Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes

by E. Randolph Richards

  23C. S. Lewis, “Introduction,” in Athanasius, On the Incarnation (Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1996), pp. 4-5.

  24See, for example, E. Randolph Richards, “Stop Lying,” Biblical Illustrator (Spring 1999): 77-80.

  Chapter 2: The Bible in Color

  1Kwame Anthony Appiah, “Race,” in Critical Terms for Literary Study, ed. Frank Lentricchia and Thomas McLaughlin (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), p. 276.

  2We won’t even consider the prejudice some North American Christians might express: “How dare a Korean presume to come to America to start a church, unless it is a Korean-American church?”

  3J. Daniel Hays has done a fine job pointing out that maps of the ancient world very often locate Cush in modern Ethiopia, which is the wrong place. He wonders if scholars are trying to keep the Cushites from being black, which they were. See Hays, “Racial Bias in the Academy . . . Still?” Perspectives in Religious Studies 34, no. 3 (Fall 2007): 320-21.

  4Henry Preserved Smith, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Books of Samuel (New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1899), p. 359.

  5Hays, “Racial Bias in the Academy,” p. 323.

  6J. Daniel Hays, From Every People and Nation: A Biblical Theology of Race, New Studies in Biblical Theology (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2003), pp. 88-103.

  7The matter may be more complicated, as recent scholarly discussions show. Most of us assume that Jew equals Israelite. Yet Jews, Galileans, Samaritans and Idumeans were all Israelites. Paul in his letters never refers to himself as a Jew, but as an Israelite (Rom 11:1). Some scholars are insisting that “Jew” should be translated “Judean,” as the Greek literally means. Thus, a “Jew” (Judean) was an Israelite who insisted that God was worshiped at the temple in Judea. A Samaritan was an Israelite who insisted that God was worshiped at the temple in Samaria. Traditionally, Western scholars have painted the difference between Jews and Samaritans as ethnic and not religious.

  8Luke Timothy Johnson, The Acts of the Apostles, Sacra Pagina 5 (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1992), p. 105.

  9The distinction is difficult to explain in English, because we don’t have a word for a difference that was very important to them. Some Jews were raised in homes where Greek was the primary language. These Jews were called “hellenists” (from Hellas, meaning “Greece”) or “Grecian Jews.” Other Jews were raised in homes where Hebrew (or, more likely, Aramaic) was spoken. These Jews were called “Hebraists” or Hebrew-speaking. Usually, this distinction was also geographic. Jews raised in Palestine were Hebrew-speaking. Jews raised outside Palestine (in the Diaspora, the “dispersion”) were Greek-speaking. Since Greek was the common language of the eastern Roman Empire, a Jew from Alexandria, Egypt or Babylon would still be termed a Grecian Jew. This distinction often carried religious overtones as well. Hebraists, or Hebrew-speaking Jews, often considered Hellenistic Jews less diligent in their practice of religion.

  10The family tree is a little confusing. See Gen 41:50-52; 50:22-23 and 1 Chron 2:21-23.

  11Technically, “up” referred to elevation. Jerusalem was on a mountain, so one traveled “up” to get there. Nonetheless, writers noted this when referring to Jerusalem. Note the contrast: “go up to offer sacrifices at the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem” (1 Kings 12:27) and “the people came to worship the one at Bethel and went as far as Dan to worship the other” (12:30). They did not go “up” to Bethel, even though Bethel was one thousand feet higher than Jerusalem.

  12It is possible the man merely objects to purchasing land that included a widow of any kind, but this seems less likely. A widow was usually involved in this sort of purchase. It is also possible the kinsman wasn’t expected to be held to the law and Boaz was indicating that it was expected. But these are suppositions without textual clues. “Moabite” is actually in the text of their comments. We think the repetition is important.

  13Jack E. White, “Prejudice? Perish the Thought,” Time 153, no. 9 (March 8, 1999): 36.

  Chapter 3: Just Words?

  1See, e.g., John B. Carroll, ed., Language Thought and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf (Boston: MIT Press, 1956).

