Componentes f´ısicas

Finsterbusch (2004:71) states that children play a very significant role in the Book of Deuteronomy and notes that it is surprising that so little is written about children as theme in the Bible. It is evident from Deuter- onomy that children are not only part of the holy gatherings but that children (girls and boys) should be taught from early on by both parents at any time when the opportunity arises. Not only the texts of the com- mandments should be taught to the children but also their meaning should be explained by the parents (Ibid.:71ff.; cf. also De Vaux 48ff.). Deut 1:39 indicates that children are seen as innocent at a small age: “And the little ones that you said would be taken captive, your children who do not yet know good from bad…” Children cannot distinguish between evil and good. Parents have the obligation to teach children the right ways “so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the Lord your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life” (Deut 6:2). The wisdom texts emphasise particularly well the point that right- eousness, the right way of living, is closely linked to justice (see the text of Nel 2000:319, who demonstrates this in the Book of Proverbs). He says: “Great value was attached to the protection of the rights of the under-privileged and the guarantee of a righteous dispensation for them” (he refers to Pr. 31:9, 29:14, and to an article written by Fensham in 1962). “The harassment and suppression of the under-privileged are explicitly seen as an insult to their Maker” (Pr. 14:31 and 17:15, see Nel 2000:319). These sentiments are also expressed earlier by Alexander and Alexander (1973:62), who write that the Christian law “protects the weak against the strong, the poor against the rich, the women and children,

the fatherless and widows against those who would neglect and exploit them.”

A society based on the teaching of righteousness is therefore a just soci- ety. “The conceptualisation of what organised society should be was built upon the transmitted values of wisdom which include religious, com- munal, parental, judicial and individual ethical values” (Nel 2000:322). Nel further demonstrates that righteousness, and with it a sense of jus- tice, must be part of a person’s values, and not the position a person takes because of the law. He writes: “Law without wisdom has often in human history become the tool of oppression. Righteousness becomes the slave of ideology” (Ibid.:326). This tuition that brings an inbred sense of justice was not done at schools in biblical times; it was done by the father and the mother, as noted by Finsterbusch (2004) and De Vaux (1973). Even in the time of Jesus the daughter’s education was still done by the mother. By then boys enjoyed an education at the synagogue until they were 13 and considered men (Alexander & Alexander 1973:94). The tuition of children on religious matters was, however, not exclu- sively in the hands of the parents. Children were part of the people, of the covenant assembly, and took part in the festivals. They were part of the assembly gathered before the Lord (see Finsterbusch 2004:73-76). It is logical that they learned matters concerned with religion and about what the law of God required from an early age. Neumann-Gorsolke (2004:179-187) understands Psalm 8:2 as the result of such teaching: children and infants praising the Lord makes the enemy realize what power the word of the Lord has, and therefore it is evident what the teaching to children meant in the survival of the nation of Israel.

Jones (1987:27) says that for Jesus “ethics are an element in one’s whole response to the revelation given by God of his will for human life”, and refers to the passage in Hosea 6:6 where the prophet gives God’s words to the nation: “I desire mercy and not sacrifice.” This particular theme is one that echoes through the whole of the Old Testament. There is a development away from the importance of sacrifices towards the impor- tance of a “theology of the heart”. When Jerusalem and the land of Israel are taken away from the nation of Israel by Babylon, the cry at the end of the Book of Lamentations is clear: “Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may return.” There is no doubt that this means a theology of hope (compare Renkema 1988 and 1993) deeply grounded in a theology of the heart (Compare Hunter 1995). In several verses Lamentations demon-

strates the severity of the siege of Jerusalem by referring to children and infants: Lam. 2:11 cries out: “My heart is poured out on the ground because my people are destroyed, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city.” (See also 2:19, 4:4 and 4:10). In the final chapter, seen as a prayer, the desolate state of the people and their despair are expressed as follows: “We have become orphans and fatherless, our mothers like widows” (Lam. 5:3), a text that makes evident the thorough understanding of the plight of the “orphans and fatherless”. The Book of Lamentations could just as well be a report on a modern war scene, as described in a number of books mentioned above, especially that of Machel who has the following dedication in her book echoing the hope Renkema describes in Lamentations (especially based on Chapter 3): “This book is dedicated to the indomitable spirit of the children who inspired

its preparation. Their hopes and aspirations live throughout this text.”

White (1979:114ff.) indicates that ethical behaviour in the Christian understanding of ethics is deeply rooted in “love”. I Corinthians 13 does not have a different understanding: love is the greatest. Yes, one can have enough faith to believe that everything is possible; enough hope to land there where your beliefs are supposed to take you, but love, that is what makes the Christian live correctly (is it righteously?). Jones (1987:20) elects four words which, according to him, dominated pro- phetic messages: holiness, righteousness, justice, and love. These are the words constant with the “character of the Lord”. To describe Jesus’ mes- sage, he says (1987:29): “The one all-embracing reality is the ever-present merciful love of God.” He also states: “A previous generation of theolo- gians used to say that Jesus’ message could be summed up as ‘the fa- therhood of God’ and the ‘infinite value of the human soul’.” According to him, law now has a different emphasis: our own morality, our inner spirit is at stake in the development of the Old and New Testaments. Children are therefore seen as very important in the whole of the Bible. This is true in both Old and New Testaments. It is, moreover, evident from both, what we can call, “positive” and “negative” texts of the Bible. For example, the texts of Lamentations can be seen as negative descrip- tions of what happens to children. So too, the last plague of the libera- tion of Israel from Egypt, which attacks children and shows how impor- tant the children were. After the plague that killed the first-born, the pharaoh realizes that he has to let the Israelites go.

The Bible describes children as part of the religious community or cove- nant community and they have to be respected and taught within this community, not only by the parents in their early lives but also later by the priests and others responsible. (See also the book of Dube 2003 on the use of the Bible in sermons directed to people, families and children living with HIV/AIDS).

The Namibian Situation