Biblical Ethics and Plotinus

Research output: Contribution to journalConference article

  • Maria Pontoppidan
This article focuses on the question of unification versus relationality in ethics. It compares two different ethical approaches from Late Antiquity, highlighting the contrast between Plotinian (Neoplatonic) ethics as striving for perfect unification of the human soul with the divinity - and Biblical ethics as a relational ethics, where alterity remains operative in the encounter with the deity, and where the primary ethical demand is to relate properly to fellow creatures and God as other. The latter demand is exemplified by the figure of Job, whose righteousness is interpreted as his insisting on this relation at a more fundamental level than his friends.
Original languageEnglish
JournalJudaica Petropolitana
Volume1
Pages (from-to)56-67
Number of pages11
ISSN2307-9053
Publication statusPublished - 2013

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