Justice In The Old Testament Religion Essay

Justice In The Old Testament Religion Essay INTRODUCTION WHAT IS JUSTICE The general understanding of justice is giving a person his due. That is to say if the if someone has done more should be rewarded more. In short it is concerned with fair distribution of goods, opportunities justice demands that every individual should be rewarded according to what he or she had done, nothing more or nothing less. Now having understood the general understanding of justice, it is imperative that we look at what the bible say about justice. JUSTICE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT The Old Testament talks of three dimensions of Justice. That is distributive Justice, fair dealing and secondly public justice and finally rectitude that are the integrity of a person. The Old Testament has terms which are used to describe justice, which are mishpat and tsedeq .Tsedeq refers to a persons righteousness (tsedeq). Apart from that it is used for honest scales and measurements. It can also mean good governance. Mishpat and tsedeq are interchangeable. According to DD Raphael, mishpat Means Judgment, the discussion of Judge but with a normative connotation (2001:11). According to him mishpat is concerned with the judge. That is how the judge executes his legal matters. In short he is talking about the character of the judge in executing his judgment. So when mishpat is used in the Old Testament it is concerned the character of God in executing judgment up on the evil doers. It is concerned with the character of an individual in dealing with his fellow individual. On this part we can see the difference between tsedeq and mishpat. It is recorded that tsedeq is used of the character of the defendant than the conduct of the Judge (Howard Marshall 1980:10). In addition we can say that tsedeq does not concern the righteousness of the judge but it is concerned with the character of an individual. Further Raphael noted that The punishment of the crime against a person should be that a wrongdoer suffer the same harm as he has caused (Ex.21:23-25) 2001:14). According to Howard M. Justice and Judgment consist very much in bringing the oppressors of the poor and needy to naught. THE GENERAL UNDERSTANDING OF SOCIAL JUSTICE Justice has generally two components which constitutes justice these are Social and justice. Social is the team used to refer to how people live in the community or how people live in the society. Justice on the other hand deals with up holding what is just or treating people fairly according to honour or/ and standard. So when these terms are used together, it can be said that social justice exist when people are given what is due from their community. Social justice deals in three areas. That is economic justice, remedial and distributive justice. Economic and remedial justice ensures that every person is given equal and fair opportunities to access a societys economic resources and its political and legal systems. Distributive justice also focuses on outcomes which are fair. It is interestingly to note that all three forms of Justice Emphasis much on the social responsibilities of human beings. BIBLICAL UNDERSTANDING OF SOCIAL JUSTICE When Old Testament talks of Justice, it does not only mean being or acting justly but also the kind of situation that would result when Justice is executed. Apart from the Old Testament dealing with righteousness (tsedeqa) and justice or judgment (mishpat) the Old Testament also deals with helping the needy. For example Leviticus 19:9-10, God is reminding the children of Israel not to finish the crops in their fields after the harvest but should leave some for the poor, stranger, widows, orphans etc. this is supported by Deut. 24:19-22. In which God is commanding the Israelites not to go back and collect that which was left in the fields. Another aspect that is found in the Old Testament scriptures for example in Proverbs 31:8-9. Here it is said that everyone has the God given rights life and liberty that is free from all forms of oppression and injustices. Again when we look in the Pentateuch (Deut. 15:1-11), God commands the Israelite to help the needy among them in the seventh month and also to council the debts of those who cold not pay back Raphael said The command in these passages do not use either of the words for justice to describe their rationale, though the idea behind them is one that was latter assigned to the concept of social justice (2001:15). This same emphasis is also used by the major prophet like Isaiah in which they relate the concept of knowing God to helping the needy for example Isaiah 1:7 associate the notion of mishpat with giving help to the needy. Jeremiah also associates mishpat with tsedeqa (Jeremiah 22:3). It has been indicated that when social activists talk about the poor, needy and disadvantaged, they do not only refer to victims of oppression, but also to people in prosperous countries who are less prosperous even though they have n o lack of food, shelter, clothing, or government and aid agency support (Andrew kulikovsky 2008:11). It can further be said that social justice favours much those who are disadvantaged. There are many scriptural references both in the old and the New Testament which has come out clear on the issue of social justice. For example the prophet Zechariah 7:9-10 talks about where God has forbade the oppression of the widow, the fatherless and strangers or the poor in general further, the prophet Amos is talking more on the oppression of the poor and the strangers. It has been said that Doing justice by assisting the poor and the needy is a obligation of those who have responded to the Gospel. It is not part of the gospel itself (Andrew K. 2008:20). On the contrary, we can not stand on the fact the bible is entirely based on social justice there are some passages in the same bible which contradict the notion of social justice. These biblical passages prohibit favouritism and partiality in matters concerning justice for example Leviticus 19:15 where God is saying that you shall not render unjust Judgment (mishpat), you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great: with justice you shall judge your neighbour. Here we see the concept of justice in dealing with legal matters which is concerned with just judgment. Here the king of justice they are talking about is mishpat. Justice must be done in tsedeqa or righteousness. This is also echoed by Ex. 23:3. Not only this but also in Ex. 30:14-15 There was also no partiality when Moses took a census and God required an offering of half a shekel from every one over the age of twenty years (Andrew K 2008:11). The only thing that the poor needed in those days was fair dealing with other people. According to the biblical understanding, the poor are those people who were the victims of injustice and have no one to speak for them in time of oppression. That is why the righteous have the mandate to look after the marginalized (James 1:27) not because they are poor but that they are the victims of injustices. Some scholars such as Ross Langmead as quoted by Andrew K. states that When Jesus gave the manifesto of good news to the poor; he meant salvation and not any form of social justice. So it is not easy for us to dwell of scholars who suggest that the Bible is entirely consisting of social justice. Because it also contains some references which are concerned with legal matters. Edgar wrote From a Christian and Biblical point of view, Justice means giving to people according to need and even giving more than they might receive according to the principle of equality (Andrew K. 2008:14). This is why most concern of social justice is assisting the poor and needy pe ople in the society. This concept has been disputed by Andrew and said that it is very important to understand what it means when the Bible talks of the poor and the needy and the levels of their poverty. Langmead further argues that Biblical justice goes further than strict justice and is imbued with grace, mercy and forgiveness (Andrew K 2008:14). We can not assert on the fact that justice is not Biblical justice unless it is involved in the advocacy of the weak, the poor or the socially disadvantaged. Further Neville says Jesus called for social transformation as confirmed by the nature of his mission and social Justice again Andrew argues to say that this is what the people and the disciples expected, but that was not the gospel of Gods kingdom was about (Andrew K 2008:20). CONCLUSION To sum up all this Biblical Justice must not be thought only in social concept but must also be thought in other terms like giving people according to what is due. God prefers the poor not because they are poor but because they were the victims of injustices, but that is note the only message found in the Biblical teachings.

