C.F.W. Walther was the first President of the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod (LC-MS). I was very interested to learn that Walther was strongly opposed to usury, and that his definition of usury included the taking of any interest. (Also of interest is that the LC-MS also used to be opposed to life insurance, and one of the reasons was that the insurance industry was built on usurious practices).
Dr. Mark Braun gives this analysis of the change (emphasis mine):
Missouri’s chief founder and leading pastor C.F.W. Walther sharply condemned the practice of taking interest. In an 1864 essay “Die Wucherfrage,” Walther put the taking of interest in the same category as theft, robbery, adultery, and idolatry. “God Himself here denies eternal salvation to him who practices usury.” Following that logic, Walther also concluded that it would be wrong for a Christian to be a stockholder in a bank, since “the banks are nothing but institutions of usury.” (He did allow that ordinary bank transactions conducted by average citizens “seem to have nothing dubious about them.”) Walther was thinking not only of usury but of any taking of interest. His view was ratified by Missouri’s 1869 convention.
By 1927, however, after a series of tactical omissions and subtle alterations, Carl Manthey-Zorn concluded, “Nowhere in His revealed Word has God prohibited the charging of interest as such.” In a letter to the faculty of Concordia Seminary, Zorn asked whether it would be appropriate for Synod to state that its position had changed, but was told by two faculty members that they considered such a revocation unnecessary.28
So, if we could be honest for a second, we have to say that those Lutherans that participate in usury, either directly by making loans and taking interest, or indirectly by owning shares in institutions that do, would in the eyes of our not-too-distant forebears such as Walther, be seen as non-Christians in dire need of repentance.
Amazing how things change!
Here is an explanation by a modern-day LC-MS Pastor (emphasis mine):
… Somewhat recent study suggests passages such as Leviticus 25:35-54 and Deuteronomy 23:19-20 do not forbid any and all interest from one Israelite to another. Rather, in part from a comparison with codes of the surrounding countries, the claim is made that the type of interest prohibited is that interest that came when the loan was due and might involve the slavery of the borrower, in addition to the initial interest taken off the disbursement of the loan.
…As for Lutherans in America, I wasn’t around in the early days of the Missouri Synod, but it wouldn’t surprise me if there were some who prohibited lending at any rate, as they used to prohibit such things as dancing and any and all life insurance. As I write this I can’t locate my copy of the relatively early Missouri Synod book The Borderland Between Right and Wrong, but I would expect there could be some discussion of usury in it. The only reference to usury that I find in John Fritz’s 1932 Pastoral Theology: A Handbook of Scriptural Principles comes in the discussion of communicants not to be admitted to the Sacrament: “Any one engaged in an unlawful or ungodly occupation, as that of actors, sorcerers, spiritualists, fortune-tellers, keepers of brothels, bootleggers, dispensers of forbidden drugs, abortionists, usurers, etc., must be suspended from the Sacrament until he forsakes such occupation” (p.152).
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could ask a question about what the Bible says, and get an answer about what the Bible says. The Bible says:
Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother; usury of money, usury of victuals, usury of any thing that is lent upon usury: Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury; but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon usury: that the LORD thy God may bless thee in all that thou settest thine hand to in the land whither thou goest to possess it. (Deuteronomy 23:19-20 KJV)
But the Pastor says, “recent study suggests passages such as Leviticus 25:35-54 and Deuteronomy 23:19-20 do not forbid any and all interest from one Israelite to another. Rather, in part from a comparison with codes of the surrounding countries, the claim is made that the type of interest prohibited is that interest that came when the loan was due and might involve the slavery of the borrower, in addition to the initial interest taken off the disbursement of the loan.”
Well, the Sodomites say that God didn’t forbid all homosexual relationships, only abusive ones, and the Usurers say that God didn’t forbid all lending upon usury to your brother, only abusive usury. The arguments are really the same. It all hinges on the authority of scripture versus the authority of modern scholars.
But the question I have is if someone thinks that Walther and the early LC-MS leaders were such dolts, then why do they join the LC-MS? It seems quite dishonest to join a denomination knowing that it stood for things that you would have been excommunicated for.
Interestingly, the 17th Canon of the Council of Nicaea (325 AD) specified that any clergy found to be putting out their money at interest should be defrocked and expelled:
Since many enrolled have been induced by greed and avarice to forget the sacred text, “who does not put out his money at interest”, and to charge one per cent on loans, this holy and great synod judges that if any are found after this decision to receive interest by contract or to transact the business in any other way or to charge fifty per cent or in general to devise any other contrivance for the sake of dishonourable gain, they shall be deposed from the clergy and their names struck from the roll.
Were these guys ignorant of the sacred texts also? Seems kind of ironic, really that you can become a Pastor of a church that confesses the Nicene creed while committing sins (and teaching the congregation to do the same) that they would have defrocked you for.
A fundamental hermeneutical error is to think that in repeating the same words in a different (cultural, social, socio-economic, historical, linguistic) context one is saying the same thing.
At the purely semantic level (if there is such a thing!), you know this. Few people today would disagree with the statement “usury is wrong” but most would mean by that “exorbitant interest is wrong,” while people in the past using the same words would have condemned any “usage charge” on non-productive items.
But there are other changes which affect meaning. Subsistence economies change to mercantile economies etc., silver as an asset is transformed by the invention of coins, money features differently in different sort of economical contexts etc.
Repeating the same words in a different context is not saying the same thing.
Now, imagine I had run out of pockets at the end of 2005. I am cold in my flat and eating only bread with margarine. On the 3rd of January 2006, a Christian friend lends me $530. He lends without expecting anything in return but I want to pay him back at the end of the year. What would be good for me to do after Christmas 2006, now being in better financial shape?
(1) Maybe I need not return anything because, after all, as a Christian he is expected to lend without getting anything in return. I might instead lend money (without interest!) to another one who is in need at present. This principle would transform all loans into gifts.
(2) But maybe this feels to me like taking advantage of the generosity of my brother. I rather return what he has lent me and let him decide to whom to give the money next. But how much should I return? $530 looks good on paper – a loan without interest. But I have not borrowed “paper”. At the beginning of the year, $530 would have bought my friend an ounce of gold, at the end of the year it doesn’t.
(3) So maybe, I want to return the same value. This is of course difficult to measure. If my friend wanted to buy an ounce of gold on the 28th December 2006, he would need $632. If I were to apply a gold standard, and can afford it, I might want to return $632.
Three options: return (1) nothing, (2) the same nominal amount, (3) the same real value.
(And this does not even taken into account that my friend might have been able to sell an ounce of gold for $725 on the 12th of May of that year, if he had not given me $530 at the beginning of the year. All prices from http://www.kitco.com)
This may illustrate the wickedness of our economic practices today but the fact of the matter is that “interest-bearing loans are wicked” means different things in
(a) a context in which pretty much all loans are charitable
(b) a business context in which loans are commercial
(c) a non-inflationary (even if fluctuating) economy
(d) an inflationary economy etc.
There are several reasons for the general condemnation of usury in the early church. One reason was philosophical in that interest on loans was considered inherently unjust, following thinkers such as Aristotle “barren money”). This is usually spoken of in the language of natural law. A defence of this view can be found, e.g., in the Summa Theologia of St Thomas Aquinas. This argument faces the problem that God permits something in Scripture which is “inherently unjust” and hence those who accept this philosophical argument must go down the root of warfare (Ambrose, Luther) or concession (Aquinas), or maybe retribution (an eye for an eye, usury for usury). The first solution I consider untenable. The second evades, rather than solves the problem in my view. The third is implausible. As you have adopted the second solution and I have said much about it already, I shall leave it at that. The philosophical argument itself could be pursued further by discussing the illustration I have provided above of lending to a Philistine wanting to expand his olive business.
Another reason is practical in that usury, as generally practiced, was profiting from the misfortune of others. I have already illustrated this with Basil, here is another example from Lactantius, The Epitome of the Divine Institutes, chap. 64:
Cf. also The Sacred History Of Sulpitius Severus, book 1, chap. 18, and St. Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of Saint Matthew, homily 5 (on Matth. 1:22-23):
Thus Ambrose (“It is a mark of kindly feeling to help him who has nothing, but it is a sign of a hard nature to extort more than one has given”) is quite typical in depicting the borrower as one lacking necessities.
A third reason is ethical-theological in that the prohibition of interest in the Law prepares for the admonition of the Gospel to give away freely.
Tertullian, The Five Books against Marcion, Book 4, chap. 17 (see the whole chapter for the line of argument at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf03.v.iv.v.xvii.html )
This agrees with Basil’s sermon on Ps. 15, already quoted. Christians should loan not only without interest but without expectation of repayment, in other words give freely.
Indeed, St Augustine in his Expositions on the Psalms (Psalm 37, part 3) says that while, on the one hand, we should not be usurers, on the other hand
To be an usurer is to expect to receive more than one has give. So how can we lend profitably?
And how doe lend to the Lord God? By having pity on the poor, Proverbs 19:17
The church fathers do not commend interest-free business loans. If one were to say only that the church condemned usury (usage charge, interest), implying that they favour interest-free loans, one would be telling half-truths. In their view, loan without interest is part of the OT dispensation, superseded by the NT dispensation of giving freely.
I have been kept awake at night – not by this discussion but I may as well use the opportunity to offer two illustrations. The first one concerns the linguistic issue. Suppose, the Biblical text had been written originally in English and said “but you may charge for usage on a loan to someone who is different.”
Now imagine an interpreter who points out that “differ” and “defer” derive from the same root (which they do, the latter being the transitive, the former the intransitive of the Latin root) and that therefore “someone who is different” does not include all who are different but only those who are deferential to us because “different” has the connotation “deferential,” what would you say?
Would you not immediately recognize that the reasoning is faulty? (And if you were to say, “that’s a sticky question,” would I conclude that you think I want to beat you up with it because “sticky” derives from “stick”?)
To me, having some linguistic training and knowledge of Hebrew, the idea that nokri here means “detestable heathen” or something along those lines is of this nature.
Here is an illustration for the argument as such. Picture a society in which women are working and producing inside the household, but all trade and services outside the household were the prerogative of men. Suppose that nearly all men who paid for the services of a woman in this society would be paying for sexual favours.
A canon law which categorically prohibits paying for the services offered by a woman would mean something different in this society than in ours and merely repeating the same words in our context would not be saying the same thing.
