09 March 2024
Yes, I'm going to jump right into another book: Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes by E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O'Brien (IVP Books 2012; ISBN 978-0-8308-3782-3 print edition).
In the Introduction I have already learned something new. In John's Revelation, the letter to Laodecia mentions hot and cold water, and how the church was lukewarm. The city did not have direct access to water, not even a well. Most of us have already heard about the hot springs from Hierapolis, a city nearby, and how the water could be piped from there. We knew that it arrived lukewarm, having lost its heat and no longer very useful. What I did not know was that Colossae was off in the other direction, visible from Laodecia. There was a cold freshwater spring there. If that freshwater was piped in, it would have warmed up enough to become lukewarm, same as with the other water source.
We are taught by most Bible teachers that this means Laodecia was spiritually lukewarm (nominal). The notion that God was telling them He would rather they were spiritually hot ("on fire for God") or cold ("lost and going to Hell") is not in the passage. It's read back into it by modern evangelical revivalism. The book goes on to note that this is not at all what it would have meant to the folks in John's time who were the first to read his revelation.
The authors echo something I've taught in the past: The most important stuff not in the Bible is the vast wealth of things the readers and writers took for granted. It requires a bit of training and special awareness to help someone from another culture understand your own. While the Gentile authors seem to be aware of the need to state some less than obvious issues (such as Luke telling readers that Jews and Samaritans didn't socialize with each other), the Hebrew authors seem wholly unaware that their material would some day be read in other languages by people from other cultures. More to the point, they had no idea about the as-yet unborn Western Civilization and its cultural biases.
We have enough confusion and misunderstandings between westerners as it is, because our culture teaches us to be entirely unconscious of so very much that we take for granted, assumptions that are not shared across the culture. The authors cite another example. Paul says women cannot lead men because Adam was made first. Does it occur to anyone that this refers to primogeniture? Adam came first and the privilege of leadership always goes to the firstborn.
And how is that Americans in particular read Luke's account of the Prodigal Son and never seem to notice that a famine is what drove the young man to return home? Someone did a test to have a diverse bunch of people read the passage silently and retell it in their own words. A mere 6% mentioned the famine. But Americans always forgot it, treating it as an irrelevant plot device. Christians in other cultures don't use the word "prodigal" (wasteful) in naming the parable. Their orientation is less on condemning the boy's profligate habits and more on God's faithfulness when all hope is gone.
This is just the introduction. The book is divided in three parts. The first examines rather obvious cultural differences between the West and others (West in general, but Americans in particular). The second part examines somewhat less obvious differences, while the third goes after differences we hardly know about. This isn't really about how the rest of the world sees things, but simply how Americans do. The authors hope to point out the biases that cause us to imagine somehow that a western Christian reading of the Bible is normative for all of humanity.
The authors have some background ministering in foreign cultures and learned a great deal. This is hardly a multi-cultie call for sensitivity and diversity. The issue is that our witness to future generations will be dead if we don't at least give some thought to the issue of our assumptions that may turn out to be missing the point in our gospel message.
I can tell you that, for myself, I'm often feeling marginalized because my upbringing in America is rather unconventional. It's not a question of having a background that should grant me some kind of moral privilege, but that I already know my value system is quite different, and yet I am a white male born in the USA. The point is that I've already become a little sensitive about the differences over just the few things I think about differently than the mainstream.
It appears the authors add "questions to ponder" in various places to help you think through the issues. This makes an excellent textbook for rethinking expository Bible reading.
Comments
Jay DiNitto
Hey, good! I have this on my list to read as well... I think I mentioned that here at some point? Good to know it has something worthwhile in it.
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