The family in the Bible

This same honor/shame system is still operative in most societies today, especially ours. Our justice system, even in this great country, is deeply flawed by the honor/shame syndrome of meritocracy, in which the rich are viewed as favored by God and the poor just don't try hard enough. The rich often get away with infractions of law and custom in our society for which the poor are arrested and summarily punished. Police nationwide view themselves as the buffer between the haves (who pay their salaries) and the have-nots (who threaten them). This very syndrome is vigorously and unexceptionally denounced in the Bible by the prophets and by Jesus. In fact, it is frankly very difficult for the historian to explain how Western society, which claims to practice justice based on the Bible, got from the biblical, family-structured society of focus on the common good, guaranteed by many laws and practices, to its current market-oriented individualistic capitalist society which violates the whole concept of a family-oriented society, which is focussed on the common good. When ancient Israel strayed from its family-oriented base it was summarily denounced by the prophets. When Israel in any age strayed back into a Canaanite or common ANE culture of oligarchies in which riches indicated being honored by the gods and poverty being shamed by the gods, the prophets and Jesus lashed out against it. But churches tend to mute their challenge because churches are dependent on the system for their very survival.

The Family in the Covenant and in the New Testament

The early church was family-centered as well. Just as the family in the home was the center of Israelite and Judahite observance of the Sabbath, Passover, Hanukkah, and most Jewish festivals and worship, so the family was apparently at the heart of the early church. Abraham Heschel taught that Judaism has no cathedrals made of glass and stone, but its cathedral is the observance of the Sabbath = Shabbat = the sacrality of time, not space. The Book of Acts and Paul's Letters make it clear that the church was made up both of individuals and of Jewish and gentile immediate households.

The covenant relationship between God and the people in the Bible is most often expressed by use of the metaphor of the family. Throughout the Bible God is presented as a parent, Father to be sure because of the patriarchal nature of societies deriving from ANE cultures generally. But God in a select few passages is also seen as Mother. Though the latter may not be as numerous as one might like, they are there. In the monotheizing process, which biblical history describes, the One God gradually took on the traits and characteristics of female as well as male deities. The metaphor for the covenant was basically the family for which the ultimate Father/Mother was God. Israel was seen as God's son in the Mosaic covenant. And in the Davidic covenant God was seen as the Father whose son was the king, especially David and his heirs (cf. Ps 2:7). The idea of a king being a god's son was not at all uncommon in the ANE, or in the Greco-Roman world.