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1
Richard Hiers is Professor of Religion, Affiliate
Professor of Law, and Affiliate Professor of the
College of Natural Resources and Environment,
at the University of Florida (Box 117410, Gainesville,
FL 32611–7410). This article was originally published
in 1999 in the Journal of Law and Religion
13 (1996–1998): 127–88, a festschrift number
in honor of Douglas Sturm. The present version
has been substantially revised. The author thanks Dieter
Hessel for proposing this article as an on-line publication
and for his editorial suggestions. Thanks also
to the editors of the Journal of Law and Religion
for permission to republish this article in this
format.
Two of Professor Sturm’s recent essays directly
address ecological or biospheric ethics with characteristic
intensity and insight: “Faith, Ecology, and the
Demands of Social Justice: On Shattering the Boundaries
of Moral Community,” in Religious Experience
and Ecological Responsibility, Donald A. Crosby
and Charley D. Hardwich, eds., (New York: P. Lang,
1996); and “Koinonology and Ecological Principle,”
written as an epilogue to his book, Solidarity
and Suffering (Albany, N.Y.: State University
of New York Press, 1998).
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2
See Lynn White, Jr.’s often cited contention in
“The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis,”
Science 155 (1967): 1205: “God planned all
[creation] explicitly for man’s benefit
and rule; no item in the physical creation had any purpose
save to serve man’s purposes.” Others, too,
criticized biblical texts for neglecting the value
of nonhuman life-forms. See, Steven C. Rockefeller,
“Faith and Community in an Ecological Age,” in
Spirit and Nature,
Steven C. Rockefeller and John C. Elder, eds.,
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1992) 148: “[T]he purpose
of the creation of the universe is the establishment
of a kingdom of God on earth by and for human beings.”
As to the “Christian right’s” tendency
to neglect biblical environmental concerns, see Chuck
D. Barlow, “Why the Christian Right Must Protect
the Environment,” British Columbia Environmental
Affairs Law Review 23 (1996): 781–91.
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3
See critiques by Albert Schweitzer, The Philosophy
of Civilization (New York: Macmillan, 1960
[1923]), and by Gene McAfee, “Ecology and Biblical
Studies,” in Theology for Earth Community: A
Field Guide, Dieter T. Hessel, ed., (Maryknoll,
N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1996) 31–44. Notable exceptions
include: Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, Michel
Montaigne, Thomas Paine, and François Voltaire,
and more recently, Tom Regan, and Peter Singer.
See Mary Midgley, Animals and Why They Matter
(Athens, Ga.: University of Georgia Press, 1984)
11; and Eric Blumenson’s analysis of philosophical
indifference and hostility to animal rights or welfare,
in “Who Counts Morally,” published in Journal
of Law and Religion 14 (1999–2000): 25–40.
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4
See Bernhard W. Anderson, From Creation to New
Creation: Old Testament Perspectives (Minneapolis,
Minn.: Fortress Press, 1994); Richard C. Austin,
Hope for the Land:
Nature in the Bible (Atlanta, Ga.: John Knox
Press, 1987); James Barr, “Man and Nature: The
Ecological Controversy and the Old Testament,”
Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 52 (1972):
9–32; Wendell Berry, The Gift of the Good Land:
Further Essays, Cultural and Agricultural
(San Francisco, Calif.: North Point Press, 1981)
267–81; Robert R. Gottfried, Economics, Ecology,
and the Roots of Western Faith (Lanham, Md.:
Rowman and Littlefield, 1995) 29–65; Bruce J.
Malchow, “Contrasting Views of Nature in the Hebrew
Bible,” Dialog 26 (1987): 40–43; Holmes
Rolston III, “The Bible and Ecology,” Interpretation
50 (1996): 16–26; H. Paul Santmire, The Travail
of Nature: The Ambiguous Ecological Promise of
Christian Theology (Philadelphia, Pa.: Fortress
Press, 1985) 189–218; Ronald A. Simkins, Creator
and Creation: Nature in the Worldview of Ancient Israel
(Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Pub., 1994); and Odil
H. Steck, World and Environment (Nashville,
Tenn.: Abingdon Press, 1980). More than 700 titles
are listed in Hessel’s “Bibliography,” in Theology
for Earth Community, 269–92. See also, Robert
Booth Fowler, The Greening of Protestant Thought
(Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina
Press, 1995) esp. 28–44.
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5
The divine name YHWH, possibly vocalized originally
as “Yahweh” [if not Jehovah], appears
throughout much of the biblical tradition. English Bibles
usually render this name as “The LORD.” See
note 33 of this
paper.
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6
In biblical tradition, YHWH (God) is always represented
by male gender language. That usage is only followed
insofar as it is present in the quotations and
subsequent quoted commentary on the texts utilized
in this version of the article. It may be noted,
however, that a number of biblical texts associate
female gender with God. See, for example, Gen
1:26–27; 5:1–2; Prov 8:1–32; Isa 49:15; Wisd of
Sol 7:24–8:1.
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7
The Revised Standard Version (RSV) of the Bible is
normally used for quotations in this paper because
it renders the Hebrew (and other ancient biblical
languages) more literally than other modern translations.
For clarity, the divine name is generally rendered
here as “God,” although the underlying biblical
texts often use the name “YHWH” instead of “God,”
and “YHWH” is utilized in this paper through direct
textual quotations and subsequent quoted commentary.
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Copyright © 1999 Journal
of Law and Religion.
Reprinted with permission.
Copyright © 1999 Richard Hiers.
Copyright © 2000 Forum on Religion and Ecology
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