We need to explore which reasons shaped the canon law and which of these we still consider valid. What I have called the practical reason is the most obvious. The fathers of the law would have had a situation in mind in which “paying for the services offered by a woman” involved prostitution and we would want to uphold the canon law in this respect. Preachers may also have adduced ethical-theological reasons in pointing out that among Christians services should be freely given. We may agree with the ethical-theological principle which points to charity (the analogy does not work perfectly here but the appeal to charity would still be pertinent in our imagined society, if women offering sexual favours were trying to make ends meet and some men excused their actions by claiming they were supporting the poor). Finally, there may have been philosophical reasons, in that some would argue that men paying women was against the natural law.
How should we respond to such a canon law? We would still want to defrock men who are paying for the services of a prostitute. We would still want to uphold the Christian principle of charity but we probably do not want to establish an economic policy of forbidding payment for services. In this case, whether we still want to repeat the prohibition of payment “for the services offered by a woman” depends on whether we agree with the philosophical point that it is unnatural for men to pay women.
In this analogy: what if the Torah stated, “women must not demand payment for services to their neighbours but men may pay for the services of a foreign woman”? To Matthew Henry and others this would suggest that paying for the services of a woman is not intrinsically unnatural and unjust. But if you were committed to the philosophical position that men paying women is wicked, you would have to try and explain (away?) this permission. Maybe, given that prostitution leads to the breakdown of societies, Israelite men were permitted to avail themselves of Canaanite prostitutes as a means of destroying that society? Or maybe, given men’s inability to control their sexual urges, the permission to go to foreign women was a concession to prevent the greater evil of defiling Israelite women? Or maybe it was quite normal for Canaanite men to use Israelite prostitutes and therefore it is only “fair” to allow Israelite men to pay for Canaanite prostitutes?
To continue the illustration with regard to my side of the argument, what if I were able to show the following: (a) that it is plausible that the only paid services offered by women in ancient Israel were sexual favours and (b) that foreign women offering sexual favours are elsewhere called “ger” and that (c) nokri therefore likely refers to foreign women offering services other than prostitution?
I hope you do not think that I am trying to caricature your views. I genuinely think that this admittedly imperfect illustration provides a good enough analogy to elucidate the points I was trying to make.
Chad, thank you. Engaging with you and Scott on this has helped my thinking and reading some of the Fathers has challenged me. I hope, I have not flooded you too much with comments. Here a summary of my current thinking:
Twelve theses on usury
(1) Commercial loans were known in antiquity. See M. Silver, Economic Structures of the Ancient Near East (London and Sydney: Croom Helm, 1985), esp. pp. 85-89 on the credit and investment market, and Prophets and Markets: The Political Economy of Ancient Israel, Social Dimensions of Economics; Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1982), pp. 65-68, for an argument in favour of the existence of commercial loans in ancient Israel.
(2) Interest-bearing loans were prohibited within Israel’s polity. The prohibition of interest-bearing loans specifically applied to full members of the covenant (brother) but in this context the resident alien (ger) is to be treated like a brother. The loans in question are specifically loans to people who are not economically self-sufficient in Exod. 22:25 and Lev. 25:25-27 but the prohibition is not restricted to charitable loans.
(3) Loans to a foreigner (nokri) were commercial loans. The non-resident foreigner need not be a merchant but is someone who is not included into Israel’s polity, i.e. outside the socio-economic structures of the covenant people in possession of the land allotted to them.
(4) The divine permission of usage charges on loans to the foreigner (nokri) implies that usage charges on loans are not intrinsically unjust. Attempts to avoid this conclusion from Deut. 23:20 must be judged a failure for reasons outlined above.
(5) The Gospel compels us to be just and generous, equitable and charitable. Christians are not under the Law which governed Israel’s polity but they are to form a community whose fellowship includes generosity in sharing material possessions.
(6) The church fathers categorically condemned usury. They did so in a context, in which “the main business of usurers was not so much earning interest on their capital as it was expropriating lands and other property that had been offered as security against loans that could not possibly be paid.” (J. L. Gonzales, Faith & Wealth: A History of Early Christian Ideas on the Origin, Significance, and Use of Money [San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1990], p. 175). Their sermons make abundantly clear that they do not have business loans in view, neither condemning them nor commending them (see next point).
(7) The condemnation of usury in the early church is closely related to the call to invest available money with God by giving it to the poor. The notion that Christians ought to use every possession they do not actually need to alleviate poverty is widely attested in the patristic literature. See Gonzales, Faith & Wealth for an overview. The immense importance of almsgiving and the power attributed to it can be seen in Cyprian’s Treatise on Works and Alms summarized by Gonzales on pp. 124-28. I found the chapter on The Cappadocians (pp. 173-86) particularly illuminating.
(8) Scholastic theologians developed the idea that usury is intrinsically wrong (with no distinction between consumption and production loans) but sought to be just in taking into account risk and opportunity costs. Some may have done so because they wanted to avoid the plain prohibition of usage charge on loans but no doubt some were keen to be accurate, logical and fair in their understanding of what is at issue. In either case, we need to evaluate their arguments and leave evaluating their motives to God who knows all our hearts.
There is further analysis and evaluation in, e.g., J. T. Noonan, Jr., The Scholastic Analysis of Usury (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957); R. de Roover, “The Scholastics, Usury, and Foreign Exchange”, Business History Review 41 (1967), 257-71: A. Kirschenbrum, “Jewish and Christian Theories of Usury in the Middle Ages,” Jewish Quarterly Review 75/3 (Jan. 1985): 270-89; T. Moser, “The Idea of Usury in Patristic Literature,” in Michalis Psalidopoulos (ed.), The Canon in the History of Economics: Critical Essays (London and New York: Routledge, 2000), pp. 24-44: E. S. Tan, “An Empty Shell? Rethinking the Usury Laws in Medieval Europe,” Journal of Legal History 23/3 (2002) 177-96, and “Origins and Evolution of the Medieval Church’s Usury Laws: Economic Self-Interest or Systematic Theology?,”The Journal of European economic history March 2005.
(9) The Reformers struggled to discern what faithfulness to Scripture meant in the area of financial interest, given the economic developments of their time. None were thrilled about what the commercial practices of the time but while Luther stressed the old distaste for usury, Calvin was equally concerned to uphold the principle that the Church must not bind consciences beyond what is written in Scripture.
(10) The understanding of the concept of time preference has demolished the claim that usage charge on (non-productive) loans is intrinsically unjust. This insight must now be added to the scholastic acknowledgement of the right to compensation for the expenses of the transaction (damnum emergens), the loss of the opportunity to seize good bargains (lucrum cessans), and the risk of not recovering the principal (periculum sortis). This is of course not to say that a Christian must make use of these rights, or even that Christians are always allowed to insist on such rights.
(11) Contemporary economic arrangements are deeply problematic. Irresponsible debt is part of the problem but the role of fiat money and government monopoly on money should not be underestimated in this.
(12) The lifestyle of many Christians today would have been abhorrent to many Christians in the past. But I very much doubt that the church fathers would have put their finger on interest-bearing bank accounts. They would be horrified about our luxurious lifestyle, while people elsewhere starve, and about debts being incurred to finance such a lifestyle.
Having read around a bit on this site, I have found an answer to the question how much money I ought to pay back (see post 51), $530. The argument is that what has been borrowed must be paid back in the same form in which it has been loaned – regardless of any decrease or increase in value of the thing loan.
I am not convinced that this takes the nature of money and inflation sufficiently into account. True, an Israelite farmer who loaned a sack of corn to a poor brother at the beginning of the sowing season, when corn was likely at its dearest, and receives a sack of corn back after the harvest, when corn is at its cheapest, does not receive back the same (monetary!) value.
But the problem is not as serious as that of money in an inflationary economy. A sack of corn is a sack of corn. Its purchase power will increase again over the coming months. The sack of corn has an intrinsic value and a fluctuating comparative (monetary) value but is the same true of $530? Do $530 have any intrinsic value? Alas, no. And the extreme situation of hyperinflation illustrates the problem with the line of reasoning which insists on nominal rather than actual value. In an economic setting in which $5 at the beginning of the year buy you as much as $50000 at the end of the year, even a pagan lender may say “don’t bother returning the $5″.
In such a situation, no-one would be lending money without interest. People would either give money away or lend something of intrinsic value. But why should this be different in principle from low inflation or deflation (the argument works both ways)?
Thomas, I think you’re looking at it backwards. The prohibition on usury is not a restraint upon the borrower but upon the lender. The lender may not ask for usury. Your scenario really adds a level of convolution which is essentially a red-herring. Pay back the loan according to what was borrowed. If you wish to do something for him to “repay” his kindness, that certainly doesn’t make you or him a usurer.
“Money”, at least the type that can be inflated at a whim, is taken into consideration. You might be interested to read Mooney’s other book, which is devoted to the subject. Usury is more problematic with hard money than inflationary currency. Inflation reduces the snakebite somewhat by allowing borrowers to repay with devalued currency. Deflation would do the opposite.
“The prohibition on usury is not a restraint upon the borrower but upon the lender.” There is a long exegetical tradition which claims otherwise – but I agree.
Nevertheless, my scenario is actually quite simple – looking at things from the other side rather than backwards. I am not yet convinced that in returning real purchase power, I have done anything to “repay” kindness.
By the way, your links to the two Mooney books are still to your old, now defunct, website.
Thomas, your summarization of points into 12 theses is quite helpful to me in my efforts to post further replies. I thank you also for providing many additional references – some of which I am familiar, and some that are new to me – and especially for locating that elusive reference to Ambrose! I do hope to resume posting comments on these matters in the next week or two, as my workload eases up a bit.
Chad, thanks to you too for many insightful posts. You have made many points that I might have made also
Scott, I am glad the additional references are of use. I have not been able to follow up (most of) them. For the medieval period, it is worth bearing in mind that attitudes to usury were not stable. The Church and Christian rulers often allowed usury – to be practised by Jews. When they did so, they did not follow Ambrose’s interpretation; they would hardly have given permission to Jews to destroy them through usury! But attitudes shifted and changed, often not entirely unrelated to the needs of the church. (And not financial needs only; apparently strong condemnations of usury came in handy for recruiting soldiers for the crusades as a form of penance!) Jews were at times prohibited to exact usury and I suspect Ambrose may have been handy in those cases, although I have found no written evidence for the Church adopting this interpretation of Deut. 23.
The same shifts and disagreements can be observed on the Jewish side, see S. Stein, “Interest Taken by Jews from Gentiles: An Evaluation of Source Material, ” J Semitic Studies 1 (1956) 141-64. There is a traditional equation of “Christian” with “Edomite” in Jewish thinking which would prohibit Jews from taking interest from Christians – an Edomite must be treated like a brother. Thus those in favour of exacting usury from Christians (the only business in town!) had to argue that Christians are not in fact “Edomites”.
