Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes
Page 7
Additionally, read Scripture with a Bible atlas handy. Biblical authors don’t often tell us how they or their audiences felt about specific people groups, but they do give us clues by telling us where people are from. We do this today. Commenting that someone is from “rural Arkansas” or “the south side of Chicago” or “the West Coast” is often intended to communicate more than mere geography. Identifying places on a good atlas can help you detect when the author is making judgments based on geography and ethnicity—and when the writer expects us, the readers, to be doing the same thing.
Finally, let the Bible be your guide. First of all, the narrator may clue you in through repetition that the ethnicity of a character is an issue. This was the case with Moses’ wife in Numbers 12. The book of Ruth provides another example. Ruth is repeatedly identified as “Ruth the Moabite.” That detail lets us know that Ruth’s ethnicity is important for the story. Note the way the story is told: Boaz confronts the kinsman to ask if he intends to purchase Naomi’s land and is told, “I will redeem it.” Boaz then notes, “On the day you buy the land from Naomi, you also acquire Ruth the Moabite” (emphasis added). The man immediately declines the offer: “I cannot redeem it.” He cites inheritance rules, but we suspect his real motivation is ethnic prejudice.[12] By contrast, Boaz buys the land and states, “I have also acquired Ruth the Moabite, Mahlon’s widow, as my wife” (Ruth 4:4-6, 10, emphasis added). Next, see if Scripture can shed light on the issue. The Bible is a good resource for determining what the biblical authors and audiences thought and felt about their neighbors. The fact that the Moabites, along with the Ammonites, originated from an incestuous relationship between Lot and his daughters (Gen 19:36-38) may help us understand why Ruth’s ethnicity is an issue in her narrative. Furthermore, the Moabites hired Balaam to pronounce a curse on Israel (Num 22), and Moabite women seduced the men of Israel in Numbers 25 and encouraged them to sacrifice to idols. For these reasons, the Lord declared, “No Ammonite or Moabite or any of their descendants may enter the assembly of the Lord, not even in the tenth generation” (Deut 23:3). In light of all this, it is truly remarkable that Ruth, a Moabite, is held up as a model of faith and fidelity.
We have been pointing out the prejudices of biblical characters, but please bear in mind that we are not endorsing prejudice. The Christian message is clear: ethnic prejudice is morally reprehensible. It is wrong. The Roman world was filled with racism. The interior of Anatolia (modern Turkey) was filled with tension between the Romans, the locals and the immigrants (Jews in the south and Celts in the north). Nonetheless, Paul tells a church caught right in the middle of that mess, “Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all” (Col 3:11). This was a radical claim in the first century. It is no less radical today, even in a country in which people have been fighting for equality for decades.
The radical nature of the multiethnic body of Christ is sometimes lost on those of us who believe we have put prejudice behind us once and for all. Columnist Jack White once observed, “The most insidious racism is among those who don’t think they harbor any.”[13] His point is that those of us who leave our ethnic stereotypes unexamined will inevitably carry them forever, perhaps even pass them on to others. We would add that failing to come to terms with our assumptions about race and ethnicity will keep us blind to important aspects of biblical teaching.
Questions to Ponder
Imagine retelling the story of Ruth and Boaz today and saying, “Boaz the Israeli” and “Ruth the Palestinian.” How might that affect how you read the story?
The biblical story of Samson specifically mentions when he meets Delilah, mentioning her town before even her name: “Some time later, he fell in love with a woman in the Valley of Sorek whose name was Delilah” (Judg 16:4). For the story, it mattered where she was from. The writer expected us to know our geography: while Samson was called and equipped by God to smite the Philistines, he married one instead. How might racism play a role in this story?
The people who lived in Philippi were settled there by Rome. They were Roman citizens. Not just citizens of the Roman Empire, they were considered citizens of the actual city of Rome. They were quite proud of their Rome citizenship. And they didn’t care for Jews. Note how they used the term Jews to fire up the crowd against Paul (Acts 16:20). How does this affect how you read Philippians 3:20?
