Tokyo College Event: “Discourses about Environment and Nature in the Hebrew Bible”

Abstract

This lecture will argue that the Hebrew Bible contains different views on nature and the environment, especially in relation to the destruction of the kingdom of Judah and its capital Jerusalem in 587 BCE. This event triggered different discourses of crisis management that will be analyzed with the help of German sociologist Armin Steil who distinguishes three attitudes toward crisis also found in the Hebrew Bible: 1) The prophetic attitude: belief that crisis will lead to a new creation with harmony between humans, nature, and animals; 2) The mandarin attitude: view of disasters as divine punishment without much interest in the environment; and 3) The priestly attitude: construction of a mythic past that offers rituals for the present with interest in the place of humans in their environment. The last discourse offers an important reflection about a possible harmony between all beings.

Program

Lecturer 
Thomas RÖMER (Director, Collège de France)
Prof. Römer is a world-renowned authority in Old Testament studies and the author of numerous books including Dark God, The 100 Words of the Bible, and The So-Called Deuteronomistic History, which have been translated into Japanese and have gained much acclaim.
Commentator
ICHIKAWA Hiroshi (Professor Emeritus, The University of Tokyo)
Moderator
HOSHI Takeo (Director, Tokyo College, The University of Tokyo)