Between Human Nature and Divine Potential: Empathy, Altruism, and Non-Retaliation in Second Temple Period Texts

This lecture takes a bio-psychological and cognitive-emotional approach in analyzing a selection of Second Temple period texts that prescribe prosocial behaviour and altruistic action. Altruism in general and the foregoing of revenge in particular have often been viewed as cultural constructs, opposed to human nature, but recent research points out that these capacities are also anchored in human biology. The lecture discusses the relationship and balance between biology and culture in human prosocial behaviour and the evolutionary and contextual conditions for social emotions and altruism to develop. These insights are applied to texts from the Holiness Code, ben Sira, and the so-called Q source, and related to their social contexts and theological tendencies. Special attention is given to incipient tendencies to universalism, and a broadened conception of the character of the divine mind and human imitatio.