How does it affect your view of Jesus to know that he was born to a people group considered inferior by the majority culture (Romans) and in a town that other Jews considered backward and unimportant (Nazareth)?
-3-
Just Words?
Language
An old Greek professor of Randy’s used to comment sagely, “Language is a lot of things, but mostly it’s words.”
That is true, and it isn’t. Of course, the first order of business for a student new to any language is the arduous task of learning vocabulary. Often the very smallest words—conjunctions and prepositions and the like—are the hardest to master. The flexibility of our own prepositions, which make perfect sense to us, illustrates the challenge well. On and in mean different things, and the difference is clear: “the book is on the table” versus “the book is in the drawer.” Yet in America we ride in a car but on a bus, in a canoe but on a ship. These uses seem the opposite of the basic meanings. Americans hang on a branch, but most other people hang under or hang from a branch. (Hang on: we still haven’t discussed idioms!) After long hours spent with flashcards, you eventually learn grammar and syntax that allow you to combine words to form phrases and sentences that express meaning. But it all starts with words. Words are indeed the raw materials of language.
But language is much more than words. As we have argued in these first chapters, the most powerful cultural values are those that go without being said. Ironically, this is as true of language as of any other aspect of culture—and perhaps more so. Behind the words that make up language is a complex system of values, assumptions and habits of mind that reveal themselves in the words we use and leave unsaid. When we cross a culture, as when we read the Bible, we often assume that what goes without being said in our culture and language also goes without being said in other cultures and languages. This can lead to profound misunderstanding.
Matters become even more complex when you consider that grammar and syntax, as well as ethnicity and social class, not only reflect but also determine the way people in a given culture think and speak. While it may seem a chicken-or-egg type of question, linguists have long pondered if our worldview shapes our language or the other way around. Ever since the pioneering work of Benjamin Whorf (1897-1941) in linguistic relativity, most scholars concede that our culture (via our language) shapes our worldview, which in turn filters what we notice and how we interpret reality.[1] Our worldview tells us what to notice and what is not worth noticing. Linguists generally conclude that our heart language—the language we learn first (up to about age seven)—sets most of the parameters of our worldview. We have an “American” worldview because our parents imparted it to us, both through ideas they taught us and through our shared language. Middle-class American English, for example, prefers the active voice, direct statements and connecting words like since, because and although.[2] Suffice it to say that language is a lot of things, but that many of the most important aspects of language are not words.
Language is the most obvious cultural difference that separates us from the Bible. The Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew and Aramaic, and the New Testament in Greek (with a few Aramaic words). Because language differences are so obvious, so visible, you might wonder why we didn’t discuss them first. Are they not the very tip of the iceberg? Yes and no. While it is easy to tell that you are hearing or reading a foreign language, what is not at all obvious is how our language, and our understanding of how language works, affects everything else we think and do. Few of us ever reflect on the mechanics of our native languages or
the values and patterns that lie beneath them. These things reside further down the iceberg, under the water. So we are unlikely to recognize what it is about our own language that goes without being said.
You begin to pick up on these things when you learn another language. So some of the things we’ll discuss in this chapter are things you will discover if you study Greek and Hebrew—or any second language, for that matter. It is important for us to remember that when we read the Bible in our native language, mostly what has been changed is the words. Behind the words, now in a language we understand, remains that complex structure of cultural values, assumptions and habits of mind that does not translate easily, if at all. If we fail to recognize this—and we very often do—we risk misreading the Bible by reading foreign assumptions into it. Like Procrustes of Greek mythology, who shortened or stretched his guests to fit his bed, our unconscious assumptions about language encourage us to reshape the biblical narrative to fit our framework.
In this chapter we will identify a few instinctive Western language habits. There is more we could say, but for now, we’ll look at three assumptions regarding the way we view language: sufficiency, equivalency and clarity.
