The Hebrew Bible and Environmental Ethics by Mari Joerstad

The Hebrew Bible and Environmental Ethics by Mari Joerstad

Regular price
Checking stock...
Regular price
Checking stock...
Zusammenfassung

This book argues that in the Hebrew Bible, non-animal nature (trees, mountains, clouds, soil, waterways) is alive and able to interact with other creatures. The book is for scholars and lay readers interested in the Bible's contribution to environmental ethics and ancient Israelite understandings of nature.

The feel-good place to buy books
  • Free delivery in the UK
  • Supporting authors with AuthorSHARE
  • 100% recyclable packaging
  • B Corp - kinder to people and planet
  • Buy-back with World of Books - Sell Your Books

The Hebrew Bible and Environmental Ethics by Mari Joerstad

The environmental crisis has prompted religious leaders and lay people to look to their traditions for resources to respond to environmental degradation. In this book, Mari Joerstad contributes to this effort by examining an ignored feature of the Hebrew Bible: its attribution of activity and affect to trees, fields, soil, and mountains. The Bible presents a social cosmos, in which humans are one kind of person among many. Using a combination of the tools of biblical studies and anthropological writings on animism, Joerstad traces the activity of non-animal nature through the canon. She shows how biblical writers go beyond sustainable development, asking us to be good neighbors to mountains and trees, and to be generous to our fields and vineyards. They envision human communities that are sources of joy to plants and animals. The Biblical writers' attention to inhabited spaces is particularly salient for contemporary environmental ethics in their insistence that our cities, suburbs, and villages contribute to flourishing landscapes.
'In this groundbreaking study, Mari Joerstad has found a new convergence between biblical studies and ecologyExploring the 'living landscapes' of the Bible, from the creation texts of Genesis to the Song of Songs, Joerstad has charted a new landscape of research as well as a new pathway for action, one that has a distinctly aesthetic trajectory. In this work, the author proves to be both an artist and an exegete, a welcome combination.' William P. Brown, William Marcellus McPheeters Professor of Old Testament, Columbia Theological Seminary
'This book is a wide-ranging and important study of environmental ethics in relation to the Hebrew Bible but in the broad context of studies in animism, anthropology and metaphor theory. It is at the cutting edge of ideas about the role of nature in human life and thought and the way that is depicted through metaphorical language in the Hebrew Bible. It is a highly readable book, with the author persuading us that the topic is integral to our understanding of ourselves as human beings both in relationship to, and with responsibility for, the world around us.' Katharine J. Dell, University of Cambridge
'Her book offers scriptural groundwork for cultivating the kind of religious imagination that makes sense of the spiritual need people have for a holy space in which to confess environmental sins together and repent for the harm they've caused.' Isaac S. Villegas, The Christian Century
'This is a stunning book. It will challenge and teach you; it is both academic and radical. It will alter the way that you approach and read the Hebrew Scriptures, as well as at least the gospels and Revelation in the New Testament. It will make you think afresh about the world we live in, the food you eat, the clothes you wear, even the place you live in. This book is important because it is ground-breaking. It gathers together cohering lines of biblical investigation and Hebrew scholarship with some key environmental issues, and spiritual/faith questions within biblical exegesis and discovery, which each of us must wrestle with. The text fulfils the inclusivity of the book's title.' Andrew Francis, Anabaptism Today
'… the book is a lively, thought-provoking contribution to a “green” hermeneutic.' A Journal of Bible and Theology
Mari Joerstad is Research Associate at the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University, North Carolina, where she works on Facing the Anthropocene, a project funded by the Henry Luce Foundation.
SKU Nicht verfügbar
ISBN 13 9781108476447
ISBN 10 1108476449
Titel The Hebrew Bible and Environmental Ethics
Autor Mari Joerstad
Buchzustand Nicht verfügbar
Verlag Cambridge University Press
Erscheinungsjahr 2019-05-23
Seitenanzahl 254
Hinweis auf dem Einband Die Abbildung des Buches dient nur Illustrationszwecken, die tatsächliche Bindung, das Cover und die Auflage können sich davon unterscheiden.
Hinweis Nicht verfügbar