NRPE

Scripture :

·	Selected Scripture Passages
·	Links to on-line Bibles

The Environment in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures

Scripture has played an indispensable role for centuries in forming and sustaining the Christian and Jewish communities. The Bible is an integral part of the worship, teaching, spirituality, and ordering of community life. It has inspired great art, music and literature and motivated acts of service and movements for social reform. Its language and ideas have become common currency even in the wider “secular” culture.

In times of crisis, perplexity and challenge — for societies as well as for individuals — Jews and Christians turn to the Bible with new questions and concerns. In doing so, they may become sensitized to previously overlooked themes and texts that penetratingly address present challenges.

So it is that, with eyes opened to planetary deterioration and faced with clashing environmental values and visions, people of faith have found fresh insights in ancient texts that speak to the new responsibilities born of our unprecedented powers over creation. Well-known and well-loved stories — the Creation, the Garden of Eden, Noah’s Ark, Job hearing the voice in the whirlwind — acquire striking new dimensions of relevance to our times.

As they have re-read the Bible in the light of the environmental crisis, the faithful have been reminded that the world can only be understood and valued rightly by seeing it in relation to its Creator, and that God supports and sustains the whole community of life with loving care. They have recollected how the diversity, beauty, and integrity of the natural world manifest the divine wisdom and glory. Through scripture they have heard anew the call to be keepers of the earth and to seek justice for the poor and vulnerable.

Selected Passages

The seven days of creation
Genesis 1:1-2:4a (Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation)

Noah and the flood
Genesis 6:9a-14, 17-22; 7:11-14, 18-19, 21; 7:23b-8:3; 8:15-19 (New Revised Standard Version)

Adam in the Garden of Eden
Genesis 2:7-9, 15 (New American Bible)

God's covenant with the earth
Genesis 9:12-15 (New International Version)

The sabbath commandment and creation:
Exodus 20:8-11 (JPS)

And rest for animals
Exodus 23:12 (JPS)

The sabbatical year
Exodus 23:10-11 (NAB)
Leviticus 25:2b-7 (NAB)

Against wanton destruction
Deuteronomy 20:19-20 (NRSV)

Protecting species
Deuteronomy 22:6-7 (NIV)

Precaution
Deuteronomy 22:8 (JPS)

Mysteries of creation
Job 38:25-27, 39:1-4 (NAB)