  2The very insightful work of Ruby K. Payne demonstrates how our social class worldview is reflected in our language patterns. For example, Payne shows two very different ways to tell the “Cinderella story,” depending upon one’s social class. See Payne, “The Role of Language and Story,” in A Framework for Understanding Poverty (Highlands, Tex.: aha! Process, Inc, 2005).

  3Most of us have said at some point, “I feel . . . I don’t know . . . It’s hard to describe.” Words like Schadenfreude or Sehnsucht have entered our English conversations because we have felt that way but didn’t know how to describe it in English. It is more than just words, though. Wikipedia defines Sehnsucht as “difficult to translate adequately and describes a deep emotional state . . . The stage director and author Georg Tabori called Sehnsucht one of those quasi-mystical terms in German for which there is no satisfactory corresponding term in another language” (“Sehnsucht,” Wikipedia, last modified March 17, 2012, http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Sehnsucht).

  4See Henry Bettenson and Chris Maunder, Documents of the Christian Church, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 206.

  5I have described the Roman patronage system in E. Randolph Richards, “Flattery, Favors and Obligations: Patrons and Clients in Greco-Roman Culture,” The Biblical Illustrator (Spring 2011). See also the fine description in David A. deSilva, Honor, Patronage, Kinship and Purity (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2000).

  6Seneca, Ben. 6.16.

  7Ibid., 4.18.

  8Jesus was countercultural when he stressed giving without expecting a return (Lk 14:12-13). The Roman world expected and even required reciprocation. Western culture has largely adopted Jesus’ viewpoint; we despise gifts with strings attached.

  9Seneca, Ben. 2.18.5.

  10Plutarch, Mor. 1101B.

  11Seneca, Ben. 1.1.3.

  12In this same way, Paul used another common aspect of Roman society, adoption, to explain other aspects of our new relationship with God (e.g., Rom 8).

  13For more on the significance of the patron-client relationship for biblical interpretation, see chap. 7.

  14By Septuagint, we are referring to the Greek translation of the Old Testament that was in common use in the time of the New Testament.

  15Iain McGilchrist, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2010), p. 117.

  16Note again, in Isaiah, God was looking for fruit from Israel. In the Gospels, Jesus is looking for fruit from Israel (see Mk 11:13).

  17This method of interpretation was called midrash. Its goal was to provide a contemporary application from Scripture. A generation before Jesus, a great Jewish teacher, Hillel, outlined seven “rules” for midrashic interpretation. Jesus’ followers were familiar with this way of reading and applying Scripture.

  Part Two: Just Below the Surface

  1From an interview with Dr. William Smalley in The Wichita Eagle, January 7, 1960, published in Lowell D. Holmes, Anthropology: An Introduction, 2nd ed. (New York: Ronald Press, 1971), p. 311. It can also now be found at http://t4global.org/ pdf/ Psalm.pdf.

  2Plato, Resp. 10. Plato describes good souls as going up and bad souls going down. John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (1670) is a major influence, too.

  3Joseph H. Gilmore (1834-1918).

  Chapter 4: Captain of My Soul

  1Shusaku Endo, The Samurai, trans. Van C. Gessel (New York: New Directions Books, 1982), pp. 164-165.

  2“School Uniforms Pros and Cons,” Libertarian Logic, accessed March 22, 2012, www.libertarian-logic.com/ school-uniforms-pros-and-cons.html.

  3Another great example is the novel by Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (New York: Anchor, 1959), perhaps the most widely read book in all of contemporary African literature. Its insights
into the culture of the Igbo people of Nigeria, the influence of colonizers and Christianity, and the Igbo fight for continued distinctiveness is enlightening.

  4Many of my Asian friends have what they call a “Wal-Mart name,” like my friend Aaron Son. They pick an American first name, often one somewhat similar in sound to their true first name, and then add the family name. They say they do it because we can’t pronounce their names correctly. While that is likely true, it also avoids the problem of us saying their true name backward (given name first).

