Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes
Page 23
Brandon O’Brien
Resources for Further Exploration
Introduction: Coming to Terms with Our Cultural Blinders
For a great general introduction to the differences between how Westerners and non-Westerners think, see:
Nisbett, Richard. The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently . . . and Why. New York: Free Press, 2003.
For more on the changing demographics of Christians worldwide and the implications of these changes for biblical interpretation, see:
Jenkins, Philip. The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
———. The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Kenneth Bailey’s work in this area is excellent and quite readable. We highly recommend his books for exploring this topic. For an introduction to the ways being unaware of our cultural blind spots has affected the way Westerners conceive of church, see especially:
Bailey, Kenneth E. Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2008.
Rah, Soong-Chan. The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2009.
For an introduction to how non-Western Christians (and minority Western Christians) understand the task and challenges of theology (and how that affects biblical interpretation), see:
Felder, Cain Hope, ed. Stony the Road We Trod: African American Biblical Interpretation. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991.
Fields, Bruce L. Introducing Black Theology: Three Crucial Questions for the Evangelical Church. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001.
Greenman, Jeffrey P. and Gene L. Green, ed. Global Theology in Evangelical Perspective: Exploring the Contextual Nature of Theology and Mission. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2012.
Parratt, John, ed. An Introduction to Third World Theologies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Chapter 1: Serving Two Masters
The best general books on biblical values are:
Pilch, John J., and Bruce J. Malina, ed. Biblical Social Values and Their Meaning: A Handbook. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 1993.
Rohrbaugh, Richard L., ed. The Social Sciences and New Testament Interpretation. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003.
For more specific values, see:
Campbell, Ken M., ed. Marriage and Family in the Biblical World. Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2003.
Cohick, Lynn H. Women in the World of the Earliest Christians: Illuminating Ancient Ways of Life. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009.
Ebeling, Jennie R. Women’s Lives in Biblical Times. New York: T & T Clark International, 2010.
Hanson, K. C., and Douglas E. Oakman. Palestine in the Time of Jesus: Social Structures and Social Conflicts. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998.
Pohl, Christine D. Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999.
Chapter 2: The Bible in Color
A great treatment of the biblical perspective on race and ethnicity is:
Hays, J. Daniel. From Every People and Nation: A Biblical Theology of Race. Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2003.
For specific discussions of race in the Bible, see:
Adamo, David T. Africa and Africans in the Old Testament. San Francisco: Christian Universities Press, 1998.
Bilde, Per. et al., ed. Ethnicity in Hellenistic Egypt. Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus University, 1992.
Brenner, Athalya. Color Terms in the Old Testament, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Supplement Series 21. Sheffield: Sheffield, 1982.
Brett, Mark G. Ethnicity and the Bible. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996.
Copher, Charles B. “Three Thousand Years of Biblical Interpretation with Reference to Black Peoples.” In African American Religious Studies, edited by Gayraud Wilmore, 105-28. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1989.
Hall, Jonathan M. Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Snowden, Frank M. “Attitudes towards Blacks in the Greek and Roman World: Misinterpretations of the Evidence.” In Africa and Africans in Antiquity, edited by Edwin Yamauchi, 246-75. East Lansing: Michigan State University, 2001.
For discussions of race in Western Christianity, see:
Emerson, Michael O., and Christian Smith. Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Keener, Craig S., and Glenn Usry. Defending Black Faith: Answers to Tough Questions about African-American Christianity. Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 1997.
McNeil, Brenda Salter, and Rick Richardson. The Heart of Racial Justice: How Soul Change Leads to Social Change. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2004.
Okholm, Dennis L., ed. The Gospel in Black and White: Theological Resources for Racial Reconciliation. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1997.
Pearse, Meic. Why the Rest Hates the West: Understanding the Roots of Global Rage. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2004.
Perkins, Spencer, and Chris Rice. More than Equals: Racial Healing for the Sake of the Gospel. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2000.
Chapter 3: Just Words?
Although the following is a rather technical read, McGilchrist has a great chapter on the nature of language in the Western mind:
McGilchrist, Iain. The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2010.
Some readers may find discussions of the biblical languages helpful, such as:
Moule, C. F. D. An Idiom Book of New Testament Greek. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968.
Chapter 4: Captain of My Soul
We consider fiction to be a great way to gain an understanding of the mindset of collectivist cultures. Here are a few that have been enlightening for us:
Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. New York: Anchor, 1959.
Endo, Shusaku. The Samurai. Translated by Van C. Gessel. New York: New Directions Books, 1982.
This book illustrates the challenge of maintaining a collectivist religious worldview in individualist America:
Potok, Chaim. The Chosen. New York: Ballantine Books, 1996. First published 1967.
There are also helpful treatments of the differences between individualist and collectivist cultures in books on crosscultural communication, such as:
Elmer, Duane. Cross-Cultural Connections: Stepping Out and Fitting In Around the World. Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2002.
As for study Bibles, we recommend the following:
NIV Study Bible. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002.
