Journal of Ethics in Antiquity and Christianity

Revisiting 'Purpose and Design'

Duncan Reid — 2024-12-18

Zum Verhältnis von Recht und Moral

Matthias Pulte — 2024-12-18

Zum Verhältnis von Recht und Moral

Johannes Brantl — 2024-12-18

Gesetz in Judentum und Christentum

Stefan Beyerle — 2024-12-18

Editorial: Ethik und Gesetz

Dorothea Erbele-Küster — 2024-12-18

Editorial: Law and Ethics

Dorothea Erbele-Küster — 2024-12-18

Review of: David Lincicum, Ruth Sheridan, and Charles M. Stang, (eds.). Law and Lawlessness in Early Judaism and Early Christianity

Gregory E. Lamb — 2024-12-18

Franz Rosenzweig’s Attitude towards the Law and the Mitzvah

Ronen Pinkas — 2025-02-17

Franz Rosenzweig’s references to Sigmund Freud in his diaries and letters are not extensive. However, they are exceptional in the intellectual landscape of Jewish religious philosophy at the beginning of the twentieth century. Based on these references, this article presents a Psy-chotheological reading of the Binding of Isaac. This interpretation treats the rabbinic account of Abraham’s childhood in Genesis Rabbah 38:13 as an unconscious layer of the biblical narrative. The demand to take his son and offer him as a burnt offering (Genesis 22:2) is understood as stemming from Abraham’s superego, which includes the internalized father’s law (Terach, his father, and Nimrod, the father symbol in the culture into which Abraham was born). The actual revelation, however, is the liberation from the phantasmatic demands and sanctions of the superego, which suspends the individual’s moral relationship to the world. This is exemplified by Abraham’s resolution not to proceed with the sacrifice of Isaac (Gen-esis 22:12). The preceding interpretation provides a framework for examining the relationship between commandment (mitzvah) and law in The Star of Redemption. According to Rosenzweig, the revelation of the divine commandment of love softens the rigidity of the law while maintaining its relevance and importance in providing orientation for the individual’s daily life.

Gesetz und Moral: Was bleibt von einer Gesetzeskonzeption der Moral?

Steffi Schadow — 2024-12-18

The view that morality consists of laws has a rich, particularly religious, tradition. In current debates on ethics, however, it is anything but philosophical commonsense. Not least due to the return to the advantages of virtue ethics, principle-oriented ethics such as the moral law approach have lost popularity. Despite this, the advantages of law-based ethics can also be defended; one paradigm here is still Immanuel Kant’s attempt to ground the objectivity of morality on the concept of a moral law. Accordingly, the aim of this text is to explore the systematic potential of ethics based on the concept of law. For this purpose, I will examine the historical roots of a connection between the concept of morality and that of law and then focus on Kant’s approach to morality. Finally, I will outline the advantages of his conception of morality as autonomy over alternative models of justification of morality.

Gesetz und Evangelium bei Luther und Barth

Burkhard Nonnenmacher — 2024-12-18

My article has three parts. The first recalls central ideas of Luther's definition of the relationship between law and gospel. The second remembers Barth's criticisms of this position. The third examines the relevance of this discussion for contemporary debates on dogmatics and ethics. My paper aims to show that Luther's idea of mediation and concept of an answering theology must still be taken seriously today, despite all the criticism by Karl Barth. The central thesis is that the strength of Luther's position lies in the fact that Luther does not presuppose the Christian understanding of reality as an immediate certainty.

Das vergessene ethische Stichwort: Tora

Rainer Kessler — 2024-12-18