Bart Ehrman, a very popular populariser of biblical studies, has been forced to cancel his cruise along the Nile, where he was to act as a guide and lecturer. War! Yet he remains, in principle, apolitical, limiting himself to the following remark:
“In ancient discussions of morality, there appear to be no objections to power relations and their social effects, no moral condemnation, for example, of slavery or war. Why is that? I argue that it is because of a different ‘common sense’ dominant throughout antiquity, a common sense that I call the dominant ideology of dominance.”
This is an entirely incorrect statement. It is also internally inconsistent. It begins with the categorical claim that there were no objections to domination—to slavery or to war—and ends by referring to a “dominant ideology of dominance”. Which is it? Were there no objections, or were such objections suppressed by those who dominated?
Of course, in “antiquity” there were objections—to oppression, to slavery, and to war. The prophets of the Bible objected. Ancient thinkers objected. The idea of peace, the condemnation of war—these existed. Thucydides, in his history of wars, developed an extensive framework that can be read as a form of pacifist reflection. And what can one say of the Gospel? Ehrman studies it, yet it seems he has not read it for a long time.