You see why there is no Indonesian equivalent to our word private. Of course, someone could find himself in a private location. In that case, an Indonesian would say he is in “a place where he feels lonely.” But it doesn’t happen as often as we might think. I had an Indonesian friend who owned three miles of beachfront property on a remote island. His neighbor also owned three miles of adjacent beachfront. When I stayed in my friend’s house, I could reach out the window and actually touch the wall of his neighbor’s house. On the other side of each house stretched miles of deserted sandy beaches. I was flabbergasted and one time blurted, “Why didn’t you build your house two miles that way?”
He looked at me and said, “We would be lonely.”
For most North Americans, space is to be guarded, protected and preserved. “Stay out of my personal space!” is a common sentiment. But for the ancient world (and most of the non-Western world), space is to be used. That’s why they drive on the shoulders of the road. Why waste usable space? In other words, while Westerners crave privacy, privacy is a situation that Indonesians, for example, seek to avoid. They even have a word for “going on an errand with a friend so that your friend doesn’t have to go alone.” That may be surprising enough, but the real shock for me came when my Indonesian colleagues explained that this was an excused absence for the accompanying student. Surely I couldn’t expect a student to go somewhere alone!
These different cultural associations with privacy affect the way Westerners and non-Westerners read Scripture. We Westerners commonly think that Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, went to a private place in the garden of Gethsemane to pray (Mt 26:36-39). Actually, none of the Gospels say the place he prayed was private or solitary: “Sit here while I go over there” (Mt 26:36); “withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them” (Lk 22:41); “he took Peter, James and John along with him,” and then “going a little farther” (Mk 14:33, 35). It is clear only that he separated from the disciples. At Passover, the garden was likely packed with people; it was not a good place to find privacy. When my Indonesian students heard the traditional Western view—that Jesus was alone—they responded, “How dreadful Jesus must have felt.” We Americans assume that “Jesus needed a little alone time” to get ready to face his dreadful trial. We read our preferences into the story. We like to pray in solitary places, so we assume Jesus did too.
Interpretation leads to practice. Indonesian ministers have a great word for “quiet time”: saat teduh. Interestingly, teduh means “quiet” and “calm,” but it has no connotation of individual or private space. Indeed, Indonesians almost always have their quiet times with others. As an American Christian, my best “devotional time” is alone. In fact, many of us wonder whether a Christian can grow without private time. Even if we could be with others, wouldn’t it be better to spend time alone with the Lord? Yet verses that we think support this idea, such as “Be still, and know that I am God,” do not require a private time of stillness (Ps 46:10). Indonesians also love that verse. They like to remind me that God said that it was not good for man to be alone (Gen 2:18). In fact, the Bible frequently uses “alone” as a negative term. Jacob was left alone (Gen 32:24); Moses was critiqued for working alone (Ex 18:14). Indonesians would say, “Even if we could be alone, wouldn’t it be better to spend time together with the Lord?” Our cultural value for privacy is strictly a Western value; it is not derived from the Bible. This is not to say that privacy is wrong, just that it is a neutral value. But when we impose it on the text, we can come away with unbiblical interpretations.
What it says is not always what it means. The translator repeatedly has to decide between translating what a word or phrase says and what it means. I (Randy) was once translating between an Indonesian guide and a North American pastor. The pastor asked if the guide could take him to Tomohon the next day.
The guide said, “Yes.” I translated, “Maybe.”
The pastor then asked if the guide was available the following day.
The guide replied, “Maybe.” I translated, “Probably not.” That’s what the guide meant.
Western readers are sometimes bothered by what appear to be discrepancies between the sayings of Jesus. In Luke 14:26, Jesus says, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.” Matthew records the saying differently: “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Mt 10:37). These two statements don’t mean the same thing in English. In English, to hate is not the same as to love one thing less than something else. I love my cat less than I love my wife, but that doesn’t mean that I hate my cat. So it may seem to us that we have two different sayings of Jesus.
Not necessarily. One likely explanation is that Luke translated (from Aramaic into Greek) what Jesus said and that Matthew translated what Jesus meant. Assuming that the first Gospel was written by the disciple Matthew, he was a native speaker of Aramaic. Matthew was already accustomed to moving between languages. Luke, a native Greek speaker, didn’t know what went without being said in the usage of Aramaic. Middle Easterners then (and now) prefer dramatic language, what Bruce Metzger calls “picturesque speech.” We were reminded recently in a dramatic way when CNN covered elections in Afghanistan. There were some irregularities at one of the polling stations, and protestors were shouting. The English subtitles read: “Death to the Vote Counters!” Really? Death? Well, that was probably a literal translation. We suspect what they meant was, “We’re really upset!”