The Spanish philosopher Albo (1380-1440) seems to have been the first Jewish interpreter who follows Ambrose.
http://www.povertystudies.org/biblio-hist-leuven.html may be of interest, if you have not come across it already. There is a whole section on usury in this bibliography.
You are likely familiar with the encyclical of Pope Benedict XIV promulgated on 1 November 1745 VIX PERVENIT (On Usury and Other Dishonest Profit) which may be considered the apex of scholastic thinking on the matter.
This is about as full a condemnation of usury as one might get, small or large profit, commercial or not… But then it continues
This is the basis for those Roman Catholic scholars who argue that the position of the church on usury has not in fact changed like Gary L. Coulter, cited on the other thread;
Cf. Austin Fagothey, Right and Reason, 2nd ed. (St Louis: Mosby, 1959).
A full discussion of medieval attitudes to usury should include consideration of the Christian loanbanks, the montes pietatis, which work on a non-profit basis but may charge a little interest to cover their running costs. See, e.g., the entry in the Catholic Encyclopedia.
As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, just title for your loan instantly springs.
I have written up a googlepage with material first published here. You will find little that is new at http://thomas.renz.googlepages.com/usury but there are some hyper links which you may appreciate and there are pages listing all references to nokri, neker, and ger which may be useful.
Thomas,
On the matter of the correct understanding of the exception in Deuteronomy 23:20, I find that further replies are necessary on three lines: 1) the etymology, meaning, and usage of nokri, 2) the history of Christian teaching, and 3) the history of Ancient economics. I have listed these in order of importance. This reply is limited to the first of these lines, regarding the term nokri.
I cite pertinent selections from your remarks above, and provide replies:
You say, “Note that if nokriya were a ‘detestable heathen’ or a ‘regularly unchaste woman’, Proverbs could be read as warning only against sex with prostitutes, loose women and ‘detestable heathen’, as if it were permissible to commit adultery, as long as the woman in question is a reputable Israelite!”
That is not at all true. A warning about the wiles of the adulteress does not by any means translate into permission to commit adultery in any other case. Your comment represents a classic case of eisegesis. Rather than to read the text for what it says, you try to make the text say something other than what it says via some process of reasoning. In so doing, you end up in the position of having to argue that the house of every woman in the world “sinks down to death” (Pr. 2:18) Of course, this is not true. Proverbs does not warn us about every woman in the world. It is unlawful to commit adultery with any woman in the world, but not every woman in the world attempts to ensnare us. We need a special warning about certain particular women, notorious adulteresses, prostitutes, whose houses sink down to death, and whose tracks lead to the dead. A warning about such particular hazards in no conceivable way constitutes permission to engage in adultery with reputable women.
Also, you say, “1 Kings 11:1-8 and other passages ‘quite plainly relates nokri directly to the heathen nations’ – yes and no. They prove no more than this that nokri most regularly refers to ‘foreigners’. If you read these texts closely, they demolish the view that nokri refers to abhorrent (‘detestable’, ‘wicked’) pagans because the list includes Edomites and Deut. 23:7 clearly states, ‘You shall not abhor an Edomite, for he is your brother.’”
I think “demolish” is too strong a word here. If anything is “demolished” it is the idea, articulated by Rabbi Modena in the early 17th Century, that “nokri” refers rigidly to those nations that Israel was commanded to destroy. I do not argue for such a rigidly precise denotation, but maintain that the term has a generally negative connotation. That clearly is its usage in the Proverbs, as I argue above. Deuteronomy 23:7 hardly adds up to a glowing endorsement of Edomites. A favorable sentiment was prescribed not due to any evident virtue indwelling Edomites, but due only to their common ancestry. The same God Who commanded Israel not to detest the Edomite also declared, “Esau I have hated, and have made his mountains a desolation, and appointed his inheritance for the jackals of the wilderness.” (Mal. 1:3) His lineage aptly is described as nokri.
Further, you ask, “And what about 1 Kings 8:41-43? The nokri who prays to the covenant God of Israel is still a nokri!”
This text evidently is speaking of the individual. Individual cases do not overturn the generality. A perfect example, presaging what this text describes, is Ruth. By virtue of her Moabite lineage, her confession to Boaz was, “I am nokri.” (2:10) Individually, she repudiated her people and their gods, and determined to join herself to the people Israel and to their God. Her confession of nokri reflects no presumption on her part to accomplish the feat by sheer desire or will. Her advance beyond nokri was by Grace. All the while the generality holds true that Moabites are nokri.
In all cases, the most consistent idea of nokri, that fits most naturally with the flow of meaning and with the implications of the various texts, is that of a generally negative connotation. From what the layman can gather in the language helps, it shares a common derivation with neker, which has unmistakable negative denotation. Also, it is evident that it conveys the sense of “other,” not in mere distinction, but by way of “strangeness,” which is a valuation. The nokri of Proverbs is not merely a woman distinct from one’s wife, but a morally corrupt woman – indeed, the warnings of Proverbs are addressed to the young man, who well may have no wife, in which case the otherness of mere distinction has no application at all! Similarly, the nokri of Deuteronomy are not merely people who are distinct from Israel, but people of “strange” or “foreign” gods, who are corrupt and detestable.
Nokri refers to someone or something strange/other/foreign — we are agreed on this, are we not? In addition, you say that is has “generally negative connotations”, while I consider it more accurate to say that it is often used in negative contexts.
You dismiss passages like 1 Kings 8 too easily — what makes the foreigners in 1 Kings 8 exceptions to your rule? “This text evidently is speaking of the individual” — no more and no less than Deut. 23.
I find your reading of Ruth 2:10 implausible. If nokri did connote “pagan idolater” or something along those lines, Ruth’s “I am a nokri” would not be an expression of her humility, as you make out, but a denial of grace. Ruth does not claim any “advance beyond nokri” neither by her own efforts, nor by grace. Ruth does not lie when she calls herself a foreigner.
The context in Proverbs makes it plain that the “strange woman” seeks to be sexually active outside marriage. Prov. 2:18 does not talk about “every woman” -. the woman in question is described at length in the preceding verses. My point is that it is not the word itself (nokri) but the discourse which clarifies this meaning.
In other words, the specific connotations are contributed by the context and therefore cannot be transferred to the occurrence of the word in another context, otherwise we might have to read Ruth 2:10 as Ruth’s confession “I am a morally corrupt woman” which is plainly nonsense.
I think you underestimate the force of the word “other” in many contexts. We are not talking about a “mere distinction” in such contexts. When in a Biblical context a deity such as Chemosh is called a “foreign/other god”, the deity is not merely distinguished from YHWH but thereby declared off-limits, other than the real God. When a woman is called “foreign/other” in the context of sexual intimacy, the woman is not merely distinguished from my wife but thereby declared off-limits. (And the wife of someone else is off-limits regardless of my own marital status!)
In Deut. 23, the nokri is “the other”, the foreigner who is outside the polity of Israel and therefore not subject to the socio-economic arrangements of the polity. This nokri is likely worshipping other gods but (a) this is not a necessary implication, not only Ruth but also Naaman springs to mind, and (b) it is first of all not the nokri who is detestable but the worship of nokri gods.
I see that we might need to reflect on Matth. 5:43 at some point. Is “Love your neighbour and hate your enemy” a fair summary of the OT perspective? And does the command or permission to “hate your enemy” allow one to commit acts which, if done to a fellow Israelite, would be immoral? I note that you seem to have dropped the idea that Deut. 23 is talking specifically about the warfare against the Canaanite nations, is that right?
Just to clarify what I have wanted to say and what not. If we may summarise Proverbs as warning:
(1) If nokri means something like “corrupt idolater,” we may wonder why Proverbs only warns of the corrupt idol-worshipper who makes sexual advances — why the limitation?
(2) If nokri refers to the “other” woman (a woman other than my wife or the wife of another), the warning is against any woman in the world who makes sexual advances towards me, excepting only the one who is allowed to be intimate with me because she is not “other”.
(3) If the latter is true, this does not mean that Proverbs condemns every woman in the world other than one’s wife as a “narrow pit” but only any women in the world other than my wife “who makes sexual advances”. The qualification comes from the characterization provided in the text.
(4) This in turn does not exclude the possibility that in the book of Proverbs nokri comes to be used in a semi-technical sense (only the feminine form in fact, see the other references I have provided!) to refer to the “other” woman who makes sexual advances, just as in Deuteronomy nokri is not used to refer to each and every foreigner but to the foreigner who is not a ger or toshab.
Thomas,
Your declaration, “The fact of the matter is that there is no hint in Deut. 23:20 or,as far as I can see, elsewhere in the Bible that usury might be a means of warfare,” is a textbook example of the fallacy of begging the question. As Dabitur ably pointed out, the “hint” of warfare is bound up in the negative connotation of the term nokri. You wish to argue that nokri has no negative connotation, and attempt to do so by declaring that the text is without any “hint” of warfare, thus using the conclusion you wish to reach as a premise upon which to reach it!
The nuances of nokri in it various usages may be discussed at length. Such discussion is better undertaken by scholars of the ancient language, which I am not. Usage is consistent enough to establish the general concept that nokri imports not merely an otherness of simple distinction, but a valuation. What separates nokri from ger is their incorrigible corruption. Once this point is grasped, it is exceedingly difficult to make anything but penal restraint out of the Deuteronomic permission of usury. As you struggle against this notion, please bear in mind that no matter how you define or understand nokri, what is completely without any hint whatsoever in the text is “traveling merchants.”
I am gobsmacked. Let me just remind you that I am the one who agrees with the standard dictionary definition of the term. I have not claimed that nokri means “travelling merchant;” I have even given you an example above, how nokri in this context could refer to someone who is not a travelling merchant. The nokri is an outsider, distinguished in Deuteronomy from the ger (the foreigner who lives within Israel), someone who does not belong to Israel’s polity.
You are the one who adds to the standard understanding of the term the claim that nokri invariably carries the connotation of incorrigible moral corruption. This can be tested easily. Have you tried to read the relevant passages with this connotation in mind?
Do Rachel and Leah claim that they are treated like morally corrupt strangers by their father (Gen. 31:15; cf. Job 19:15; Ps. 69:8)? Does Moses calls himself a morally corrupt foreigner in Egypt (Exod. 2:22; 18:3)? Does Ruth acknowledge that she is a morally corrupt foreigner (2:10)? Do those who are incorrigibly corrupt direct their prayers towards the temple in Jerusalem in 1 Kings 8 (cf. 2 Chron. 6)? Does Prov. 27:2 encourage us to let a morally corrupt person praise us? Does God do a peculiar and morally corrupt thing (Isa. 28:21)?
