The Prophets and Our Resources

Review of the previous post.

The previous post, post number 8 of 13, continued the discussion of what the prophets said and provides examples of what they said.

Preview of this post.

This post, post number 9 of 13, continues the discussion of what the prophets said and discusses a basis in the Bible for a method of practicing ecotheology which is based in the Bible but differs from the current method of practicing ecotheology.

1. What the prophets said^[1]

     C. Basis in the Bible for a modern method

As discussed above, the field of ecotheology has a shortcoming in attempting to interpret Biblical passages in a manner which allows us to apply Biblical textual teaching to modern ecology issues. However, there is another way to use Biblical textual material for modern ecology issues that does not require reinterpreting the Biblical. This method involves merely reading the texts in light of what was being taught.

In Genesis 9:1-4, God specifically authorized Noah (and by implication, all humanity) to take from God’s creation what they needed to survive: “Every creature that lives shall be yours to eat; as with the green grasses, I will give you these.” (Gen 9:3). This, by implication seems to support the idea that God permitted humans to take what they need to survive. That is take what you need, but by implication, it also means do not take more than you need. Still further, in Genesis 8:20-21, it is stated “Then Noah built an alter to the lord and, taking of every clean animal and of every clean bird, he offered burnt offerings on the later. The Lord smelled the pleasant odor, and the Lord said to Himself: ‘Never again will I doom the earth because of man….” This seems to say that God was pleased that Noah was offering to give something back. Building on this theme, modern ecology can adopt a rule that if you take something out of the environment, you should put something back.

As discussed in the Prophets section, an impetus to the rise of the prophets was the exploitation of men and resources by a few privileged members of society. The prophets railed against such exploitation. As discussed, the prophets spoke in terms of justice, judgment, righteousness, loving-kindness (hesed), mercy, loyalty, love, humility, truth, faithfulness, compassion, wickedness and evil. All of these terms were used in relation to protecting the class of people and others who, according to the prophets, needed protection but were not protected, indeed they were often exploited, by the wealthy and powerful of Israel society. Their objective was to ensure that the strong would not oppress or exploit, the weak in the allocation of resources. As discussed in the essay “Who Were the Prophets?” elevating the transgression of oppressing or exploiting the weaker members of society to a transgression against God, introduced several extremely powerful motivators. Making violation of such justice a transgression which might be punished in this life or in the afterlife and the punishment of which being limited only to what the actor might imagine, which can be severe and frightening to say the least, is a powerful motivator in and of itself. Furthermore, making such justice a duty owed to God further introduced the idea that since it is a transgression against God, one cannot hide it or “get away with it”. Thus, not only will one not be able to get away with the transgression, it will be punished severely and surely. It is an easy step from teaching social justice as applied to other humans who were not able to protect themselves to applying the same teachings to human use of the environment which is not able to protect itself: “Justice, justice shall you pursue, that you may thrive and occupy the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” Deut. 16:20.

Therefore, by combining the basic teaching of the Bible that the land was given by God to humans making the land sacred, and further viewing the land as the very basis of the covenant between God and man (i.e., the land was promised to the people in return for their pledge of allegiance to God) with the concept from the Noah story that God permits humans to take from the land as long as they put something back with the concept of justice taught by the prophets that we are not to exploit those weaker than we are it is an easy step to arrive at the following rule: God will permit us to exploit the environment, but only so far as to fulfill our needs and we are sinning against God if we take more than we need to survive and we must return something to the environment when we do remove something for our basic needs.

This is a basic rule of modern eco-theological theory:

Take only what you need and no more, and replace either what you have taken out or with something of environmental value or what can be used for the environment.

This is the rule that will be applied in the next section discussing a method for applying it.

Preview of the next post.

The next post, post number 10 of 13, discusses the Ground Rules (presented in another series) as they apply to the field of ecotheology.

[1] Environmental awareness is an aspect of the mitzvah known as Bal Tashchit–Do Not Destroy.