This problem—that language doesn’t always say what is meant—is due in part to the way the English language works. English is a subject-verb language; it is actor- and action-oriented. We prefer sentences with a clear subject and a clear predicate, and we like it best when the verb is in the active voice. It is difficult to construct a meaningful sentence in English without a subject. Even when we describe the weather (“It is raining”), we supply a subject (“it”). Other languages can manage without a subject in these situations; in Indonesian, one can say, “Exists rain.” More significant than mere grammar, many languages are content with no real subject or actor in a sentence. One day as the sun broke out after the afternoon rains, I (Randy) looked out into the front yard of our house in Indonesia and saw that our young son’s tricycle was broken. We had brought it from the United States, and it would not be easy to replace. I was exasperated. I asked Jacob’s Indonesian friends what happened. They replied, “The tricycle is broken”—a perfectly good Indonesian sentence. I asked, “Who broke the tricycle?” The question caught them by surprise. Indonesian isn’t set up to express that kind of cause and effect. The proper way to state it was, “The tricycle is broken.”
But English cries out for a subject. In sentences without a stated subject, one is always implied (“[You] Bring me that stapler”). Because English “needs” a subject, we tend to provide one. This is why, as we pointed out above, “Blessed are the peacemakers” turns in our minds to “God blesses the peacemakers.” We don’t make this adjustment on purpose. But it goes to show how thoroughly our English language (even grammar, which we might not be able to explain) affects the way we think. This also helps to explain why teachers and professors systematically beat the passive voice out of students’ writing. Instead of writing “The epistle to the Romans was written by the apostle Paul,” our grammar teachers have told us to write, “Paul wrote the epistle to the Romans.” We prefer clear, direct language in which agency and action is easy to understand. When we run across writing in the passive voice, we might suspect the author is trying to be vague and confusing on purpose (as in so-called legalese).
Yet biblical writers often liked the passive voice. “Son, your sins are forgiven” (Mk 2:5). Western scholars call this the “divine passive,” in which the agent/subject (God) is implied. “All things work together for our good” is probably the better way to
translate Romans 8:28. Yet we commonly read it as “God works all things together for our good.” Sometimes we assign agency (and thus motives) where the biblical text is actually silent. Sometimes we also imply that direct action is required on our part when the text is less direct. A frequent translation of John 14:1 reads, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” The English suggests that I need to take action over my heart. Yet, in John’s text, Jesus is giving the command to the hearts of his disciples to stop being troubled. In our minds, that doesn’t even really make sense. But perhaps Jesus understood that we humans have less control of our hearts than we like to admit.
The whole is more than the sum of the parts. The meanings of words change when you combine them. We know this is true on a basic level. We can define the words up and with. So we can figure out a sentence like, “Put this book up with the others.” We also know that put up with can have a completely different meaning: for example, why we put up with English being so complex is a mystery to us! We instinctively adjust to these flexible meanings in our own language. But when we approach other languages, we tend to look for the literal, dictionary definitions of the words in question.
Joining words together, though, can be far more significant than merely vocabulary. Some words have special meanings when they are paired with other words. In the New Testament, for example, the word charis means “grace.” Pistis means “faith.” What we didn’t know until recently—what went without being said in Paul’s day—was that those two words together described the relationship between a patron and his or her client.
In the Roman world of the New Testament, business was conducted through an elaborate system of patrons and clients.[5] When we watch the movie The Godfather, we are seeing the modern remains of the ancient Roman patronage system. Like Marlon Brando who played the godfather in the movie, the ancient patron was a wealthy and powerful individual (male or female) who looked after his or her “friends” (clients). The complex world of Roman governmental bureaucracy, the far-reaching tentacles of the banking system (usually temples) and the pervasive and powerful grasp of the trade guilds made it impossible for ordinary craftspeople or farmers to conduct business on their own. They were entirely dependent upon their patrons. Like most unwritten cultural rules, everyone knew what was expected of a patron and a client, even though expectations weren’t engraved on a wall. Everyone knew a patron’s role was to solve problems for his or her clients, whether it was trouble with the local trade guilds, refinancing a loan or smoothing over tensions with city leaders. When Paul was staying in Thessalonica, it was reasonable to expect Jason to handle the “Paul problem,” which he did by asking Paul to leave town (Acts 17).
In that world, an ordinary craftsman or farmer didn’t have the social skills or connections or wealth to negotiate with the various powerbrokers of a city. He would seek out an individual, a patron, to help. Marlon Brando captures the sentiment well. The local merchant wants help. The godfather says, “So you want me to do you this favor?” Both sides understand the agreement: the godfather solves the problem, and the merchant now must be loyal to the godfather and be ready to help if he is ever summoned. In the Roman system, likewise, the client couldn’t earn the “favor”; the patron showed “kindness” to help. Seneca, a philosopher from Paul’s time, said the patron and the client had a relationship, a form of friendship.[6] The client was now a “friend” of the patron, but not a peer. The client was expected to reciprocate with loyalty, public praise, readiness to help the patron (as much as he could) and, most importantly, gratitude.[7] This kind gift had strings attached. (All gifts in antiquity had strings attached.[8]) Seneca called it “a sacred bond.”[9] The recipient of the gift was obligated to reciprocate. Paul introduced Lydia to Christianity (Acts 16). She reciprocated by hosting Paul and his team at her estate.
