Ezekiel and the Ethics of Exile

Theology Today, Jul 2004 by Lapsley, Jacqueline E

Ezekiel and the Ethics of Exile By Andrew Mein Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001. 298 pp. $70.00.

How does one go about studying Old Testament ethics? What does one mean by "Old Testament ethics" anyway? Is it principally a theological exercise, a historical investigation, or something else entirely? These questions are very much to the fore in Andrew Mein's revised Oxford dissertation, as indeed they are in the wider discussion of what constitutes Old Testament ethics. Mein poses the problem in terms of an opposition that he perceives between "descriptive ethics" and "normative ethics." The former is historically and sociologically grounded, attentive to the ancient sociohistorical contexts out of which the Bible emerges, whereas the latter is grounded in theological concerns and focused on the Bible's contemporary relevance. Mein is a proponent of "descriptive ethics" and a sharp critic of "normative ethics."

Although concerned about these larger methodological issues affecting the study of Old Testament ethics generally, the core of Mein's work analyzes the specific ways in which Ezekiel's historical context-the Babylonian exile-shapes the ethics of that book (thus, a "descriptive ethics"). Mein perceives two moral worlds coming together in Ezekiel's context: the one the Judean elites lived in before deportation to Babylon (597 BCE), a world in which ethics concerns itself with institutions, especially the cult, as well as foreign relations and other affairs of state; and the one brought into being by that deportation of the elites. In Babylon, the exiles find themselves operating within a narrower moral framework. Larger social and political decisions being beyond their power or authority, they now find themselves focused on more domestic concerns: family and individual matters (as in Ezekiel 18).

By positing these two historically successive moral worlds, Mein accounts for a tension in Ezekiel that has long troubled commentators: The prophet seems ambivalent about his audience's capacity to repent. Prior to the exile, repentance is not a major feature of Ezekiel's discourse, Mein explains, but, once in Babylon, the exiles are exhorted to change their ways. The possibility of repentance fits better in the context of exile, where the prophet's audience can change its conduct within the more limited moral world of domestic life (family and business dealings) that now occupies them. And yet, as Ezekiel looks ahead, he sees the future salvation of the whole people as entirely the work of God: As a body, the people are passive with regard to their future restoration. Ultimately, the variety of ethical responses to the exiles' changing circumstances functions as a survival strategy for the endangered exilic community.

There is much to commend in this book. It is carefully argued, clearly written, and largely attentive to the complexities inherent in any religious worldview-in short, it is a sophisticated piece of work. Mein's thesis that two significantly different moral worlds lie in the background of Ezekiel has much to recommend it, though I wonder whether these can be as neatly parsed as Mein proposes, as the author himself avers toward the end of his book. The way that "moral worlds" actually operate in individuals and societies is very complex and does not seem reducible to two essentially opposing types, which succeed each other in time within the same people. In analyzing the book's ethics, the attention Mein pays to Ezekiel's historical and sociological contexts constitutes a methodological advance over forms of "biblical ethics" that ignore these contexts. Nevertheless, framing his methods in opposition to the "normative ethics" of confessional scholars is equally reductive of the complex situation presently governing the study of ethics in relation to biblical studies.

JACQUELINE E. LAPSLEY

Princeton Theological Seminary

Princeton, NJ