ESV Study Bible. Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Bibles, 2008.
Chapter 5: Have You No Shame?
For general introductions to the topic of honor and shame and how it affects biblical interpretation, see:
deSilva, David A. Honor, Patronage, Kinship & Purity: Unlocking New Testament Culture. Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2000.
Neyrey, Jerome H. Honor and Shame in the Gospel of Matthew. Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998.
For a brief introduction to the way our Western assumptions about the power of internal conscience affects how we read the Bible, see:
Stendahl, Krister. “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West,” Harvard Theological Review 56 (1963): 199-215.
Chapter 6: Sand Through the Hourglass
Because it is a novel, the following has limited value for explaining a Western view of time. But Vonnegut capitalizes on Western assumptions about the relationship between time (and especially chronology) and meaning:
Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death. New York: Dell Publishing, 1991. First published 1966.
A brief attempt to explain an Eastern understanding
of time, from an Indian point of view, can be found at:
Nakamura, Hajime. “The Notion of Time in India.” Accessed February 18, 2012, www.drury.edu/ ess/ Culture/ indian.htm.
For a technical survey, see:
Aveni, Anthony F. Empires of Time: Calendars, Clocks, and Cultures. New York: Tauris Parke, 2000.
Chapter 7: First Things First
For a technical discussion to assist American attorneys working with the Japanese, see:
Minami, Ken R. “Japanese Thought and Western Law: A Tangential View of Japanese Bengoshi and the Japanese American Attorney,” Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review 301 (1986); http://digitalcommons .lmu.edu/ ilr/ vol8/ iss2/ 4.
For discussions of patronage, see the books by deSilva and Rohrbaugh listed above.
Chapter 8: Getting Right Wrong
Wright, N. T. After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters. New York: HarperCollins, 2010.
Chapter 9: It’s All About Me
For a general introduction to the process of interpretation that takes seriously the differences between meaning and application, see:
Duvall, J. Scott, and J. Daniel Hays. Grasping God’s Word: A Hands-On Approach to Reading, Interpreting, and Applying the Bible. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001.
Notes
Introduction
1Eugene Peterson, The Pastor: A Memoir (New York: HarperOne, 2011), p. 231.
2Ibid.
3The relationship of the Bible to its original cultures is complicated. Sometimes the Bible espouses a value that was foreign even to the ancient cultures in which it was written, such as restrictions on escalating violence (only an eye for an eye) or Paul’s condemnation of sex outside of marriage. Other times a biblical value has so permeated modern culture that it has lost its original countercultural impact, such as forgiving those who wrong us.
4Mark Allan Powell, “The Forgotten Famine: Personal Responsibility in Luke’s Parable of ‘the Prodigal Son,’” in Literary Encounters with the Reign of God, ed. Sharon H. Ringe and H. C. Paul Kim (New York: T & T Clark International, 2004).
5For example, the French translation (NEG 1979) calls him the “lost son” as does the Indonesian (LAI); the German (HOF) titles it “the parable of the two sons.”
6For more on this, see the first chapter (“Where You Start Determines Where You Finish: The Role of Presuppositions in Studying the Life of Jesus”) in Robert Stein, Jesus the Messiah (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1996).
7Philip Jenkins, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 3.
8Soong-Chan Rah, The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2009), p. 16.
Chapter 1: Serving Two Masters
1According to Wikipedia, “Sometimes referred to as ‘Christian cards’ or ‘missionary poker,’ Rook playing cards were introduced by Parker Brothers in 1906 to provide an alternative to standard playing cards for those in the Puritan tradition or Mennonite culture who considered the face cards in a regular deck inappropriate because of their association with gambling and cartomancy” (“Rook (card game),” Wikipedia, last modified January 28, 2012, http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Rook_(card_game)).
2See Eric Reed, “Trouble Brewing: Is a Relaxed Attitude Toward Alcohol Among Clergy Leading to a New Battle Over Prohibition?” Leadership Journal 30, no. 2 (Spring 2009): 35-38.
3For a helpful account of Christian views of theater in England and the American colonies before the Great Awakening, and of how preachers like Whitefield utilized theatrical elements in their preaching, see Harry S. Stout, The Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991).
4We are not using the term compromise negatively here. The adoption of a more theatrical approach to Christian worship has had serious consequences, both positive and negative. Our point here is simply to illustrate our desire to resolve the tension we often experience when Christian and secular mores conflict.
5Ancients understood the inhabited world as a disc surrounded by the “Outer Sea.” “The ends of the earth” were the cardinal endpoints on the rim of the disc: the Arctic on the North, India on the East, Ethiopia on the South and Spain on the West. This is likely why Luke mentions that the eunuch was from Ethiopia (an otherwise unnecessary note). According to early tradition, Paul took the gospel to the “western end of the earth,” meaning Gibraltar. We see the early church took Jesus’ command quite seriously. See E. Earle Ellis, “‘The End of the Earth’ (Acts 1:8),” Bulletin for Biblical Research 1 (1991): 123-32.
