Using five different Old Testament stories as paradigms for correct ethical behavior, Waldemar Janzen provides a comprehensive way of understanding the ethical message in the Old Testament. The five models of the good life he uses are the holy life (the priest paradigm), the wise life (the sapiential or wisdom paradigm), the just life (the royal paradigm), the serving and suffering life (the prophetic paradigm), and the familial paradigm. Janzen demonstrates that all five paradigms are linked because the familial paradigm represents the comprehensive end of all Old Testament ethics. The familial paradigm comprises three components: a distinctive understanding of human life on the model of family and genealogy, a specific relationship the land, and a commitment to others in life-sharing hospitality.
