A New Heaven, A New Earth: The Bible and Catholicity by Dianne Bergant

Abstract

Reviewed by: A New Heaven, A New Earth: The Bible and Catholicity by Dianne Bergant Christopher Hrynkow dianne bergant, A New Heaven, A New Earth: The Bible and Catholicity (Catholicity in an Evolving Universe; Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2016). Pp. 200. $25. In this book, Dianne Bergant employs an ecologically literate hermeneutical lens to read some key biblical passages. B.'s lens is informed by two closely related concepts. The first, "catholicity," denotes universal reading in the cosmos-centric sense. The second concept is "ecojustice," as developed by Norman Habel and his collaborators on the Earth Bible Project. The accompanying six principles, applied to the Earth community, are intrinsic worth, interconnectedness, voice, purpose, mutual custodianship, and resistance. These terms pepper B.'s analysis. Each of her chapters includes a survey of relevant biblical scholarship, B.'s Catholic exegesis of multiple narratives, and a discussion of selected insights emerging from the application of her method in light of one or more of the ecojustice principles. In chap. 1, B. discusses water, revisiting stories such as the Israelite exodus out of Egypt from a less anthropocentric and more Earth-centered perspective. While the Earth Bible team's take on ecojustice has been criticized for downplaying social justice, B. here shows how the two articulations of justice are related, for example, by invoking the story of Hagar at the well to show both the intrinsic worth of springs and the importance of drinking water being accessible to all. The next two chapters examine the conditional nature of the Israelites' gift of the promised land from God. Calling on concepts of divine ownership, B. cogently suggests that the best way to understand the ancient Israelites' view of this land "is as an entitlement or right to property, rather than as the actual property itself" (p. 45). She continues that, if the Israelites do not live up to their obligations to their neighbors, to those living in poverty, or to God, then the land will become inhospitable—hence the need to foster spaces for all members of the Earth community to contribute to the land's fruitfulness. In this regard, B. upholds the importance for ecojustice of practices such as the Jubilee Sabbath for the land and the reserving of space for gleaners and nonhuman animals, as laid out in the Hebrew Scriptures. In that same light, she also problematizes the view that God's favor to the Israelites included the mobilization of the natural world to spite the chosen people's enemies through phenomena such as swarms of locusts and earthquakes. B.'s approach here is twofold, demonstrating how biblical miracles can have naturalistic explanations and affirming the importance of questioning the continuing revelatory significance of such verses that deny the intrinsic worth of both the indigenous Canaanites and the nonhuman members of the larger Earth community. Her efforts at demythologization in this sense are supported with reference to the contextual necessity of mutual custodianship, which allows God to work through all members of the Earth community in a manner that not only preserves but enhances their subjectivity. This expansive rendering of subjectivity is lent further support in chap. 5 by a recasting of the wisdom tradition in light of the natural world's teaching abilities. In the next three chapters, B. applies her hermeneutical lens to the NT. Therein, Jesus, Paul, and the writer of the Book of Revelation are shown to uphold the ecojustice principles in terms of offering paths of dialogue and action for people to recognize more fully the intrinsic worth of all members of the Earth community. Thus, for example, B. demonstrates how both the Pauline corpus and the Book of Revelation support the notion that Jesus' transformative power is active for all creation and not something that will allow redeemed people to somehow leave behind the nonhuman elements of the natural world. [End Page 331] In crafting this book, B. has offered a gripping, timely, and accessible treatment of her subject matter. Here the strengths and weaknesses of her approach are intertwined. With little explicit situating of the subtler points of B.'s present work within contemporary biblical scholarship and few notes, the specialist may be left wanting...