Sufficiency: Our Language Adequately Describes Reality
To state our first point simply: Western readers typically believe that if something is important, then we’ll have a word for it. And the more important something is in our culture, the more likely we are to develop specialized language to describe it. Take the automobile, for example. The automobile is an important aspect of Western—especially American—life. On the whole, the word car is a useful catchall for all vehicle types. But we can be more specific. You might drive a compact, subcompact, economy, sedan, wagon, coupe, convertible, SUV, pickup, crossover or hybrid.
Here is where cultural differences begin to show. Many Americans eat rice. But rice isn’t particularly important to the majority of Americans. So we just have one word for it. When it’s in the field, we call it rice. When the grains are harvested, we have trucks of rice. When the grains are milled and packaged to sell in stores, we buy bags of rice. When we cook it, we serve plates of rice. But rice is very important in Indonesia, as in most of Asia, and so Indonesians have specialized vocabulary to describe it. In Indonesia there are fields of padi, bags of beras and plates of nasi. These distinctions may seem unnecessary to us, but we make distinctions that seem equally unnecessary to Indonesians. Because Indonesia is a majority Muslim nation, pigs are not important in Indonesian culture. So the language has one word for them: pigs. We, by contrast, see pigs when they are in a barn. Slaughtered, we have pork. On the plate we have chops, loin, ribs, roast, bacon and sausage.
This is not merely a matter of vocabulary but of values. The words we use are a good indication of what we consider important. As our values change, so does our language. When we really need a word, we invent one. Think of all the new vocabulary we’ve developed in the digital age—words like Internet, software and mp3. What we don’t see as important, we don’t bother to invent words for. In other words, the frequency and number of words we have for a given thing or experience and its value in our worldview are connected.
What does this have to do with the Bible? Problems arise for interpretation when another language has several words for something and ours has only one. Greek has four words for love: agape, philia, eros and storge. Or perhaps the better way to say it is that English has only one word for four different kinds of love. This may explain why Americans often confuse them in their relationships. While we recognize that philia, the friendship kind of love, is wonderful, it may be hard (culturally) for two American male friends to say they love each other. To do so, they must use the same English word they use to describe their relationships with their parents, wives or children. Since American culture is pushing guys to express true friendship-love, we are searching for a good expression. At the moment, “Love you, man” seems to be winning.
To use another example, most cultures have a traditional form of dancing. Where I (Randy) grew up, it was line dancing or square dancing. There was also modern dancing, which was basically a young couple making out while shuffling their feet to music. My parents believed the second form of dancing was not conducive to healthy Christian courtship; thus, they concluded, dancing is sin. Because we have only one word for dancing, all manner of dancing was regarded as sin, leading to lots of generational Christian squabbling. Indonesian Christians don’t have this problem. They celebrate traditional dance, called tarian. They also recognize the inappropriate form, which they call dancing (merely borrowing the English word). Having the vocabulary to distinguish between forms of dancing makes it possible for them to make more nuanced decisions about appropriate and inappropriate behavior.
We also perceive a corollary point to be true: if we don’t have a word for something, then it is likely not very important to us. Maybe pigs and rice aren’t that important in every culture, but biblical values should be. Old Testament scholars will be quick to point out the challenge of translating chesed (pronounced KHEH-sed). In the nasb, we see it translated lots of ways: lovingkindness (Gen 24:27), loyalty (Hos 6:4), loveliness (Is 40:6) and mercy (2 Sam 15:20). Chesed doesn’t mean lots of things. But we need lots of English words to circle around a concept for which we don’t have a word. Chesed is “a kindly-loyal-merciful-faithful-(the-sort-that-shows-up-in-actions) kind of love.” Certainly chesed is important—even if English doesn’t have a word for it—both for understanding the Bible and living the Christian life. This isn’t merely an English problem. Paul struggles for a Greek word to describe the fruit (singular) of the Spirit. He describes it as a “love-joy-peace-patience-kindness-goodness-faithfulness-gentleness-self-control kind of fruit” (Gal 5:22). Paul is not giving us a list of various fruits, from which we may pick a few. Rather, he gives us a list of words that circle around the one character of a Spirit-filled life he is trying to describe.
