Ethics in the Bible

Ethics in the Bible refers to the system(s) or theory(ies) produced by the study, interpretation, and evaluation of biblical morals (including the moral code, standards, principles, behaviors, conscience, values, rules of conduct, or beliefs concerned with good and evil and right and wrong), that are found in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles. It comprises a narrow part of the larger fields of Jewish and Christian ethics, which are themselves parts of the larger field of philosophical ethics. Ethics in the Bible is unlike other western ethical theories in that it is seldom overtly philosophical. It presents neither a systematic nor a formal deductive ethical argument. Instead, the Bible provides patterns of moral reasoning that focus on conduct and character in what is sometimes referred to as virtue ethics. This moral reasoning is part of a broad, normative covenantal tradition where duty and virtue are inextricably tied together in a mutually reinforcing manner.

Some critics have viewed certain biblical teachings to be morally problematic and accused it of advocating for slavery, genocide, supersessionism, the death penalty, violence, patriarchy, sexual intolerance and colonialism. The problem of evil, an argument that is used to argue against the existence of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God, is an example of criticism of ethics in the Bible.

Conversely, it has been seen as a cornerstone of both Western culture, and many other cultures across the globe. Concepts such as justice for the widow, orphan and stranger provided inspiration for movements ranging from abolitionism in the 18th and 19th century, to the civil rights movement, the Anti-Apartheid Movement, and liberation theology in Latin America.