The Euthyphro Strikes Back

Last updated on: September 24, 2012 at 5:20 pm by Leah Libresco

The Euthyphro Strikes Back 2012-09-24T17:20:23-04:00 Leah Libresco

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

This week, The King and I blog (which is doing a guided reading through the whole King James Bible in a year) finished the Pentateuch. I’ve been keeping up with the readings, and I’m often struck by the strong contrasts between the passages in the Hebrew Bible and the Gospels and epistles I hear weekly at Sunday Masses.

In the Gospels, Jesus speaks in parables, using specific examples to teach higher, more abstract lessons. Most of the parables end using more general and universal language, which makes it clear the story is not about proper agricultural practice, but about the disposition of your soul.

As far as I can tell (from my amateurs grasp of bible history) the laws set down in the Torah are narrowly tailored and do not teach moral lessons. Laws are bizarrely specific or seem ungrounded (see almost all of Jewish dietary law) and there’s little in the text that suggests that they should be taken as metaphor.

If you’ve ever read Socrates’s dialogue with Euthyphro, you may be familiar with Socrates’s famous question to Euthyphro. After Euthyphro defines piety as ‘that which is pleasing to the gods,’ Socrates asks whether the pious is loved by the gods because it is pious or whether is it pious because it is loved by the gods. Reading the Hebrew Bible, it frequently seems like the Good is Good only because God says so. There is nothing good in it for its own sake.

The best example of this phenomenon so far comes from Deuteronomy 25:11-12:

When men strive together one with another, and the wife of the one draweth near for to deliver her husband out of the hand of him that smiteth him, and putteth forth her hand, and taketh him by the secrets: Then thou shalt cut off her hand, thine eye shall not pity her.

In case you’re baffled by the language, these two verses explain that if a woman is caught helping her husband win a fight by grabbing his opponent’s genital, her hand should be cut off without remorse.

Why is this law included in the part of the Hebrew scripture allegedly written by Moses himself? It seems unlikely that wives were interfering in fights by groping their husbands assailants so frequently that this prohibition and its consequences deserved a spot in the last book of the Pentateuch.

But if the law is meant to have a broader application, is it at all conceivable that it can be extracted from the text? I’ve written enough literary papers in college to know that, although it’s possible to use a text as a springboard to many interesting ideas (talk to me about Sweeney Todd and the range of responses to living in a Fallen world sometime), there’s no guarantee your discovery bears any relation to authorial intent.

I could read Talmudic discussion on the passage, but I’d have no heuristic to tell truth from falsehood. In fact, I did a little googling, and found two sources that claimed this passage is one of only two laws in the Torah that requires the wrongdoer be maimed. That’s interesting and points to some kind of significance, but I have no idea what it could be.

I’d be interested in exegesis from anyone who knows the Torah well, but I’d also be interested in Christian perspectives on this kind of biblical mystery. Reading through the Bible has tended to decrease the probability I assign to the the likelihood the Christianity is true. The Old Testament frequently seems picayune, disjointed, or just plain amoral. It’s extremely hard for me to reconcile that with any idea of revelation.

Epistemology/Philosophy

bible study

Judaism

whence moral law?

Previous Post

March 4, 2011

Picking a Lenten Discipline

Next Post

March 7, 2011 Show Me a Miracle Marvelous Rare

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category 7 Quick Takes Apologetics Atheism Book Conversion Debate Tactics Debates Epistemology/Philosophy Housekeeping Ideological Turing Test Marriage Morality in Practice Parsing Catholicism Possibly Heretical Radio Reviews/Recommendations Sequence Index Spiritual Practice Uncategorized

Select a Month April 2017 March 2017 January 2017 December 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who was thrown into a den of lions for praying?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Andrew Peter Paul Daniel