The Human Person and Dignity – Episode 7

Bio - Who is David?

We often hear talk about human rights and human dignity especially in our secular culture, yet where does the original idea of the dignity of all human persons come from? Perhaps not surprisingly, it finds its roots in the Judeo-Christian tradition, and has been developed for centuries in world religions and especially in Judaism and Christianity. The source of this reflection is the creation narrative in the Book of Genesis, the first book of both the Jewish Scriptures and the Christian Bible.

Hence it is indeed appropriate that we discuss these issues of the human person and dignity with Rabbi David Novak, Professor of Jewish Studies, at the University of Toronto and author of eleven books, and over 200 articles in scholarly and intellectual journals.

Rabbi Novak is a member of University College and of the Joint Centre for Bioethics, and his teaching experience in various universities extends for decades. From 1966 to 1989 he even served as a pulpit rabbi in several communities in the United States. Since 1963 Rabbi David Novak has been married to Melva Ziman. The Novaks have two grown children and four grandchildren.

• How are men and women equal but different?
  Read Catechism of the Catholic Church, 369-372.
• What does it mean to be created
  “in the image of God”? What is this “image”?
  Read Catechism of the Catholic Church, 356-357, 360-361.
• If all of creation was created good, why did humanity sin? Read Catechism of the Catholic Church, 396-400.

• The creation narratives in Genesis, Chapters 1 to 2.
• A series of articles on
  The Discourse of Human Dignity in Concilium: The International journal for Theology
  (2003, no. 2)
• An excellent article on The Dignity of the Human Person by the Irish Province of the Order of Carmelites.
• An article on Catholic.net by Fr. Thomas Williams on
  The Question of Human Dignity