  5We commonly hear students say, “Freedom is worth fighting for,” as if they are quoting a Scripture. We become quite unpopular when we point out that Jesus didn’t think so. He did not join the Jewish resistance against the Romans. He even told people to turn the other cheek and to walk the second mile. Students often stomp off muttering that Jesus came to set us free (and I suppose, he needs our help fighting).

  6See, for example, Kenneth Bailey, Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2008), p. 36.

  7Becoming pregnant out of wedlock would shame Mary. (See the next chapter.) In our culture, we often ostracize those who are shamed. In Mary’s culture, her entire family would bear the shame and would not think to ostracize her: “she belongs to us.” When Joseph married her, however, the shame would be removed. The child would be considered his. Thus, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” (Lk 4:22).

  8For a detailed description of the practicalities of writing letters in New Testament times, see E. Randolph Richards, Paul and First Century Letter Writing (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2004).

  9Duane Elmer, Cross-Cultural Connections: Stepping Out and Fitting In Around the World (Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2002), p. 138. This field of study largely began with Bruce J. Malina’s The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology (1981) and has burgeoned in the last thirty years with numerous publications by Jerome Neyrey, John J. Pilch, Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Douglas E. Oakman, Philip Esler and Wolfgang Stegemann.

  10Cynthia Long Westfall, “Family in the Gospels and Acts,” in Family in the Bible, ed. Richard S. Hess, M. Daniel Carroll R. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), p. 136.

  11We do not wish to oversimplify. The passages in Titus and Timothy are controversial. We are not suggesting that “family” is the exhaustive solution to understanding this passage. We are noting, though, that family is the overarching metaphor.

  12There are several thorny and interrelated issues at work here, including the struggle by many after the Awakening to secure religious liberty in the American colonies. The decline of an established (i.e., tax-supported) church, the rise of Christian denominations, and the emphasis on voluntary association in church formation contributed to religion becoming an individual (consumer) choice, rather than a matter of family/clan heritage or tradition.

  13We hear a lot in our churches today about everybody belonging, but in practice we are often lacking. We can be accused of having “services” for this group and “ministries” for that group and all kinds of problems arise when the folks from the different groups bump into each other.

  14Rodney Reeves, Spirituality According to Paul: Imitating the Apostle of Christ (Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2011), p. 110.

  15Jessie Kunhardt, “Anne Rice: I Quit Being a Christian,” The Huffington Post, accessed May 15, 2012 www.huffingtonpost.com/ 2010/ 07/ 29/ anne-rice-i-quit-a_n_663915 .html.

  16Unfortunately, you cannot merely read a good translation. The New International Version 2011 (a very good translation) translates 1 Corinthians 6:19 very individualistically: “your bodies are temples.” If the thought of guessing wrong bothers you, find a good study Bible and watch the footnotes. It will alert you when a plural “you” is especially significant. We recommend two good study Bibles in the appendix.

  Chapter 5: Have You No Shame?

  1We know these are dreadfully clunky terms. Guilt-based and shame-based cultures are common terms as well. The attempt to use parallel terms, though, may be misleading. Our American culture is largely a guilt-based culture; the stress is more on guilt rather than innocence. Yet, in many Asian cultures, the stress is more on honor than shame. This is another example of what we discussed in chapter three. In English, we just don’t have a good word for this.

  2This scholarship about honor/shame cultures is actually a fairly recent field of study, and scholars are still quibbling over the terminology a bit. See the pioneering works of Bruce Malina, Richard Rohrbaugh, David deSilva and Jerome Neyrey.

  3Duane Elmer provides a very helpful description of guilt and shame cultures in Cross-Cultural Connections, pp. 171-81.

  4According to Suetonius, Nero would quote it to his friends: occultae musicae nullum esse respectum.

  5Plato, Resp 2. See also H. G. Wells, The Invisible Man (1897), where the invisible man (Griffin) is unable to resist stealing.

  6Richard Nisbett, a psychologist at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, offers helpful perspective here; see The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently and Why (New York: Free Press, 2003).

  7In Indonesian, one translates “guilty” as bersalah, which means to “make a mistake.” A missionary colleague from the United States reminded me (Randy) of the challenge of evangelizing in Hong Kong, using Rom 3.23, where “sin” means a “criminal activity” in Cantonese. Thus, his Hong Kong friends easily disputed Paul’s claim that “all have sinned” (Rom 3:23), since they could assert, “I have never sinned (engaged in criminal activity).”

