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Language is perhaps the most obvious difference between cultures. It’s the tip of the iceberg, the part of worldview that is clearly visible.
language differences come as no surprise to travelers.
It is culture that supplies the connotations of a word.
Paul said to avoid “obscenity” (Eph 5:4). But who defines obscenity?
In this case, what is true of traveling can also be true of biblical interpretation. Some differences between our Western perspective and that of ancient readers are obvious enough that they don’t result in profound misinterpretation.
“bad company corrupts good character”
Our son had picked up a turn of phrase by watching a movie, which is one way culture is transmitted.
Our hierarchy of what behaviors are better or worse than others is passed down to us culturally and unconsciously. We might assume that our mores are universal and that Christians everywhere have always felt the way we feel about things. But they aren’t, and they haven’t,
What can be more dangerous is that our mores are a lens through which we view and interpret the world.
celibacy was necessary for spiritual growth.
“Sunday best” to church because we claim we want to look our best for God.[20] But God sees us all week. Is it really God for whom we want to look our best?
As these illustrations suggest, biologically edible is a much broader category than culturally edible.
You’ll find venison and duck, for example, in the finest of restaurants. But there were other creatures that sometimes crossed our plates—like squirrels and raccoons and crawfish—that more urban folks in the same region looked down their noses at as “redneck food.” This is to say that the Western eyes with which many Americans view food are middle- to upper-class and educated, well removed from the realities of killing and processing the food they eat.
What we want you to see is that what goes without being said for us concerning certain mores can cause us to misread the Bible.
The “mistakes” of readers from other times and places can illumine our mistakes.
The Bible says all humans are created in God’s image.
We also believe that to understand a culture, you must be aware of ethnicity and especially the prejudices that may exist within a particular culture.
Since these usually go without being said, in the text of Scripture we are left with gaps in the stories.
because we don’t know what went without being said for the original audience, we may fill in the blanks and suppose a negative prejudice where the original audience assumed a positive one.
Twang One’s accent can often give away where one was raised. This wouldn’t be a problem, except that negative stereotypes are often associated with certain accents.
When Peter tried to deny his association with Jesus after the arrest, his accent gave him away as a Galilean (Mt 26:73),
Your increasing awareness about your own ethnic prejudices will help you be more attuned to them in the biblical text.
Christ is all, and is in all” (Col 3:11).
Few of us ever reflect on the mechanics of our native languages or the values and patterns that lie beneath them.
So we are unlikely to recognize what it is about our own language that goes without being said.
As our values change, so does our language. When we really need a word, we invent one.
What does this have to do with the Bible? Problems arise for interpretation when another language has several words for something and ours has only one.
“Blessed are the peacemakers”
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.
These different cultural associations with privacy affect the way Westerners and non-Westerners read Scripture.
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).
What it says is not always what it means.
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).
You could be as “nervous as a cat in a room full of rockers.”
Likewise in language: the game determines the rules.
The Lord, Moses implies, is a more powerful soldier than all the battalions of Egypt.
“I believe the Christian teachings are good. But I would be betraying my ancestors if I went to a Paradise where they cannot dwell.”[1]
What the fictional Father Valente articulates is a very real difference between how Westerners and non-Westerners understand personal identity and the relationship of the individual in society.
One’s goal is not to get ahead or move beyond one’s community; after all, “the tallest blade of grass is cut first.” Rather, members of collectivist cultures make decisions based on the counsel of elders—parents, aunts or uncles.
In individualist cultures, people marry for “love” (or at least that’s what we call it).
Things are not so simple in a collectivist culture. Arranged marriages are much more common in collectivist cultures, because it goes without saying that, in this most important of decisions, the community should decide what’s best for the young people.
The challenge is that the more you like someone, the less restraining your willpower becomes.
One is team sports. In team sports, the goal is to work together to achieve a common goal, not to draw attention to oneself. We preserve this ideal in the saying, “There is no I in team.”
Conformity, a virtue in a collectivist culture, is a vice in ours. Conforming is a sign of immaturity, a failure to realize your full potential, an inability to “leave the nest” or “cut the cord.” Of
The birth of Jesus was no solitary event, witnessed only by the doting parents in the quiet of a cattle fold. It was likely a noisy, bustling event attended by grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.[7]
Jesus makes it clear that the decision to follow him may at some point put a believer at variance with his or her family.
People “do not make major decisions without talking it over with the proper authority figures in their extended family.”[9]
10:17
not biblical Christianity. Scripture is clear that when we become Christians, we become—permanently and spiritually—a part of the church.
We don’t choose who else is a Christian with us. But we are committed to them, bound to them by the Spirit. And we are not free to dissociate our identities from them—mainly because once we are all in Christ, our own individual identities are no longer of primary importance.
