Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible in VT Christian Reading Challenge

Feb 18, 2023 Abigail Westbrook rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2023-books-read

Wow, what a fascinating book! It untwists many commonly misunderstood passages and shines new light on the way the original authors and audiences would have understood them. Even passages that feel obscure and hard to understand in our culture make perfect sense when understood from a different perspective. There are a few points I’m not sure I can completely get on board with (ie, did David really feel no guilt for his sin with Bathsheba until Nathan came?), but overall it is a book I would hig ...more

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Aug 29, 2021 N. rated it really liked it

A fascinating and insightful work that both drives home and fleshes out the hermeneutical concept of “context is king”.

When it comes to biblical interpretation, it’s not just about reading the surrounding passages to gauge meaning but also having an awareness of the historic, sociocultural context in which the passages were written. This is important because “interpretation leads to practice” and “language does not always say what is meant”. And if discipleship is about imitating and obeying Je A fascinating and insightful work that both drives home and fleshes out the hermeneutical concept of “context is king”.

When it comes to biblical interpretation, it’s not just about reading the surrounding passages to gauge meaning but also having an awareness of the historic, sociocultural context in which the passages were written. This is important because “interpretation leads to practice” and “language does not always say what is meant”. And if discipleship is about imitating and obeying Jesus, we need to ensure we understand what Jesus is asking of us.

Consequently, I felt it was a good exercise in self-awareness about how much I have been influenced by conflicting cultures—both Western and non-Western, right/wrong and honour/shame, individualist and collectivist.

I also appreciated the background to philosophies of translation and the emphasis on reading multiple translations rather than esteeming only one. I felt that the authors could’ve gone a bit deeper in naming and explaining concepts like formal, dynamic and optimal equivalence. I listened to this as an audiobook, so perhaps there is included a chart of all the translations arranged according to their philosophy. But there was no indication of this from the text.

Nevertheless, I was reminded of the attempt I made at translating a contemporary Christian song into the language of my native ethnic tribe. It’s a project I began a few years ago, and I haven’t finished, partly because I simply haven’t touched it much since then but also because it was definitely a challenge and perhaps a taste of the experience of a Bible translator’s agony.

One thing that didn’t completely sit well with me was the discussion about relationships. While it was interesting to learn about how collectivist cultures view Western dating, I do not think it follows that we need to adopt such practices wholesale. Evangelical courtship (and “purity”) culture has proved destructive for many, perhaps because we are attempting to apply a model of relationships best suited in an overall collectivist society rather than plucked and implemented into an individualist one. Either way, I think we can be balanced here. It is good and wise to date in community, and to seek feedback from trusted people who mean well for us in all sincerity and with balance. However, it is not healthy to force a couple, who are otherwise living and existing in an individualist context, only to interact with one another strictly in the company of others. Your choice of partner needs to make sense (in non-shallow ways) to your people, but that doesn’t mean every single interaction must be mediated by them.

In turn, I particularly enjoyed the discussion about the story of David, Bathsheba and Uriah in terms of honour/shame society. I have heard a range of different interpretations of the story—including those which suggest Bathsheba was effectively raped—but this one was more interesting, perhaps because it has all the shady and petty bearings of a soap opera. Funny but not funny.

Overall, it is a really good read, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking to better understand the Bible and make sense of it first before making sense of how its contents apply to us. ...more

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Mar 23, 2017 Travis Gilbert rated it liked it

Excellent thesis. The Bible is a Holy Spirit inspired - God-breathed - book, but the men inspired were from a specific culture and era. We must not read into the text our cultural biases and perspectives. We do that more often than we think.

While I agree with and appreciate the book's premise, the execution of that big idea is weak. The authors paint with way too broad a brush, and in seeking to not misread the scriptures with Western lenses, they instead overstep with the "Eastern" cultural pe ...more

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Apr 09, 2024 Jordan Shirkman rated it really liked it

A bit of a mixed bag, rounded up from 3.5 stars. It has some good insight into culture that we can overlook (“It is culture that supplies the connotations of a word”), but there are some problematic parts about race relations and freedom.

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