Factors Influencing Employee Performance Essay

1. Introduction 1.1 Background of the study There are many challenges which hinder the delivery of public service reforms in Africa (Lienert, 2003). The factors include those relating to human resources like manpower deficiencies and lack of psychological dispositions and shortage of financial and material resources necessary for effective delivery of services. The problems of accountability as well as ethical issues also continue to affect effective delivery of public service. In an effort to mitigate some of these challenges, the Government of Kenya (GOK) has in the past launched several reform programs to improve service delivery. Some of these reform efforts include the Civil Service Reform Program (CSRP) (GOK, 1993) whose aim was to enhance public service efficiency and productivity. The program was designed to contain costs, improve performance in the public sector, and consolidate and sustain the gains made by reform initiatives (Opiyo, 2006). The other reform initiatives included the implementation of Results – Based Management that was guided by Economic Recovery Strategy for Wealth and Employment creation (GOK, 2003) whose strategies included developing benchmarks and evaluating the performance of public institutions. In order to enhance the performance of public officers, the government introduced a program where rewards and sanctions were to be used to encourage provision of quality services in the public sector. This paved way for the piloting of the process of in state corporations in 2003 which saw the introduction and implementation of performance appraisals in the entire public sector. Most firms in Kenya now employ some performance appraisal system (GOK, 2009). The Performance Appraisal System (PAS) was introduced by the GOK to refocus the mind of the public from a culture of inward looking to a culture of businesslike environment, focused on the customer and results in addition to improving service delivery (Obong’o, 2009). According to the new PAS, the evaluation of staff performance is supposed to run concurrently with the duration of ministerial performance contracts and the Government Financial year. Targets should meet acceptable quality standards and benchmarks as determined in each category of service delivery; the system should be supported by training of staff, particularly those with managerial and supervisory responsibility; and the process should be regarded as interactive, for mutual agreement between supervisors and appraisers (GOK, 2009). Longenecker and Goff (1992), observed that managers and human resource professionals belief that a PAS is a good tool for human resource management and performance improvement. If well designed and implemented it can benefit both the employees and the organizations (Coens and Jenkins, 2000). According to GOK (2009), the PAS has caused a cultural transformation within the public service from a baseline of extremely poor performance before 2003. The GOK has in the past made some efforts in launching and implementing Public Service Reform initiatives aimed at improving the performance of public servants in service delivery (GOK, 1993; GOK, 2003). However, these reforms have not achieved the envisaged results (AAPAM, 2005; Opiyo, 2006). The introduction of the new PAS (GOK, 2006) is yet another attempt by the Government to manage and improve performance of the Civil Service and Local Authorities by enabling a higher level of staff participation and involvement in planning, delivery and evaluation of work performance. Despite the successful roll out of the program, there is evidence of room for improvement in the process (GOK, 2009) and a lack of knowledge on the factors that influence the PAS in the Ministry of State for Provincial Administration and Internal Security, (MoSPA) Nyamira district, Kenya. Specifically, this study addresses this gap by: (a) Establishing how the implementation process of the PAS in the public sector influences the system; (b) Determining how rater and ratee interpersonal relationship in a PAS context influences the system in the public sector; (c) Determining how psychometric rater accuracy in a PAS context influences the system in the public sector; (d) Determining how the level of information exchange between the rater and the ratee in a PAS context influences the system in the public sector; and (e) Establishing how the attitudes of employees towards the last PAS rating, towards the rater and towards the PAS influence the system in the public sector.