6Eusebius, The Church History 3.1. We recommend the translation and commentary by Paul L. Maier (Grand Rapids: Kregel Academic, 2007), p. 80. Incidentally, Thomas likely is getting a bad rap. The Gospel of John uses Thomas as the ideal professor of faith. Throughout the fourth Gospel, disciples assert beliefs about Jesus, all of them true but inadequate. Finally, after the resurrection, Thomas makes the correct full profession of faith: “My Lord and my God!” (Jn 20:28).
7See J. K. Elliott, The Apocryphal New Testament: A Collection of Apocryphal Christian Literature in an English Translation Based on M. R. James (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). Western Christians tend to be dismissive of this tradition, but there is little reason to discount it. Christian presence in the East is quite early, as the existence of Christian imagery in Chinese script suggests.
8Paul’s views on marriage are debated. See Margaret MacDonald, “Marriage, NT,” in The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, ed. K. D. Sakenfeld (Nashville: Abingdon, 2008), 3:812-18. Also, see Bruce Winter, Roman Wives, Roman Widows: The Appearance of New Women and the Pauline Communities (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003).
9Christine Gardner, author of Making Chastity Sexy: The Rhetoric of Evangelical Abstinence Campaigns (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011), offers interesting insights on this topic in an interview with Christianity Today (November 2011), available online at www.christianitytoday.com/ ct/ 2011/ november/ making-chastity-sexy-interview.html.
10 Albert Mohler, “Looking Back at ‘The Mystery of Marriage’–Part One,” August 19, 2004, accessed May 31, 2011, www.albertmohler.com/ 2004/ 08/ 19/ looking-back-at-the-mystery-of-marriage-part-one/ .
11Christian tradition has privileged singleness. One night St. Francis of Assisi was tempted by the devil to leave the chaste life and start a family. In typically dramatic Franciscan fashion, the monk “went out into the garden and plunged his poor naked body into the deep snow. Then with handfuls of snow he began to form seven snowmen, which he presented to himself, saying to his body: ‘Look, this larger one is your wife; those four are your two sons and two daughters; the other two are a servant and a maid whom you should have to serve you. Hurry, then, and clothe them since they are dying of cold. But if it is too much for you to care for so many, then take care to serve one Master!’” (Bonaventure, The Life of St. Francis, trans. Ewert Cousins. Harper Collins Spiritual Classics [San Francisco: HarperSanFranciso, 2005], p. 47).
12Albert Y. Hsu offers an excellent brief overview of the history of Christian views on marriage and singleness in Singles at the Crossroads: A Fresh Perspective on Christian Singleness (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1997), pp. 32-47.
13John Stott, “John Stott on Singleness,” Christianity Today (August 2011), www.christianitytoday.com/ ct/ 2011/ augustweb-only/ johnstottsingleness.html. Emphasis added.
14Sarah Ruden, Paul Among the People: The Apostle Reinterpreted and Reimagined in His Own Time (New York: Pantheon Books, 2010). Our argument here draws upon pp. 72-118.
15Roman women had more freedom than is commonly thought but were restricted in ways that sometimes surprise. Furthermore, the role of women in the Roman Empire was undergoing significant changes during New Testament times. See Winter, Roman Wives, Roman Widows.
16Erik Eckholm, “Unmarried Pastor, Seeking a Job, Sees Bia
s,” The New York Times (March 22, 2011), www.nytimes.com/ 2011/ 03/ 22/ us/ 22pastor.html?pagewanted=all. The story is about Mark Almlie, who has had trouble finding a job as a pastor because of his marital status. He originally described his experience on the blog Out of Ur (ltwww.outofur.com). See “Are We Afraid of Single Pastors?” (January 31, 2011) and “Are We Afraid of Single Pastors (Part 2)” (February 15, 2011).
17Mason Locke Weems, The Life of George Washington (Philadelphia: Joseph Allen, 1833), p. 206.
18“California Superintendent Gives $800,000 in Salary Back to Schools,” Associated Press, August 31, 2011, www.foxnews.com/ us/ 2011/ 08/ 31/ california-superintendent-gives-800000-in-salary-back-to-schools/ #ixzz1Whtj8YSR.
19See Bruce Winter, After Paul Left Corinth: the Influence of Secular Ethics and Social Change (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), esp. pp. 127-30.
20We are speaking here primarily of white Westerners. The reasons for formal dress on Sundays are somewhat different in other communities, including among African American Christians.
21North Americans often enjoy commenting upon Asians eating dogs, often with a condescending tone. Michael Romanowski and Teri McCarthy tell the story of a Chinese couple hosted in a North American home. They were appalled that the hosts allowed a filthy animal (a dog) to eat under their table and poop on the floor; Teaching in a Distant Classroom: Crossing Borders for Global Transformation (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2009), pp. 34-36.
22Khaled Diab, “Why Muslims Don’t Pig Out,” The Guardian, July 2, 2008, www.guardian.co.uk/ commentisfree/ 2008/ jul/ 02/ islam.religion.