The Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes
Biblical Studies and Ethics for Real Life
By (author) Yiu Sing Lúcás Chan Foreword by Daniel J. Harrington, James F. Keenan, SJ Boston College
Publication date:
20 September 2012Length of book:
284 pagesPublisher
Rowman & Littlefield PublishersDimensions:
235x160mm6x9"
ISBN-13: 9781442215535
The Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes are often considered significant texts for the Christian moral life. However, most interpretations of these passages either focus on the original meaning of the text or how the texts should impact ordinary living today.
In The Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes Yiu Sing Lúcás Chan brings together biblical studies and Christian ethics to look at these foundational texts in a new way. For each passage Chan asks both what the texts meant and what they mean today. He helps readers to carefully study the text’s original meaning, then interpret the text within a sound ethical framework.
The Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes is an excellent introduction to key concepts in biblical studies and Christian ethics that combines sound study with warmth and wisdom.
In The Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes Yiu Sing Lúcás Chan brings together biblical studies and Christian ethics to look at these foundational texts in a new way. For each passage Chan asks both what the texts meant and what they mean today. He helps readers to carefully study the text’s original meaning, then interpret the text within a sound ethical framework.
The Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes is an excellent introduction to key concepts in biblical studies and Christian ethics that combines sound study with warmth and wisdom.
Chan, a Jesuit from Hong Kong, seeks to bring together biblical studies and Christian ethics through the vehicle of Christian virtue ethics, and illustrates his approach with reference to the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes. After an eleven-page prologue, Chan develops his schema for bridging biblical studies and Christian ethics. Then through the lens of virtue ethics, he examines each of the Ten Commandments according to Exod 20:2-17, and each of the Beatitudes in Mt 5:3-12. For each of the Commandments and the Beatitudes, he starts with the original meaning of the text and explores its significance for contemporary Christian moral living through a hermeneutics of virtue ethics. At the end of the book he discusses the possible reception of the core Christian virtues of the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes for Confucian society out of his conviction that interfaith or cross-cultural ethics begins with very specific texts and needs to be both text-based and interpretive. J. F. Keenan and D. J. Harrington have provided a three-page foreword.