  8Dayanand Pitamber, “Psychological Enquiry into the Phenomenon of Physical Violence Against Harijans,” quoted in Elmer, Cross-Cultural Connections, p. 172.

  9Elmer, Cross-Cultural Connections, p. 175.

  10In a now-famous essay, theologian Krister Stendahl convinced many New Testament scholars that Paul had no Western inner voice of conscience; see the discussion below and n. 13.

  11Cited in Duane Elmer, Cross-Cultural Connections (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2002), p. 174.

  12King Saul attempts to use shame to motivate his son Jonathan to act appropriately: “Don’t I know that you have sided with the son of Jesse to your own shame and to the shame of the mother who bore you?” (1 Sam 20:30). By using the phrase “to your own shame and to the shame of the mother,” the NIV’s translators, like most Westerners, confuse shame with shaming. What is important to note, however, is that Saul doesn’t tell Jonathan to search his heart to discover what is right; rather, Jonathan is to think about the shaming that he will bring upon himself and his family.

  13Krister Stendahl, “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West,” Harvard Theological Review 56 (1963): 199-215. This essay was the invited address at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association, September 3, 1961.

  14See David A. deSilva, Honor, Patronage, Kinship & Purity (Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2000).

  15Her father’s name, Eliam, means “people of my god,” but it does not use “yah,” which specifically noted the Israelite God.

  16While we have held this interpretation of the story for many years, it is beginning to appear elsewhere. For a recent popular version, see John Bisagno, How to Create and Deliver Purpose Driven® Sermons for Life Applications (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2002), p. 94: “In no way can Bathsheba be pronounced fully innocent in her affair with David.” If we have misread the story and Bathsheba was innocent, then she was coerced and is the victim of rape. We do not condone rape in any scenario, even one that occurs in the Bible. While women are often the victim of violence, it seems to us that this story is told in a way to implicate both her and David.

  17We had to switch to the New American Standard Bible translation, which is more literal. The NIV translates the messenger’s intention, which was to inform the king.

  18Research consistently shows that Western people will act more ethically when made aware of themselves by looking into a mirror. Sam Taute,
“Why Employees Lie (And How to Get Them to Stop),” SmartBlog on Leadership, August 18, 2011, http://smartblogs.com/ leadership/ 2011/ 08/ 18/ why-employees-lie-and-how-to-get-them-to-stop/ .

  19See, for example, Nadya Labi, “An American Honor Killing: One Victim’s Story,” Time, February 25, 2011, www.time.com/ time/ nation/ article/ 0,8599,2055445,00 .html#ixzz1iuMrykKX.

  20We are borrowing Stanley Hauerwas’s term here. He is likely correct in his reading of this passage. See Hauerwas, “The Sanctified Body: Why Perfection Does Not Require a Self,” in Embodied Holiness: Toward a Corporate Theology of Spiritual Growth, ed. Samuel M. Powell and Michael E. Lodahl (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1999), pp. 19-38.

  Chapter 6: Sand Through the Hourglass

  1Duane Elmer, Cross-Cultural Connections: Stepping Out and Fitting In Around the World (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2002), pp. 120-21.

  2We are not claiming that the arrangement of the biblical books is necessarily divinely inspired.

  3One can reasonably argue there is urgency in Jesus’ admonitions to keep watch because you don’t know when the master is returning (Lk 12:35-40). We would suggest, though, that Jesus’ emphasis is on vigilance and not urgency.

  4There are some honor/shame things going on in this story.

  5Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five, or the Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death (New York: Dell Publishing, 1991 [originally published in 1966]), p. 23.

  6Ibid., pp. 85-86.

  7Ibid., p. 88.

  8See, for example, the explanation of Ben Witherington, The Gospel of Mark: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), p. 312.

  9When the temple is destroyed and the people banished, then, as Jeremiah described, “there will be no figs on the tree” (Jer 8:13).