Let me put it to you, Scott, that you proceed from the assumption that all forms of usury are destructive and that for this reason you must consider the permission in Deut. 23 to lend on interest to a foreigner a permission to act in a violent manner and that for this reason you need nokri to have intrinsic connotations of which dictionaries have told you nothing (have another look at TWOT or any other dictionary).
For you, the nokri has to be not just “a foreigner” but “a morally corrupt foreigner” and furthermore you have to assume that Israelites were permitted to commit acts of violence towards any such “morally corrupt foreigner” because Deut. 23 does not specify this “morally corrupt foreigner” as “a member of one of the seven nations of Canaan” or “an enemy”.
Frankly, you are trying to avoid the fact that the text says “You may charge a foreigner interest” (and that this is qualified in the context only by the usage elsewhere in the book which implies that the resident alien is not to be considered a “foreigner”). I suspect that you would really want Deut. 23:20 to say “You may charge an enemy interest” or “You may charge a morally corrupt person interest” but while Deuteronomy talks about 25 times of enemies, the term is not used here and while there are several ways in Biblical Hebrew to designate someone as morally corrupt, wicked or evil, the relevant terms are not used here.
The link to the relevant passages mentioned in my previous post for checking the usage of nokri has a problem. A full list of relevant texts in the Bible is here. The nokri page also has links to pages on the related root neker, the verbal root nkr, and ger (“resident alien”).
There are sufficient occurrences of nokri in the Bible across a range of different texts to establish the meaning of nokri based on its usage. If this were not the case, one would have to consider the verbal root which is likely the source of nokri. 1 Kings 14:5-6 provides an excellent example for the relationship between the verbal root nkr and nokri. Here Jeroboam’s wife pretends to be someone else, namely someone whom the prophet would not recognise (she thinks). This does not mean that she necessarily dresses up as a foreigner (let alone a “loose woman”!) but it is evident how “someone else” particularly “someone not recognised” could come to mean “stranger” and then “foreigner”.
Thomas,
I do not intend to suggest that you were building a case for nokri meaning “traveling merchant.” My point is only that “traveling merchant” is much less implied in the text than is “enemy.” I do not suggest that nokri has a strict denotation of “morally corrupt.” My argument simply is that it has a connotation beyond mere otherness of bare distinction, and thus implies a repugnance of some level. In Genesis 31:15 Rachel and Leah most certainly declared that their father had treated them like nokri, like undesirables, in that he basically disinherited them. Job 19:15 is a perfect example of what I have been arguing all along. Job declares that he has become nokri in the sight of his family and servants. For elaboration of the sense intended, one need only to consider the immediately following verses, “My breath is offensive to my wife, and I am loathsome to my own brothers. Even young children despise me; I rise up and they speak against me. All my associates abhor me, and those I love have turned against me.” Psalm 69:8 is a very similar example: David has borne reproach and dishonor (v.7) and so has become as nokri in the eyes of his brothers. Your citation of Moses (Ex. 2:22; 18:3) is entirely spurious; he does not call himself nokri, but ger. That is the whole point: he named his son Gershom (stranger there), because he was ger. Ruth indeed confessed that she was nokri, i.e. of a nokri lineage. This was the whole basis of her amazement of Boaz’s favorable treatment – “WHY have I found favor in your sight …. since I am nokri?” We already have discussed this text, as also we have discussed I Kings 8: In consecration of the temple Solomon is most ardent that God should hear the request even of the nokri, who may hear of God’s great name and mighty hand, and come to seek Him, “..in order that all the peoples of the earth may know Thy name, to fear Thee, as do Thy people Israel…” Proverbs 27:2 is atypical, but it is not inconsistent with the hyperbole that is common in Proverbs to understand this as saying that praise of oneself is so unseemly that praise originating of nokri is better. You cite as well Isaiah 28:21, wherein the work of the Lord is called nokri, and suggest that this could not possibly have any negative connotation. But, why not? Verse 19 already told the reader that “it will be sheer terror to understand what it means,” and verse 22 elaborates that this speaks of “decisive destruction on all the earth.” This is, indeed a loathsome work of which is spoken. Is it inconceivable that any work of God should be described in such a way? Consider Isaiah 45:7, “I am the Lord, and there is no other, the One forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the Lord who does all these.” The word translated “calamity” in the NASB is translated “bad” or “evil” in hundreds of other cases. Of course, the sense in which we might say that God works evil must be greatly theologically nuanced. Doubtless, Isaiah 28:21 will not be the controlling text for understanding nokri in every other case. I disagree that the dictionaries tell me nothing of the negative connotation. The dictionaries tell me that nokri has a common derivation with neker, which denotes “disaster.” Just as you suppose that my reading of Deuteronomy makes a negative understanding of nokri necessary, so in like manner your reading of Deuteronomy makes a neutral understanding of nokri necessary. As the foregoing exercises show, we both are quite satisfied that a survey of biblical usage wholly supports our respective views. So long as you are comfortable with such notions as: the house of every woman in the world sinks down unto death; when Laban disinherited his daughters, he was treating them as he would any given people; when friends and family loathed and abhorred Job, they were treating him as they would any other person who might come to their door; when David was a reproach to his brothers, he was in their eyes as any given man would be – so long as you are comfortable with such readings, then there is nothing I can say concerning Deuteronomy 23:20 that will seem at all compelling to you.
Apologies for Exod. 2:22; 18:3 – calling oneself a ger in a nokri land is indeed different from calling oneself a nokri. Entirely my mistake.
I did not imply that God’s work in Isaiah 28:21 cannot have negative connotations, only that the prophet would not call it morally corrupt. To say that a word has “negative connotations” is too unspecific. I thought you had defined the negative connotation along the lines of morally or theologically corrupt. Now I think that you probably want to define it as “repugnant”.
Remember that the difference in our understanding is that I believe that nokri is frequently used in negative contexts and you believe that nokri has intrinsically negative connotations. Your latest post does well to demonstrate that one can hear a connotation of repugnance in many passages, if one is so inclined, but they do not prove that the word itself always carries these connotations. I do not want to labour this point unnecessarily (see the end of this post!) but I like to point out the following:
(1) In passages such as Gen. 31:15, the meaning “stranger, foreigner” is entirely sufficient. The action of treating daughters like strangers is of course negative, but this is true on the common understanding of nokri without requiring for the term to have the connotation of “undesirable” or “repugnant”.
Job 19:15 (“The guests in my house and my maidservants count me as a stranger; I have become a foreigner in their eyes.”) actually continues with the line “I call to my servant, but he gives me no answer” (v.16a) which follows straight from nokri = a stranger, someone not recognised. There is no need to assume that what v. 17 is going to say (that Job is offensive to his family) is already implied in the term nokri.
(2) I do not know to which dictionaries you have access but you have cited TWOT before. Its entry begins “The root nkr carries several different meanings” and then explicitly states “BDB divides it into two verbs. KB treats as one, as we do here.” I do not have a problem with the idea that “nokri has a common derivation with neker” but your sources should tell you that things may be not as simple as that.
More importantly, you never look at the “common derivation,” namely the verb nkr! Instead you go straight to neker which denotes “disaster” only twice in the Bible (there are some 140 occurrences of nkr-related words). My reference to 1 Kings 14:5-6 was meant as a reminder that if you go in for etymology, you must reflect on the verbal root.
And finally, the dictionaries tell you that nokri means “foreign, strange”. Your “negative connotations” are the result of your own observations and deductions. I doubt that you are able to cite any dictionaries to support you.
(3) Your final comments suggest to me that you fail to appreciate the difference between discourse-meaning and semantics, unless you are just engaging in cheap polemic here. To give just one example: “her house” in Prov. 2:18 refers back to ” the strange (zarah, also used for “unlawful, unauthorized”) woman, … the nokriah with her smooth words; that forsakes the confidant of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God” (vv. 16-17). In which universe is that “every woman in the world”?
If you want to leave the nokri discussion aside, I am prepared to grant you for the moment, for the sake of the argument we pursue here, that nokri means something like “detestable foreigner” or “repugnant stranger” in Deut. 23:20 rather than just “foreigner”.
What now? How does a permission to charge interest on loans to “one of those disgusting foreigners” translate into a call to arms?
Or maybe this is not a fair question? I am not entirely sure what the right question here is. Maybe: from where do you get the idea that it would have been legitimate for an Israelite to harm, destroy and eradicate every nokri? Or how do you think this “hint of warfare” works?
Maybe this is the question I was trying to find: how does “repugnant foreigner” (your understanding of nokri) imply enemy? Take me through the steps which would help me see the hint of warfare, if I granted your take on nokri.
Thomas,
I suppose it is natural for one to try to fit everything into his customary framework. However, if certain ideas do not fit into the framework very well, persistent attempts to find a fit necessarily results in distortion. I use the phrase “morally corrupt” in describing the usage of nokri in Proverbs, and you then take me as wishing to define nokri as “morally corrupt.” Subsequently, I use the term “repugnant” in describing the usage of nokri, and now you take me as wishing to define nokri as “repugnant.” I am quite in agreement that the basic meaning of nokri is “foreign” or “strange,” which after all, is how it is translated in most cases. The point I make is that its usage indicates a distinct negative connotation. In many places – particularly the Proverbs on the adulteress – this is quite plain. Other texts by themselves do not seem to require a negative sense about the word, however, a negative sense is not inconsistent with the clear meaning of the text – such as Proverbs 27:2. I do not suggest that nokri “means” morally corrupt or repugnant, and I do not propose that such “meanings” must be forced into every text where nokri appears.
I do not suggest that Deuteronomy 23:20 is a “call to arms.” I do not suggest that nokri “implies enemy.” My process of reasoning does not begin with nokri. Therefore, it is not possible for me to fulfill the regimen you would like to impose. Instead, I can attempt to describe the process whereby I arrive at what actually is my position.
One Sunday a fellow was perusing the contents of the Church Bulletin, waiting for the commencement of services. Among the other offerings, he found quotation of Psalm 15. However, verse 5 was omitted. Not being terribly well read in the Bible, he did not immediately realize that what he read was lacking a verse. He supposed that Psalm 15 was a typical Psalm that went on for many verses, and that what he read was but a brief excerpt. He found what was presented to him to be quite intriguing. “Who may dwell on Thy holy hill?” was the premise. Instead of the answer being, “He who has received Jesus Christ to be his Savior,” the text went on to describe a list of qualities and duties. “Typical Old Testament,” he thought. Still, he was generally familiar with a number of the Psalms, as portions of some had been adapted into “Praise Choruses” that were quite inspiring.
