Pastoral Ethics

[kenhonken]

“The animals were used as meat apart from ritual settings. However it is likely that only the nobility could afford meat on a regular basis…”

As someone who lives and works on Ft. Knox, I regularly drive past the U.S. Bullion Repository. I often wonder what employees there experience as they walk past literally billions of dollars in gold every day. I do not think people in the ANE valued sheep quite as highly as gold, but relatively speaking, I think shepherding could easily have the same impact as gold on a Repository employee. Did not the goods for which they cared tempt them at least occasionally to consider taking some for themselves? If regular people could afford meat only occasionally, would not ANE shepherds be regularly tempted to say one of the lambs in their care was "killed by a bear" so they could sup sumptuously once in a while for all of their hard labor?

It seems to me the pastoral office involves similar temptations. Like shepherds, pastors are not overpaid. Like shepherds, a pastor's sheep often live much better lives than they do. Like shepherds, a pastor's work is hard, tedious, and unseen. So pastors are tempted to rationalize misconduct, particularly by taking from the flock. Of course, the flock is someone else's, but the shepherd can easily lose sight of the owner in his mind because he is not there. It's just the pastor and the sheep. So the pastor takes a little more honor than he is due, a little more money than he is owed, a little more pleasure than he is entitled to.

For both shepherd and pastor, the fatness of the flock creates opportunities for both professional success and ethical failure.
_________________
Ken Honken