The language of patronage permeated everyday life. We know well the Christian terms grace and faith, but these were common before Paul used them. They were part of the language of patronage. When the patron gave unmerited gifts of assistance, these were commonly called charis, meaning “grace/gift.”[10] The client responded with faithfulness to the patron, called pistis, or “faith.”[11] We see that when Paul explained our new relationship with God, he used something everyone understood: the ancient system of patronage.[12] Taken together, this vocabulary—so central to the Christian faith—means something different than the sum of its parts.[13]
Clarity over Ambiguity: Hard Facts Are Better Than Frilly Words
Americans have a divided mind when it comes to language. On the one hand, the English language is full of remarkable figures of speech and metaphorical language. For example, the folks I (Brandon) grew up with in the South had a simile or metaphor for nearly every occasion. If someone appeared shocked or surprised about something, an onlooker might observe he “looks like a calf at a new gate.” If there was something not quite right about someone, we might say she was “a half-bubble off plumb.” If someone’s work had been particularly hectic, he might say he’d been “busier than a one-armed paper hanger on a windy day.” You could be as “nervous as a cat in a room full of rockers.” This colorful, colloquial language is proudly preserved in casual conversation. But when it comes to formal dialogue, or talking about things we consider important (God, for example), English speakers tend to privilege clear, propositional language over colorful, metaphorical language. That concrete, propositional language is better than ambiguous, metaphorical language is just one more thing about language that goes without being said in the West.
So when it comes to communicating the truth, Westerners drift more toward propositions than to artistic expression. Because we are somewhat uncomfortable with the ambiguity of metaphors, we tend to distill propositions out of them. We want to know what they mean, in categorical terms. A philosophical description of God (“omnipresent”) is better than an anthropomorphic one (“his eyes roam to and fro throughout the land”). Or so we think. This is why books on Jesus often talk more about the facts of his life than his parables. To us, things like metaphors and parables sometimes seem like unnecessarily frilly packages for a hard truth. We want to get past the packaging to the content; we want to know what it means. These assumptions about the value of propositions and our unease with ambiguous language put us at something of a disadvantage when it comes to reading the Bible. The biblical writers didn’t make the distinctions we make regarding when metaphorical and potentially ambiguous language is appropriate. We relegate it mainly to informal communication. But the writers of Scripture recorded the profoundest truth in similes, metaphors, parables and other colorful and expressive (and potentially ambiguous) forms of language.
The tension is eased somewhat when we account for differences in genre. Language behaves differently in different literary genres. Imagine that you are playing cards. You see in your hand an ace of spades. Is that good or bad? It depends upon whether you’re playing Spades or Hearts, and actually can be more nuanced than that. Likewise in language: the game determines the rules. “The mountains leaped like rams” is a true, authoritative, relevant and beautiful statement when it is in a poem, but it would be nonsense in a geology textbook (Ps 114:4). In one historical text, we are told that the Lord “drove the sea back with a strong east wind” until it was divided, but in the subsequent song, we are told, “By the blast of your nostrils the waters piled up. The surging waters stood up like a wall; the deep waters congealed in the heart of the sea” (Ex 14:21; 15:8). These statements do not contradict each other; the game has simply determined the rules. In a song, you can use phrases like “by the blast of your nostrils.” In fact, sometimes poetry says it better; I like “piling the water up” a lot more than the idea that an east wind just blew back the water.
Technically, when we say the game determines the rules, we are saying that genre influences how something is to be understood. Some biblical genres, such as apocalyptic literature, are not used in our culture today. The book of Revelation is apocalypti
c, as are parts of Daniel. Such books reveal or unveil the mysteries of God about the future and make heavy use of symbolism, often involving numbers and animals. The present time is described as dire, and just when it appears things cannot get worse, God intervenes and rescues his people for a glorious future. While we may understand the big picture, the details are very confusing for those unfamiliar with this genre. We struggle to make sense of horsemen and bowls of wrath and strange hybrid animal creatures. Right in the middle of a natural disaster, a guy rides by on a horse. What’s up with that? This genre is foreign to us.
But we have our own unusual genres. While I (Randy) was in the jungles of Indonesia, a new genre of film entered American culture: the slasher film. When you know the genre of something, you can know a lot about it without reading or seeing it. If you know that a movie is a slasher film, then before you even see it you know to expect poorly lit scenes, excessive amounts of cutlery, people closing doors and then items crashing through them, and women who cannot run more than ten feet without falling down. You will also be prepared to close your eyes if someone is shown in the shower—and not just because they are naked. Likewise, people know what to expect when we are told a movie is a chick flick. There will be no automobiles flipping over and exploding in slow motion. If you are told a biblical book is in the apocalyptic genre, you know before you even open it that there will be trumpets, plagues, stars, books, strange animals and lots and lots of numbers.
Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes Page 8
