Hays’ The Moral Vision of the New Testament was undertaken before his death; unfortunately, he
passed away before he could offer his own response to the set of essays found
in New Testament Ethics: Revisiting the Moral Vision of the New Testament.
New Testament Ethics, which
is edited by Cherryl Hunt, Nicholas J. Moore, and Timothy J. Murray, offers a
series of essays that interact with Hays and his project. As I noted, due to Hays'
battle with cancer and subsequent death, prevented him from offering his
response to the fifteen essays in the book. Nonetheless, we have here scholarly
responses to the fifteen essays in the book. The authors of the essays have
great appreciation for the work Hays did in his groundbreaking book published
in 1996, but this appreciation of Hays’ work doesn’t mean the essayists are not
willing to offer critiques of his views or offer their own visions of the
topics at hand. Therefore, while this book is written as a response to Hays’
work, it also functions as an attempt to further the conversation that goes
beyond a simple engagement with his work.
This edited volume is divided into
three parts. Part 1 focuses on "Hermeneutics: Approaching New Testament
Ethics.” Because Hays emphasized the importance of narrative, the opening
chapter by J. Andrew Cowan focuses on "Narrative and Hermeneutics."
While Cowan agrees that the New Testament is composed of narrative, he believes
Hays may have overemphasized it. Other essays focus on "Formation and
Hermeneutics," "Metaphor and Hermeneutics," Justification and
Hermeneutics," and finally "Sexuality and Hermeneutics." I want
to pause to take note of the final chapter in the opening section, which is
written by R.W.L. Moberly. Moberly addresses Richard Hays’ change of mind
regarding homosexuality, which he revealed in a recently published book co-authored
with his son Christopher Hays. I have read The
Widening of God's Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (Yale University
Press) and appreciatively reviewed
it. Moberly approaches that book from a different vantage point than I did,
in large part because he is a biblical scholar. In his essay, Moberly focuses on the way Hays framed this
change of mind hermeneutically, while acknowledging that it is difficult at
points to separate the views expressed by the father from those held by the
son. Moberly acknowledges that Richard Hays’ change of mind was a modest one
that continues to stand within the "ethical use of the NT set out in Moral
Vision." However, he shares his concern regarding the way the two
carried out their effort, especially the difference in tone between father and
son. The essay is a worthy effort to engage a recent book and the chapter in
the original book that had been used in ways Richard Hays rejected.
Part 2 is titled "Exegesis:
Mapping New Testament Ethics." While the opening section focuses on Hays'
hermeneutical principles and methodology, in this second section, the essays
focus on how the New Testament is exegeted concerning ethics. Chapters explore
the "Ethics of Possessions" (this chapter focuses on the Gospel of
Luke), "The Ethics of Godly Fear: Moral Transformation in the Acts of the
Apostles," "The Ethics of Love: The Outward Orientation of Agape in
the Gospel of John," "The Ethics of Resurrection: The Christ Event
and Ethical praxis in the Pauline Epistles," and "The Ethics of
Endurance: The Call to Persevering Faith in the Epistle to the Hebrews." I
will note that in her response to Hays' moral vision, in a chapter titled “The
Ethics of Love,” Elizabeth Corsar points out that Hays did not make love a
primary theme in his exploration of New Testament ethics, largely because he
did not see it as being a primary theme throughout the New Testament. I should
note that the essayists did regularly point out that Hays emphasized three primary
themes that tied the New Testament's moral vision together—the cross,
community, and new creation. It is not as if love does not appear, but Hays did
not believe it matched these three themes in importance according to New
Testament authors.
The final section, Part 3, is
titled "Themes: Practicing New Testament Ethics.” The five chapters in
this section focus on "Sex and Celibacy," offering an intriguing
engagement with 1 Corinthians 7, loneliness and social Isolation, ethnicity and
race in connection with union with the Body of Christ, the ecological crisis,
and finally wealth. In each essay, the authors explore an important theme in
conversation with Hays’ positions found in his The Moral Vision of the New
Testament, though Cherryl Hunt notes in her essay that the New Testament
says very little about ecology. Regarding the theme of wealth, John Barclay, in
his essay that brings the book to a close, points out that while matters of
sexuality, to which Hays devotes an entire chapter in his book on New Testament
ethics, are not a major concern in the New Testament, at least comparatively,
wealth is of great importance to New Testament writers. Nevertheless, Hays only
devoted five pages of his conclusion to this topic. It would have been
interesting to see how Richard Hays would have responded to Barclay’s essay, if
he had lived long enough to offer it.
All in all, New Testament
Ethics: Revisiting The Moral Vision of the New Testament is both a helpful response
to Richard Hays book published in the 1990s and a larger conversation about
ethics as developed by the New Testament authors that brings things up to date.
There is a lot here to digest, making this book a worthy read for both scholars
and pastors.
Copies of New Testament Ethics can be purchased at your favorite retail outlet, including my Amazon affiliate and Bookshop.org affiliate.
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