Chicago Research Paper

Table of Contents

FORGIVENESS: THE GIFT OF FORGIVENESS3

Introduction3

Discussion5

Joseph and his brothers: Forgiveness6

Transform the evil into good7

Joseph as Jesus8

Conclusion12

End Notes15

FORGIVENESS: THE GIFT OF FORGIVENESS

Introduction

Forgiveness may be viewed as the principled overcoming of feelings of resentment that are naturally directed toward a person who has done one a moral injury. Like that of sin, Jesus' concept of forgiveness was also rooted in the Jewish tradition of which he was a part. Much of New Testament scholarship has failed until recently to perceive or describe rightly the pious sense of forgiveness in Second Temple Jewish practices, confusing it for what is portrayed in the New Testament as rigid religious formalism.

In fact, the concept of forgiveness played a central and heartfelt role in the practices of many Second Temple Jewish groups. In the pseudepigraphal story of Joseph and Aseneth, the latter, an Egyptian woman and a former pagan, says that, because God will forgive her every sin, she may speak freely with him. The Qumran community similarly maintained that salvation is by God's mercy, that true justice is only found with God and that, by his goodness, “he will forgive all of [their] iniquities”. The first-century pseudepigraphon the Prayer of Manasseh reflects the heartfelt plea of the son of Hezekiah for forgiveness based upon God's grace and mercy. Later in the same period, the Amidah, prayed daily at morning, noon and evening, focused on love, mercy and repentance. Finally, the prayer of the high priest at Yom Kippur depicts the highest religious representative taking personal responsibility for the sins of the people.

The beneficial effects of forgiveness—both upon the forgiver and the person forgiven—are thus obvious. Equally important if less obvious, however, are some things to be said in favor of resentment and thus against forgiveness—things to which the Christian tradition has perhaps been insufficiently attentive. For example, a failure to resent injuries may be a sign that one is lacking in self-respect; and thus a too-ready tendency to forgive may indicate not that one is virtuous but rather that one manifests the vice of servility. Also, if one has been genuinely wronged, then a moral wrong has been done; and thus a failure to resent the wrong may be a sign that one acquiesces or is complicitous in immorality—hardly a virtuous trait. And might not a policy of forgiveness provide others with incentives to commit wrongs against the person so disposed? Given the natural human tendency to overestimate the gravity of wrongs done to oneself and thus to overreact to those wrongs, resentment certainly has its personal and social dangers and therefore needs restraint (what passion does not?).

One way to think about the virtue of forgiveness, a way that may avoid condoning servility or complicity in wrongdoing, is to make legitimate forgiveness conditional upon some change in the wrong-doer. For example, repentance, the person who immediately forgives the one who is wrong with him that seems to be tacitly accepting the evil and demeaning message contained in the ...