To what extent are humans in a technological environment free from natural selection?

Humans in technology environment are not very free from natural selection. According to Charles Darwin, natural selection acts only for the good of each organism, so since our very first human ancestors had no natural defenses, they would die from what is considered today an insignificant disease. It was throughout millions of years, that the human body started to build an immunization to certain diseases and only the stronger humans were the ones to survive and carry on that trait.Likewise, having no fur on their bodies to survive in the cold weather, they learned how to use other animals’ skins and how to build some weapons, in order to chase wild animals. Nowadays, humans have made incredible discoveries; we have created a wonderful world of technology, which leads us to make some enormous progress in the field of medicine; especially in how to treat diseases which were, at some time, considered incurable. My point is, that since we have made such progress in technology, I am scared that we are keeping too many people alive, including some that might not fit the environment in which they live.In addition, we are allowing some infertile people to reproduce through in-vitro fertilization, when apparently they were not capable naturally. We are also letting babies survive by saving their lives at their birth even though they might not be perfectly healthy or other traits which could bedetrimental for the human species. But through science and the new technology, we have let these babies live and we have given them the opportunity to grow up and reproduce, transmitting their traits to other generations.Due to these facts, it is very probable that we are acting against natural selection in human beings, ever since humans became people who think and care for one another and we have made it immoral to kill another individual or to let him die. However, we could think about another definition of natural selection, such as a life on Earth dies if it is not ada pted to its environment and it lives if it has a niche and can reproduce in its surroundings, which is also called survival of the fittest.If we take the example of a fetus in his mother’s womb, the body of the mother can detect some errors coming from the fetus, and it would eliminate the fetus through a miscarriage. So, in this case, natural selection does still act upon human; acting within the womb of a woman, and therefore, not let a human being, which would not fit its environment, survive. For instance, we have not seen any people carrying the traits of Down’s syndrome on the chromosome 14.It is likely that this defect happened before but only inside a woman’s body which eliminated the mistake through a miscarriage, not letting the future human sees the light. So, in this case, the fact that humans are living longer, letting them reproduce thanks to many discoveries such as in vitro fertilization, surgeries, transplants, medication, etc. , is because we a re taking into consideration that the technology is part of our environment.

Research On Children s Selective Learning - 3388 Words

Children are often highly dependent on other people to learn about the world around them. Many domains of information, such as history, religion, and science, are difficult or impossible to acquire independently. However, information from others is not guaranteed to be correct, and sources differ vastly in both knowledge and intent. For example, a Biology teacher is likely a more knowledgeable source of scientific information than an English teacher, and a coach is likely a more trustworthy source of information about race preparation than a fellow competitor. Recent research suggests that children are not credulous consumers of communicated information, and, instead, are sensitive to indicators of source unreliability. As early as†¦show more content†¦The selective learning literature clearly indicates that young children actively keep track of individual sources’ reliability and use that information to inform their learning decisions. The source monitoring literatur e, in contrast, characterizes young children as generally poor monitors of source-specific information, particularly when compared to older children and adults (e.g., Ackil Zaragoza, 1995; Roberts Blades, 1998). A secondary aim of the proposed study, therefore, is to reconcile the contradictory characterizations of young children’s source monitoring performance in the selective learning and source monitoring literatures. To address these aims, the proposed project will investigate the following questions: (1) Do children show enhanced source monitoring of unreliable individuals? (2) Do children show poorer learning of, and less confidence in, information presented by unreliable individuals? (3) Does children’s source monitoring of unreliable individuals directly predict their learning from such individuals? (4) Do related cognitive skills, such as executive function and theory of mind, relate to children’s source monitoring and learning from unreliable individ uals? By answering these questions, the proposed project will integrate and inform the disparate literatures on young children’s source monitoring