Later, at home, he remembered Psalm 15 and decided to look it up to see what it had to say in context. Here he met with a double surprise. First, he was surprised to find that it had but one more verse than was printed in the Bulletin. Second, he was surprised to find that the missing verse identified that fellow, who will abide with God and dwell with Him on his holy hill, as he who “…does not put out his money at interest.” Up until that point, the only thing he knew the Bible said about interest-taking was what Jesus said in the “Parable of the Talents,” and numerous financial counselors assured him that what Jesus meant was that “investing” your money for maximum “return” was “good stewardship.” Now, here is a Psalm telling him that the fellow who will dwell with God is he who does not do what the financial counselors say. It always is an unsettling thing when just as you become comfortable with an understanding of things, along comes additional information that puts everything back into a blur.
Something sparked within him, and he determined to research the matter for himself. With the aid of a concordance, he located and read Exodus 22:25, Leviticus 25:35-37, Deuteronomy 23:19, Nehemiah 5:7, 10, and Ezekiel 18:8, 13, 17; 22:12. It was quite difficult for him to apply a sense of “good stewardship” to what these texts were telling him. A very clear idea was beginning to emerge that usury was wrong. It was very wrong. People who do it cannot make a credible claim to be those who dwell with God. But, this understanding was so contrary to what prevailed all around him. How could the whole world be so wrong about something that seemed so plain and simple to him once he found and read the texts? What could he be missing?
He decided to go back and read all of the texts again in their larger contexts. When he got to Deuteronomy chapter 23 and read beyond verse 19, he found something to linger over. Verse 20 said, “You may charge interest to a foreigner, but to your countryman you shall not charge interest.” Here was specific permission to impose interest. What could this mean amid all of the resounding condemnation of interest he had read in numerous other texts? Could it mean that interest-taking really is not wrong? If it is permitted in any case, then how can it be condemned without apparent qualification in many other cases? Yet, just as he could not find a way to read the texts with the modern “good stewardship” idea, so now he could not find a way to read them with anything less than a flat and simple condemnation. But, if interest-taking is condemned, then what of the specific permission to impose it in Deuteronomy 23:20?
Under what conditions was interest-taking permitted? This seemed to be the right way to approach the question. The text said that it is permitted in the case of a “foreigner,” and follows this immediately with reiteration of condemning it in the case of a “countryman.” The gist of all the texts taken together made clear that interest-taking was oppressive, and that Israel by no means was to oppress fellow Israelites. But, does this imply that Israel was freely permitted to oppress any non-Israelite? Doing a concordance search for “oppress,” he quickly found Exodus 23:9, “You shall not oppress a stranger, since you yourselves know the feelings of a stranger, for you also were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Reading this in context, he then came upon verses 23 and 24 of the same chapter, “For My angel will go before you and bring you in to the land of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites; and I will completely destroy them. You shall not worship their gods, nor serve them, nor do according to their deeds; but you shall utterly overthrow them, and break their sacred pillars in pieces.” Further, he read verses 29 and 20, “I will not drive them out before you in a single year, that the land may not become desolate, and the beasts of the field become too numerous for you. I will drive them out before you little by little, until you become fruitful and take possession of the land.”
Now it had become clear that non-Israelites really fall into two different categories: 1) those who are not to be oppressed, and 2) those who are to be completely overthrown and destroyed. Going back to Deuteronomy 23:20, he now posed to himself a simple question: “In the permission to take interest of the foreigner, which of the two classes of non-Israelites is meant?” He really did not even come to the end of verbalizing the question, for merely asking the question seemed also to constitute answering it. Of course, it was the detestable heathen of whom Israel might take interest. During the years over which they “little by little” were conquered, there may indeed be occasion to extend loans and exact interest. Interest-taking is, indeed, oppressive, as all the texts taken together make clear. Israel must not so oppress the “stranger,” or “sojourner,” as some texts put it. But Israel’s oppression of the “foreigner” with interest would be in keeping with their posture of enmity with them.
The more he read of the Bible and of history, the more he grew in confidence that the modern prevailing understanding of these things was quite wrong. As his appetite for learning deepened, he made two startling discoveries. First, he discovered that the topic of interest-taking – or, as he learned, what had long been known as usury – has been controversial and vigorously debated for literally millennia, but that Christian teaching on the subject was, for the first 1500 years AD, uniform and in alignment with his evaluations. Second, he discovered that in about the late 16th Century, some Christians began to devise arguments to the effect that usury was not really basically wrong after all, and that the conditions in which it is permitted or not are economically defined. He read some who pointed out that Exodus 22:25 prohibits usury only in case of “poor” people, and he said to himself, “So? Exodus 22:22 prohibits afflicting only “widows” and “orphans.” He read some who said that the “foreigners” in Deuteronomy 23:20 were “traveling merchants,” implying that usury is permitted on all “commercial” loans, and he thought to himself, “Traveling merchants would be sojourners, who are not to be oppressed – not detestable heathen, who are to be utterly destroyed – and so in that event Deuteronomy 23:20 would be made to say that usury is not an oppressive thing, and so in that event none of the other texts, which speak of usury as an oppressive thing, make any sense. The man who will dwell with God on His holy hill is he who does not do that which is permitted to do?” Nothing that he read of modern scholarship explained the texts any better than his own straightforward reading of them, which also happened to align with the first 1500 years of Christian teaching on the subject.
Scott, thank you for sharing your story which helps me appreciate how you arrived at your interpretation of Deut. 23:20. It turns out that, as with your predecessors, presumed “negative connotations” of nokri do not play a major role in this – none of the three authors I have read which share your interpretation (Ambrose, Luther, Richard Capel) even say anything about the connotations of nokri.
Instead, you draw the conclusion from passages such as Ps. 15 and Ezek. 18 that every usage charge on loans is oppressive and it is this which governs your reading of Deut. 23:20, as it did for the other authors mentioned. I believe that it is unwarranted to draw such a conclusion from Ps. 15 and Ezek. 18 and have hinted elsewhere, why I do not think that these texts are incompatible with my reading of Deut. 23:20 (posts 29, 38, 40, 47).
But I still believe that your reading of Deut. 23:20 is incompatible with the instructions for the ban on the Canaanites (and Amalekites) given to Israel (see Deut. 7:1-2; 20:16-17; cf. Num. 21:2) and so far as I can see you have made no attempt to explain the divergence and deal with the several problems I have listed with this interpretation.
You have claimed before that there are only two categories of foreigners, “The nokri are to be eradicated, the ger are not to be oppressed.” (post 15) But this cannot be true. The ger is the resident alien, as you know. Hence nokri (“to be eradicated”) would be every non-resident foreigner and surely you do not want to claim that the Israelites were permitted (expected?) to oppress and eradicate every non-resident foreigner?
PS: I understand why you think that you hold to the historic position of the church, but it is hardly true that the view that the “Deuteronomic permission pertained specifically to those Nations that Israel was charged with overthrowing” has been the consensus of the church, “what Christian scholars have believed and taught for 1500 years.” I hope you will not repeat this claim before you are able to demonstrate that Luther wasn’t the second Christian scholar in church history to offer this interpretation of Deut. 23:20. (I doubt that he was; there were likely people between Ambrose and Luther who held this view but I have not come across anyone and Luther himself doesn’t claim to offer the historic interpretation of the passage.)
Scott, I think I can understand your frustrations with my attempt to nail you down. But let me show you what it looks like from my perspective. I hear people say something like “all usage charge on loan is immoral and prohibited to Christians.” I say, “hang on, usage charge on loans is not condemned in the Torah per se, what do you make of Deut. 23:20?”
I hear the reply, “O, that’s about destroying the Canaanites.” I say, “What? Where does it say that?” The reply seems to be that there is a “distinct connotation of moral deficiency” to the nokri which hints at warfare — just have a look at the usage of nokri in the Bible!”
I say, “nokri is used lots in negative contexts [and I hint at why this is so] but this does not mean that nokri has intrinsically negative connotations; this is a linguistic fallacy. Look there are several places in which it cannot have connotations of moral corruption.”
The reply is “I do not suggest that nokri has a strict denotation of “morally corrupt.” My argument simply is that it … implies a repugnance of some level.” When I take this at face value and explain why it does not work, you complain and retreat to the vague “negative connotations” which, if combined with a presumed good foreigner (ger) / bad foreigner (nokri) dichotomy is sufficient to hint at warfare.
I am grateful that you now acknowledge that the various negative “meanings” you discern elsewhere must not be “forced into every text where nokri appears.” But, as far as I can see, we have only moved from “corrupt foreigner” via “detestable foreigner” to “bad foreigner” because you still seem to insist that nokri cannot mean “strange” / “foreign” without intrinsically negative connotations. In my view, this still leaves a number of unresolved issues. But maybe we do not need to go there, because we have now come full circle, as you suggest that your “process of reasoning does not begin with nokri.” The meaning of nokri in Deut. 23:20 (“undesirable people to be eradicated”?) is determined by your convictions about usury.
Because it is so important, as you say, to go back and read all of the texts again in their larger contexts, it would be great to see your position argued in the context of an exposition of the book of Deuteronomy. Unfortunately, there seem to be very few people in the whole of church history to have done so, Martin Luther is in fact the only one of whom I am aware. (Remember that Ambrose refers to Deut. 23 in the context of expositions on the book of Tobit and R. Capel and others do so in treatises against usury.)
It is therefore intriguing that even Martin Luther does not give this interpretation in his lecture on Deut. 23 but in his lecture on Deut. 15. He should still have dealt with the massive problem that “oppressing” is not the same as “putting under the ban,” that is, “acting in a destructive manner” is not the kind of “eradicating” in view elsewhere. But discussing Deut. 23:20 from a distance (of eight chapters) makes it easier for him to ignore the immediate context.
Deut. 23 refers in fact to foreigners from several nations. Ammonites and Moabites (vv. 3-6), Edomites and Egyptians (v. 7). All of these are nokri (cf. Ruth), none of them are among “the seven nations” (Deut. 7). Some of them are, in a sense, to be looked with disfavour (Ammonites and Moabites), although there is no command to wage war against them. Others are not to be abhorred (Edomites and Egyptians). In this respect no distinction is made between, e.g., resident and non-resident Edomites. With this in mind, and following further instructions designed to reinforce the distinction between what does and what does not belong to the assembly and house of the LORD, what can nokri refer to but “the foreigner” who is outside the socio-political realm of Israel, who does not belong to the assembly and house of the LORD?
The idea that nokri in Deut. 23:20 refers to undesirables “to be eradicated” or to people with whom the Israelites were supposed to be at war is entirely foreign to the context. I remind you again (a) other occurrences of nokri in Deuteronomy (14:21; 15:3; 17:15; 29:22) do not suggest warfare, and (b) that nokri is never, not once, used for a member of one of the seven nations. There is no reason to believe that nokri does not include the peoples mentioned in this chapter. But if these peoples are included, there is no hint of warfare.
