How to Do Good and Avoid Evil: A Global Ethic from the Sources of Judaism

After years of investigating whether basic ethical principles are shared by all people, Küng, a leading Catholic theologian, brought to the World Parliament of Religions in 1993 the issue of ethical universality. The parliament endorsed a “Declaration Toward a Global Ethic,” which is reprinted at the end of this book. Küng recognized the centrality of ethics in Judaism and worked with Homolka, a Jewish scholar and head of a Jewish seminary in Germany, to demonstrate how Jewish tradition contributes to worldwide values. Six core ethics are identified: the value of the human being; the golden rule; peace; justice; truth and tolerance; equal rights between men and women. For each one, quotations from Jewish sources are presented. The result is a potpourri that shows the authors' diligence in selecting useful references while also demonstrating that stringing together loosely connected citations falls short of creative scholarship. (Sept.)