This seemingly simple matter of vocabulary has serious implications for the Christian life. Sociologists suggest that people have a difficult time describing or even identifying something that they don’t have the vocabulary for. Some even suggest that one can have a hard time experiencing something for which one has no corresponding word.[3] The Greeks had a word for the feeling one has when one is happy: makarios. It is a feeling of contentment, when one knows one’s place in the world and is satisfied with that place. If your life has been fortunate, you should feel makarios. We use idioms in English to try to approximate this experience. We’ll say, “My life has really come together,” or “I’m in a happy place,” or “Life has been good to me.” We are not really discussing the details of our life; we are trying to describe a feeling we have. Happy sounds trite, so we avoid it. Actually, we are makarios.
In Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that if you are a peacemaker, then you are makarios. Since English doesn’t have a word for this feeling, translators have struggled to find one. What do you call it when you feel happy, content, balanced, harmonious and fortunate? Well, translators have concluded, you are blessed. Thus our English translations say, “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Mt 5:9). Unfortunately, this introduces another problem. The English language prefers clear subjects for its verbs. So the missing puzzle piece in the Beatitudes is, How is one blessed? What goes without saying in our culture is that God blesses people. Consequently, we often interpret this verse to mean, “If you are a peacemaker, then God will bless you.” But this isn’t what Jesus meant. Jesus meant, “If you are a peacemaker, then you are in your happy place.” It just doesn’t work well in English. Alas, here is the bigger problem: maybe the reason we North Americans struggle to find makarios in our personal lives is because we don’t have a word in our native language to denote it.
Equivalency: Reality Can be Expressed in Our Language
Viewed from one perspective, the Protestant Reformation began as an effort to correct a mistaken assumption about equivalency in language. Over time, the
Roman Catholic church had developed a doctrine of confession that included works of penance, such as reciting a certain number of prayers (think “Hail Marys” or “Our Fathers”) and, most disturbing, the purchase of indulgences to assure forgiveness of sins. By the late Middle Ages, church leaders insisted this system is what Jesus had in mind when he called sinners to repent—that do penance was equivalent to (meant the same thing as) repent. Martin Luther’s history-changing ninety-five theses addressed this issue head-on. “Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when He said ‘Repent,’ willed that the whole life of believers should be repentance,” Luther argued in the opening sentences of his disputation. “This word cannot be understood to mean the sacrament of penance, that is, confession and satisfaction, which is administered by the priests.”[4] The medieval church had superimposed certain presuppositions onto Scripture by mistakenly assuming that the Latin term for do penance was equivalent to the Greek term for repent. Because repentance is necessary for salvation (Is 30:15; 2 Cor 7:10), their mistake undermined Christian faith and identity at its core. Is it possible that we risk equally dangerous misreadings by assuming equivalency between languages?
People who speak only one language, which is most Americans, often assume that there is a one-to-one relationship between languages. This derives from how we understand reality. We assume that everyone interprets reality like we do. So when we run across a concept in a foreign language that describes an experience that’s familiar to us, we assume they mean what we mean. Well, they don’t.
Sometimes there is no equivalent. Several Eastern languages have no word for privacy. How could that be? To begin with, people in these cultures rarely experience it. As a missionary, I (Randy) “slept late,” often not arising until 6 a.m. When I staggered out of the bedroom, I commonly found an Indonesian pastor sitting politely in my living room, awaiting the (lazy) missionary. While bedrooms were for family, the rest of the house was viewed much more like we would view a college dorm lobby. People walked in and out of my house. Many times I came home for lunch to find some stranger helping out in the kitchen or washing clothes on my back porch. Early in my career, I would ask, “Who are you?” The person would stop, go out back and bathe, change clothes and then sit in my living room to explain. After tea (and a lot of what seemed to me to be beating around the bush), he or she would explain what problem had brought them to the city. Their problem was now my problem—after all, I did ask who they were. (I learned not to ask.) “My personal business” was a nonsensical expression. Everybody knew what everybody was doing. I could stop a student on our campus and ask what my wife was cooking for lunch, and they would know. They would likely add that she had paid too much for the chicken.