This is why I believe that I am on sure ground when I claim that the permission to charge interest on loans is a permission to do so with regard to those who are not part of Israel’s polity. The status of the ger could be considered ambiguous in this respect (cf. our discussion of Deut. 14:21) but most likely the ger is thought to be part of Israel’s polity in this respect. The frequent exhortations not to exploit the poor do not come with the qualification “unless they are less than full members of the covenant community” (or even “unless you are at war with them”).
Thomas,
My little vignette demonstrates that in the typical case the process of reasoning does not begin with the term nokri, but with the English text. If the meaning is in doubt, or is found to be the object of some controversy, one resorts to helps. We come to consideration of the original language with some idea of the text already in mind, and anticipate some guidance in clarifying or solidifying understanding. Now, in our era there are two major approaches to the text: either a) usury is sinful, and is permitted in limited cases retributively, precisely because of its negative effects, or b) usury is not in itself sinful, but is sinful to practice in many cases, but in other cases is “freely permitted” (Calvin). This is not a subtle question of nuance: these two views present widely and dramatically different ideas of usury. There is a great deal at stake in deciding between them. Does consideration of the original language help us with this decision? Translators already have worked over the original Hebrew to an extent. But their object was to present the original in concise parallel statement. Thus, there is a need for commentary and exposition. J. A. Selbie, contributor to the Hastings Bible Dictionary, noted that the King James tended to translate ger and nokri both as “stranger,” and rued this convention, “…because it obscures to the English reader the distinction between the foreigner and the ger, which in Hebrew is marked clearly enough, and on which not a little depends for the understanding of many passages.” Deuteronomy 23:20 was one of the “many passages” he listed. He went on to explain that “foreigner and enemy were almost convertible terms.” (Vol. II, p. 49)
From what I have gleaned from various language helps, and from what I see in the usage of nokri, there is a distinct negative connotation about the term. You amply have explained that you find in nokri the bare otherness of mere distinction. The view to which I subscribe adequately explains the Deuteronomic permission, and has some historical precedent going back at least to Ambrose. Your view explains nothing, but only further amplifies the question: why should merely “other” people be sanctioned targets of usury? And, it is a view that manifestly originated in the late Reformational era.
It seems there are a few other matters you have raised that I have so far neglected. How can permission to exact usury of the enemy be reconciled with the mandate of utter destruction? As you point out, Israel was commanded to make no covenant with the seven particular nations. And, a contract of loan is a covenant of sorts. First, it may be that the Deuteronomic permission was needed specifically so that Israel would know that a contract of loan was permissible with them during the years of “little by little” conquest. Second, I do not say that nokri in Deuteronomy 23:20 strictly denotes these seven nations only. Some have said this, but I have not said this, and I do not agree with this. The term does not have sufficient precision to support such a narrow view. Israel had other enemies besides the named seven nations. Indeed, a text you have cited, Deuteronomy 20:16-17, is preceded (v. 10-15) by instructions for dealing with more remote enemies, with whom Israel is permitted to make terms of peace, and, presumably, contract.
Also, you have objected that there cannot be only two classes of foreigner. The foregoing paragraph addresses this concern as well. In addition, I comment further that the rolls of ger were not closed upon the enunciation of the Law. There remained outside the polity of Israel those who were not ger at that time, but who could become ger. Like Ruth, they may have lineage among a nation that Israel would relate to with enmity, but who individually would become ger within Israel. As my prior paragraph explains, there were many nations that Israel would tend to regard as enemies, yet against whom they had no mandate to eradicate.
I suggest to leave off debate of nokri at this point and turn to the next matter to be addressed, namely the history of Christian teaching. But, I do not wish to leave this line of discussion with major issues left open. I realize that we will not come to full agreement on the matter, but I do not wish to omit comment on major aspects of your challenge to me. You have deposited a huge amount of verbiage above, and it is entirely possible that I have overlooked a point that you would consider to be of great importance. Is there any further comment needed on the matter of nokri, or shall we press on to the history of Christian teaching?
Scott,
while our presuppositions (starting points) will dispose us to accept one conclusion or another, for myself I do not accept that my “ideas about usury” prejudge (determine) my reading of Deut. 23:20. Thus I do not believe it is helpful to speak of “two major approaches to the text,” as if all that matters is what one thinks about usury generally.
Furthermore, I like to point out that “bare otherness of mere distinction”” are your words to characterize my understanding of nokri, not mine. I still insist that I am merely holding the standard view that nokri means “strange, foreign”. To use the words of J. A. Selbie from the entry you cite, the nokri “is not only an alien by birth, but has neither home nor rights in Israel.” I am content with this definition.
It makes ample sense in Deut. 23:20. Usury was to be prohibited within Israel’s polity but acceptable in dealing with people who have “neither home nor rights in Israel.” Such a distinction is problematic only on the assumption that usage charges on loans are intrinsically evil, a view which is not warranted by Scripture.
Your own view seems to demand that the nokri in Deut. 23:20 is an enemy – yet you acknowledge that it may be an “enemy” with which Israel is at peace. If I understand you correctly, the Israelites were permitted to exact usury from (a) members of the seven nations to be eradicated, (b) from members of others nations with whom Israel was at war, (c) from members of other “enemy” nations with which Israel was at peace. Does this mean you believe that the Israelites were permitted to exact usury from anyone who was not a brother or resident alien, regardless of the specific status of their nation vis-à-vis Israel, in other words from anyone who was not attached to Israel’s polity? I would appreciate clarification on this point.
PS: Note that Selbie’s claim about “foreigner and enemy” being “almost convertible terms” is not made about nokri specifically but about the general view in antiquity. Selbie believes this explains the notion of hostility in some occurrences of words from the nkr root, for which he only cites Ps. 18 (ben-neker).
PPS: Selbie argues that there were three categories of foreigners with which Israel came into contact, resident aliens, slaves and traders. I wonder what you make of that.
Thomas,
The Jews became notorious usurers in the Middle Ages upon the very pretext that Deuteronomy 23:20 permitted usury upon any and every non-resident alien. One of their own rabbis (Modena, whom I have cited earlier, writing in 16-something-or-other) refuted this justification by suggesting that the text contemplated the seven nations of conquest only. Roger Fenton (A Treatise of Usury, 1611) argued similarly, but was not so clear in limiting the scope of Deuteronomy. His main thrust was that whatever its scope, the permission was limited to the period of conquest, as all subsequent texts (Psalm 15, Ezekiel) speak of usury as simply forbidden without qualification.
Ultimately, any categorization of people is artificial – that is, human temperaments and actions are not bound by the limits of abstract categories. Categories are most useful when most general. I will not quibble over the question of the exact number of categories of foreigners. For practical purposes there obviously were two general categories: those upon whom usury was permitted, and those upon whom it was prohibited. Israel received the instruction of Deuteronomy 23:20 without exposition – or, any exposition provided them was not provided us. I do not think it is possible for us to define exactly what they understood by it, nor do I think it is necessary to do so.
You enclose “enemy” within quotation marks when speaking of “enemies” with whom Israel is at peace, which I take to indicate skepticism on your part of such a characterization (otherwise, I cannot imagine a purpose of quotation marks). Deuteronomy 20:10 says, “When you approach a city to fight against it, you shall offer it terms of peace.” There you have plain enough enemies with whom Israel is at peace. I can think of no plainer way to put it, nor can I think of what difficulty anyone should have with putting it that way. Further, you insist that your ideas concerning usury do not prejudice your reading of Deuteronomy 23:20, but then a few paragraphs later acknowledge that your reading of this text holds no water if usury is thought to be “intrinsically evil.” Well, I would say we quite have worked over tedious points of language. Next up, history……..
The purpose of my quotation marks around “enemy” was to quote, not to indicate skepticism. I would have no difficulties with Deut. 20, even if I followed your reading of it. Offering “terms of peace” does of course not in itself stop hostilities. Whether peoples who have accepted “terms of peace” and are subjugated are still to be considered enemies, now that hostilities have ceased, or not, is a matter of definition. I do not see anything in Deut. 20 which would demand defining subjugated peoples as enemies. If you want to call such peoples enemies, you do well to distinguish such enemies from enemies with which Israel was commanded to wage war.
Why? Because early on in the thread Chad proclaimed “Without a command of God to wage war upon a particular people, we have no warrant to exact usury” (post 12) and you yourself claimed: “The unmistakable sense is that these peoples are to be eradicated due to their wickedness.” (post 15). If “enemy” now includes a member from a nation which Israel was not commanded to eradicate, it is worth saying so.
But with your latest post I have come to realize that you have little interest in precision, maybe even when it comes to understanding the Word of God. Keeping categorizations “most general” allows you to keep up your polemic. So you can still call the view that Deut. 23:20 “permitted usury upon any and every non-resident alien” a pretext, in spite of being unable to specify which non-resident aliens were excluded from the permission. (I still think that the some nations are implicitly excluded, cf. 20:16-18. I do not think you have addressed the problems which arise in applying this permission to nations which Israel was commanded to eradicate, namely the seven plus the Amalekites.)
The truth is that distinguishing between two categories of people, “those upon whom usury was permitted, and those upon whom it was prohibited,” is of limited use, if we are unable to define who belongs in which category.
I do not believe that Scripture is as unclear on this, as you make out. Your problems in defining precisely to whom the text refers are self-made. After all, Deut. 23 speaks of “foreigner” (nokri) rather than “enemy” and preceding regulations have made it clear (a) that the ger is to be distinguished from the nokri, and (b) that there are nations which Israel is commanded to eradicate and which therefore should not be included in the permission either. In addition, it may be observed that the possibility could only arise where an Israelite is asked for a loan by a nokri.
I am not keen on tedious language games relating to nokri but the correct interpretation of Deut. 23:20 is important and worth its time. Errors in the history of Christian teaching on usury could have been avoided by closer attention to this part of Scripture. Let me come back to something I wrote earlier:
Equating “problematic” with “holds no water” (the two are not the same), you have taken this statement as evidence that my understanding of Deut. 23:20 was a foregone conclusion from my presuppositions. In response, let me point out a few things. First, I have merely re-phrased the distinction made in Deut. 23 with the help of the definition of nokri which is generally accepted. I have not introduced assumptions from the outside into the summary given in the first sentence. I find it noteworthy that you have a problem with this simple summary.
Secondly, the tension between the straightforward meaning of the Biblical text as presented above and the assumption that “usage charges on loans are intrinsically evil” is precisely the point at issue. It is the tension faced by everyone who does not ignore the Deuteronomic permission but thinks usury is intrinsically evil.
