A Novel Interpretation of t he Ecological Ethics in the Bible

Abstract

The rapid development of productive forces has resulted in sharp deterioration in the earth’s ecological environment. Due to the ecological imbalance caused by modern production in the wake of the industrial revolution, the principle of ecological ethics was first put forward in the 20th century. The ecological crisis has long been attributed by some people to the “anthropocentric thought” in the Book of Genesis. That is to say, the Bible has been blamed as the ideological root of the ecological crisis. The present paper, instead of focusing only on Genesis, through examining the ecological consciousness and its development in the entire Bible whose production time spanned over a thousand years, esp. the ecological views in such
later books as Leviticus, Deuteronomy and Job, refutes this one sided claim. Additionally, the paper provides a more comprehensive and novel interpretation to the ecological ethics and its advances in the entire Bible.