Moral questions of the Bible : timeless truth in a changing world by David Instone-Brewer
Lexham Press, 2019 286 pages £12 ISBN 978 1 683 592 952
This is an excellent book well worth dipping in to and keeping for future reference.
Dr Instone-Brewer is a Research Fellow at Tyndale House in Cambridge and is a leading authority on the Graeco-Roman background of the Bible. He also happens to be a first class communicator who wears his learning lightly but effectively.
In this book he addresses a problem that seriously troubled the early Christians just as much as it perplexes Christians today, viz. Are all the moral commands of the Bible meant to be obeyed exactly for all time or, are there some that need to be adapted for our modern world ? In other words, are the moral or behavioural imperatives in Scripture culture-bound, relevant only to the time and place in which they were promulgated, or do they have wider, even contemporary, application ?
There are 30 issues addressed here arranged in 6 broad thematic sections but these are preceded by an introduction and 3 chapters setting out the framework for the author’s approach to dealing with the vexed problem of relevance – can the cultural norms of the Bible be always directly transferred to us today ? The cultures are very different., after all.
The book is worth reading for these chapters alone, such is the careful thought and reasoned analysis.
However, the bulk of the book provides the immediate interest looking at quite specific moral issues such as children (4 issues, e.g. abortion); sex and marriage (7 issues, e.g. no-fault divorce); church issues (4 sections e.g. female leaders); personal vices (5 issues e.g. racism); for the sake of others
(7 sections e.g. eating animals) and, finally, a section which offers a framework for dealing with moral issues that did not occur in Bible times whether Old Testament or New Testament.
There are indexes to Ancient Literature, the Bible itself (texts) and a general subject index.
As a discussion starter for small groups or Bible studies on the many moral issues identified, this book would be ideal. Far-reaching though it is, there are gaps, issues in medical ethics, for example, are becoming more and more serious matters of concern.
The key to the author’s approach to this often perplexing and difficult matter of interpretation is to seek the underlying purpose of the moral commands in their cultural context, the principle being more important than the detail.