If you want to take the Scriptural text seriously, and if you accept that the nokri is a foreigner who has neither home nor rights in Israel, you have two ways of trying to resolve this tension. Either you drop the assumption which created the problem in the first place or you seek to explain why Israelites were permitted to exact usage charges on loans to foreigners in spite of the fact that usury is intrinsically evil.
Dropping the assumption that usage charges on loans are intrinsically evil is my preferred solution. because such an assumption is neither required by Scripture nor in fact credible. The traditional solution has been to find ways of explaining why Israelites were permitted to engage in something which is intrinsically evil.
Your own assumption that nokri n Deut. 23:20 refers to people God wanted to be subjugated really belongs in this second category. But it is not the only option in this category. In fact, as far as the meaning and reference of nokri in Deut. 23:20 is concerned, you cannot claim to follow traditional teaching of the first 1500 years. See Reply to Objection 2 in Aquinas’ discussion in his Summa Theologica.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 2.ii, question 78 can be read at http://www.newadvent.org/summa/3078.htm
My reference is to Article 1, objection 2 and the reply which Aquinas offers where he does not even contemplate the possibility that nokri may refer to a special category of “foreigner”.
Thomas,
I will get to Aquinas, the Scholastics, and “intrinsic evil” in due course. The first matter to be taken up as the focus of our discussion shifts to history is this business of 1500 years.
Rev. Patrick Cleary’s doctoral dissertation (1914), titled “The Church and Usury,” traces the development of the doctrines and theories of usury, and the changes that occurred beginning in the 16th century. He surveys the uniformity of the Church’s opposition to usury throughout her initial 1500 years, and states with confidence, “Calvin and Molinaeus were the first to break definitively with the old traditions.” (p. 149)
The first volume of Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk’s comprehensive treatise “Capital and Interest” (1884) is devoted to the “History and Critique of Interest Theories.” Referring to the uniform and powerful influence of the Church, he declares that, “…a movement set in which manifested itself in literary activity on the subject of loan interest and which accompanied the canonical prohibition from its earliest rise to its remotest manifestations late in the eighteenth century.” (Vol. I, p. 12) Like Cleary, he identifies Calvin and Molinaeus as responsible for ideas of usury beginning to change about mid 16th century. The uniformity of the Church’s opposition through mid 16th century is well illustrated by the terms in which he describes the daring exploits of these two revolutionaries: “Calvin and Molinaeus remained for a long time entirely alone in their positions, and the reason for this is quite apparent. To pronounce that to be right which the church, the law, and the world of scholars had condemned with one voice, and opposed with arguments drawn from every conceivable source, required not only a rare independence of intellect but an equally rare strength of character with the fortitude to risk suspicion and persecution. The fate of the leaders of this movement showed clearly enough that these consequences did actually follow. Calvin, of course, aroused the ire of the Catholic world for additional and quite different causes. But Molinaeus, too, had much to suffer, for he himself was exiled, and his book, carefully and moderately though it was written, was put on the Index.” (Vol. I, p. 21)
My own reading in primary sources is by no means exhaustive, but I have discovered no exceptions to the general and sweeping picture such as is painted above, which present but two of many similar examples. Christian teaching on the subject of usury was a uniform and unqualified condemnation from the first through mid 16th centuries. Do you know of any exceptions? Will you please list those in this period who were orthodox, reputable, and influential, who justified usury, or qualified opposition to usury?
Scott, you said in post 11
In spite of repeated challenges on my part, you have been unable to produce evidence for this claim. We have one church father (Ambrose) and one Reformator (Luther) and as yet nothing from the Middle Ages.
I have read both Ambrose and Luther, as well as R. Capel from a later period. Their scholarship as regards Deut. 23:20does not stand up to scrutiny and I have explained at length the problems with this view. Furthermore, I see no reason for thinking that this interpretation of the Deuteronomic permission was the mainstream view at any time in church history.
You would do well to admit this.
“You would do well to admit this.” By this I mean, you should admit that there is not in fact any evidence to suggest that Ambrose and Luther represented the consensus view of Deut. 23:20. Neither of them claims as much and I have already provided reasons for thinking otherwise (Aquinas does not reference this view; the Christian permission of the practice of usury by Jews).
If you want to draw me into a broader discussion of the church’s position on usury throughout history, you ought to read more carefully what I have already said on this, see my theses above, also at http://thomas.renz.googlepages.com/usury
Thomas,
You did not address my very clearly stated inquiry. If I wish to proceed with discussion of 1500 years, I then am left in the position of having to advance an argument from silence. What validly may be inferred from your silence? Someone might propose that your silence indicates you have glossed over my inquiry – you failed to address it because you are not aware of it. But I consider this uncharitable. You have shown yourself to be the scholarly sort, who is accustomed to digesting large amounts of tedious writings. Surely, since the entire focus of my last post was the 1500 years, you could not have missed my pointed inquiry at the conclusion of it. From your silence, might I infer that you are getting new carpet in your office? You have not denied getting new carpet. Perhaps I might infer that you had pea soup for lunch Wednesday last. Neither have you denied having pea soup. Indeed, I might make a long list of things you have not said. But none of these things have any continuity with what you have said. Therefore, they are not valid conclusions from your silence. If I limit myself to implications of your silence that have continuity with your speaking, I find that still there is more than one possible conclusion. 1) You know full well of some exceptions to the view that the church opposed usury uniformly and without qualification for 1500 years, but for mysterious reasons decline discussing them. 2) You know of no exceptions, and feel that the point is so well established that any question concerning it has only the force of a rhetorical question that requires no answer – that “it goes without saying.” Of these two, I regard the latter as most probable. Therefore, the best argument that can be formed in this case is that you agree with the proposition that for 1500 years the church opposed usury uniformly and without qualification.
This proposition serves as a baseline for our discussion of history. It may seem a bit out of proportion for me to labor the point, however, in view of your former protests, I thought it best to proceed most carefully. Indeed, every time I mentioned 1500 years, you expressed great annoyance. I was beginning to feel like one of the Knights Who Say “Nee!” But, there is also another reason to labor the point. Demonstration of the proper method of constructing a valid argument from silence will prove most useful as I turn now to evaluate your own arguments from silence. I realize that your beef with 1500 years concerns not the basic facts of history. You wish to deny that my position on usury and on Deuteronomy 23:20 aligns with the 1500 year tradition. For example, you assert:
“The unqualified condemnation of usury by church councils etc. can mean either (a) that interest for commercial loans was also forbidden, or (b) that interest for commercial loans was not in view.”
Later, you opt for option (b) :
“Their sermons make abundantly clear that they do not have business loans in view, neither condemning them nor commending them.”
From such comments you advance an argument from silence: The Ancient Fathers were silent regarding usury on “commercial loans,” therefore, “commercial loans” were not involved in their condemnation of usury, therefore, justification of usury on “commercial loans” is consistent with the historic teaching of the church. Cleary argues similarly in his treatise. But let us examine the validity of this way of looking at things. A valid argument from silence is charitable regarding their awareness of the issues and their intents; it constructs from what they have not said that which is consistent with what they have said; and, among the possible views that fulfill the foregoing, selects one that is most probable. Given their vigorous opposition to usury, and the various consequences they imposed upon usurers, such as denial of Christian burial, it is charitable, consistent, and most probable to suggest that if they consciously excepted usury on “commercial loans,” they would have made this clear. Cleary argues that “commercial loans” were without the Ancient Fathers’ attention for the simple reason that such loans were unknown – or at least uncommon – in their era: “On the whole then we find the teachings of the Fathers crude and undeveloped, but the natural product of the times. The world itself was undeveloped and unprogressive. The age of commercial enterprise had not yet even begun to dawn.” (Cleary, p. 59) In my experience, this is a common assessment of those who are tolerant of usury in our age. Such a view is careful not to make too much of Ancient silence. You, on the other hand, are quite an odd duck in the discussion. You insist that the “commercial loan” was known, if not common, centuries prior to the early church, and indeed was the pretext for the permission in Deuteronomy 23:20. In so doing, you have painted yourself into a corner. In order to maintain such a view, you must make something of the silence of the early church. If “commercial loans” were common in their era, then it is uncharitable to suppose that they were unaware of the issues they provided. If they were cognizant of the issues of “commercial loans,” but nevertheless were silent on such issues, then their silence itself is inconsistent with the vigor with which they spoke. Assuming this much, and still determined to draw some conclusion from silence, it is much more probable that their silence implies an unqualified condemnation of usury than to suppose that they meant to exempt “commercial” usury from condemnation. Their condemnation, as spoken, is universal and unqualified. It involves no further interpretations or assumptions to extend the condemnation into realms in which they have not spoken. To suppose that their silence implies rather exemption from the condemnation involves positive concepts (e.g. categorical distinctions between “commercial” and “charitable” lending) that have not been spoken. Such things do not by any means “go without saying.” Without saying, they do not go. As I said, Cleary has the much better idea: that “commercial” usury was without the Ancient’s attention mainly because it did not exist in their economic landscape. While it is true that the Ancients did not self-consciously condemn “commercial” usury, this certainly is not because they self-consciously approved it instead, but because for them it was not a live issue. Thus, a position, such as mine, that condemns usury without qualification, is consistent with the position of the Church for 1500 years; and a position, such as yours, that qualifies condemnation of usury, is inconsistent with the position the Church held for 1500 years. Your only means of attempting to manufacture consistency with the historic position of the Church, is to build upon invalid arguments from silence.
I have not thus far dealt with your arguments from silence regarding the Church’s view of the Deuteronomic permission. Given the length of this post, I think it best to leave off here and to take up the matter in my next post.
Scott, my failure to address your “very clearly stated inquiry” had two reasons. The inquiry seemed to me evasive, as we were still discussing Deut. 23:20 at this point (my reference to Aquinas was entirely in this context), and unclear, given my previous comments. I had already affirmed that “the church fathers categorically condemned usury” (thesis 6) and that “scholastic theologians” believed usury to be “intrinsically wrong (making no distinction between consumption and production loans),” while “they sought to be just in taking into account risk and opportunity costs” (thesis 8). What was the point of your questions, then?
Your broad-brush summary of church history, using a dissertation which is now nearly a 100 years old and, more astonishing still, a 1884 book by a leading theorist of the Austrian school of economics, did not help. Citing the “uniformity of the Church’s opposition to usury throughout her initial 1500 years” is appropriate in some contexts but was it meant to deny that there were significant changes and developments over time of the sort to which I alluded?
The claim that “Calvin and Molinaeus were the first to break definitively with the old traditions” is debatable. At the beginning of this thread I, too, had assumed a strong contrast between Luther and Calvin. But Eric Kerridge, Usury, Interest and the Reformation, St Andrews Studies in Reformation History Series (Ashgate, 2002) strongly denies this. I hope to be able to consult David W. Jones, Reforming the Morality of Usury: A Study of the Differences That Separated the Protestant Reformers (University Press of America, 2004) before long. For me these are interesting and important considerations, even if subordinate to faithful Biblical interpretation.
At some point I also want to have a look at S. L. Buckley, (ed.), Teachings on Usury in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Texts and Studies in Religion 85 (Edwin Mellen Press, 2000), as I am convinced that there are still things for me to learn on these matters. But it is doubtful that I can learn much more from interacting with you on this topic.
Scott, it seems to me evident that there has been a breakdown of communication. I do not recognise what I have written from the way you refer to it.
First, in post 90 you claim that I “expressed great annoyance” “every time” you “mentioned 1500 years.” But post 88 at the very latest should have made it perfectly clear that my irritation is with your specific claim that the interpretation of Deut. 23:20 given by Ambrose represents the traditional exegesis of this passage. You made this claim repeatedly without providing the evidence for it. I suggested to you that what actually happened in medieval times makes it unlikely that this was the mainstream interpretation. I have also provided you with a specific reference to the interpretation which in my view has a much better claim to represent the “traditional interpretation” of this passage. You never responded to this, although I note that you promised something in your “next post”.
Secondly, you fail to understand my reasoning, if you believe that mine is entirely an argument from silence. See again thesis 6 where I refer both to the socio-economic context (with a citation from Gonzales) and to the “making profit from misfortune” theme, into which business loans do not comfortably fit. Note that the version at http://thomas.renz.googlepages.com/usury collects more examples from patristic writings which I gave later in the thread. I would have appreciated a closer interaction with these, especially as I offered you a short commentary on Basil’s famous sermon with which you did not engage.
As for extrapolating from what has been said to what might be said in different circumstances, bearing in mind that repeating the same words in a different context is not saying the same thing, why did you make no reference to the analogy in post 56 which I provided by way of illustration? This would have demonstrated that you take me seriously as a discussion partner.
My conclusion is that you are not in fact listening. On my part, I have expressed doubts about being able to learn more about usury from interacting with you at this point in time. Furthermore, it seems to me unlikely that many others are benefiting from this discussion. So I am not inclined to pursue the conversation further. I have written this so that you may rightly interpret my silence as an indication that I no longer consider this exchange worthwhile.
Hmmm…As some “take their toys and go home”…other third parties objectively sit by and interestingly learn much from both the ideas and facts given and the personalities being shown….
I do have trouble with statements that judge the validity and value of what another has to offer and then also projects their own emotions and feelings onto “many others” all to justify behavior.
What happened to just sharing knowledge and ideas and happily letting there be a freedom for each observant be guided by the Holy Spirit to have their own judgment, whether it agree or not … Do we always have to have a “denominational split” or a “religious war” if the game isn’t being “played our way”
Too much me vs. you because I know more than you….
There is a nagging in the back of my mind that 1 Cor. 1:25 and 3:17 might apply here somewhere.
I still love Ps. 15 as mentioned way back in post 2…each verse seems to read even better all the way down after post 92. It is worth re-reading over and over.
Mlane, thank you. I agree and have much work to do on my own writing/commenting style in that regard. I have to say that despite the variance of opinions reflected here, I still have learned much from this thread and it has challenged me to dig further into some additional sources.
Thanks to those that have commented here and I hope you’ll continue to discuss the issue charitably.
mlane, when I suggested that “it seems to me unlikely that many others are benefiting from this discussion,” I was bearing in mind that it had been several weeks since anyone other than Scott or myself posted to this thread. I simply did not expect that “many others” were still following the discussion – maybe I will be proved wrong by a flurry of posts in the next few days, or maybe there are lots of silent readers.
What was uppermost in my mind was not, as you imply, the validity and value of Scott’s contributions but the potential value of future posts from myself. Scott does of course not need my permission to continue to share knowledge and ideas, nor does anyone else.
I only need to give an account to God for the use of the time and resources entrusted to me and I am mindful of the fact that my contributions have cost me a lot of time and energy.
Psalm 15 is both challenging and comforting in our context. I cannot but hear echoes of Psalm 1, reassuring me that it is indeed a good thing to delight in God’s Torah, taking time meditating over its very words, and not to sit with the scoffers but to take care about one’s words and to abstain from slander and scorn and from exploiting the vulnerability of a neighbour.
God’s people need protecting from those who would destroy the temple by building with the wrong material (1 Cor. 3.17) which is why ministers of Christ sometimes must engage in discussions such as this, not least to support the vulnerable whose weak conscience may be bound by those who confidently assert half-truths, thinking themselves in sole possession of God’s wisdom on this matter.
But as we engage in such discussions, we do indeed well not to put our trust in rhetorical skill but in God himself and the power of truth. As we remember the first martyr of the Christian church, I observe that God shamed the wise as “they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which [Stephen] was speaking” (Acts 6.10) but that God glorified himself even more, as “they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at [Stephen]” to kill him (Acts 7.57).
St Stephen’s Day
What happened to just sharing knowledge and ideas and happily letting there be a freedom for each observant be guided by the Holy Spirit to have their own judgment, whether it agree or not … Do we always have to have a “denominational split” or a “religious war” if the game isn’t being “played our way”
Too much me vs. you because I know more than you….
Sigh, that’s why it is HIS blog, and not YOURS!
If you want to pontificate, you get a blog of your own. If you want to listen to what minds more intelligent that you have written, either read their blogs or don’t.
Some people are just too ‘touchy’ on these subjects. If I agree with someone, it merely proves that I have been correct in my reading and research. If I can see the fallacies of their arguments, or I just know that they are ‘wrong’, I take that into account. While one can err in tone and meaning (this being an imperfect medium) the reader has to understand that they COME to a blog to LEARN something, not to engage in either ‘ad hominem’ attacks’ or ‘you should be nicer to me, because you just trounced my opinions.’
That sort of attitude is frankly sophomoric (meaning, I get that whining in my college classrooms all the time), and not mature. In the first case, for instance: Mr. Mooney has written quite a bit, that shows he is intelligent. But, I don’t always agree with him, because our worldviews are diametrically opposed to one another. (I am Orthodox, he is not) Yet, I still glean what I can, and move on, and pray for those whom I clearly see God has given great gifts to….
In the second, well, that is why I (and many others) have MY/our own blog(s).
Sincerely,
mlane and Dabitur,
Thank you for your exhortation. It is a constant struggle to maintain a proper tone and not degenerate into a testosterone contest. Your comments come as a breath of fresh air that provide a pause in which I can step back, as it were, and reorient my perspective. I am eager to resume the discussion in a renewed spirit of charity.
Thomas,
I find that the only way in which I can clear up the communication problem is to reiterate here what I have made abundantly clear in prior posts. In post 57, following dozens of wide-ranging and detailed posts, you enumerated 12 theses on usury. In post 67 you announce that you have posted a summary of all your material to a google page. In post 68 I declare my intent to reply to your extensive arguments in an organized way, following three major points: 1) the meaning of nokri, 2) the history of Christian teaching, and 3) economic history. I proceed then, in post 68 to launch directly into replies in the first of these three. This discussion ensues until in post 81 I suggest that we had come to an impasse, and propose to move on to the second vein in which I need to make replies – the history of Christian teaching. But, I do not declare this unilaterally. I quite clearly state: “I do not wish to leave this line of discussion with major issues left open ….I do not wish to omit comment on major aspects of your challenge to me …Is there any further comment needed on the matter of nokri, or shall we press on to the history of Christian teaching?” In post 82, you do not address this question directly, but launch into discussion of various points, which I take to be those that you feel need further comment. We discuss these matters briefly until, in posts 85 and 86, you yourself move the discussion along to consideration of the history of Christian teaching. In post 87 I defer comment on Aquinas because my first priority in discussing the history of Christian teaching is to settle the matter of the 1500 years. I did not promise comment on Aquinas on my “next post.” What I said was, “in due course.” Indeed, I think that listening could be improved on both sides.
I clearly have stated my agenda of providing replies within the framework of an outline: 1) nokri, 2) Christian history, 3) economic history. You are at liberty to comment on my replies, and I hope you will. This sort of interaction is a great service to me to hone my arguments and presentation. (Where were you twenty years ago? Then, I had only the likes of Gary North to contend with!) However, you are not at liberty to dictate to me the manner and method of my replies. You have laid out your theses on usury, and have made it clear how this challenges my views. I clearly have stated my design in making replies, and have demonstrated methodical consistency in pursuit of my design. I shall continue posting my replies according to this regimen, for my own purposes and for the benefit of those who may still be reading this thread. Whether you continue interacting or not is your own decision. Should you wish to continue, I suggest that communication problems may be avoided if you remain cognizant of my method and read more carefully.
Scott, I remember your agenda-setting post 68. Alas, I had misread it and this may be responsible for further misunderstandings later on. You wrote:
I took this to mean that the question at hand was still how best to understand Deut. 23:20 and that to this end you wanted to consider the significance of the nokri in Deut. 23:20, the history of Christian interpretation of Deut. 23:20, and the economics relevant for understanding Deut. 23:20. This made sense to me because my interest had been primarily in understanding Deut. 23:20 and because in my view (1) you had not truly engaged with the etymology (verbal root), the meaning (foreigner, not enemy), and usage (never applied to the nations to be eradicated) of nokri, (2) you had not responded to my challenge of your claim to represent the traditional interpretation of Deut. 23:20, (3) and you had not engaged with the evidence and illustration I provided for the economic background of Deut. 23:20.
I am sorry about this misreading and realise now that your focus was different from mine. You were content to leave Deut. 23:20 behind, at least for the time being, when you saw me “move the discussion along to consideration of the history of Christian teaching” but my reference to Aquinas in post 85 and 86 is clearly still in the context of “the meaning and reference of nokri in Deut. 23:20.” I had no intention to move away from Deut. 23:20 which is why post 87 looked to me like a sudden shift, not initiated by me but motivated by your unwillingness to address the points I had made about the interpretation of Deut. 23:20.
Let me repeat what I wrote in post 85, “Errors in the history of Christian teaching on usury could have been avoided by closer attention to this part of Scripture.” It is your privilege to go about this in any way you want but I think it is a pity that you left “the Church’s view of the Deuteronomic permission” for “the next post” (citation from post 90).
Correction: the quotation marks in the last line of my last post are in the wrong place. The direct article should be outside the quotation marks.
For “direct article” read “definite article” – I don’t know how often I have made that mistake in the last twenty years… Dabitur, feel free to correct and delete this post or the last two posts or leave them as is.