Reading the Bible with Rabbi Jesus: How a Jewish Perspective Can Transform Your Understanding

by Lois Tverberg

Similarly, the Bible’s ideas are often best appreciated “freshly served” in their original Middle Eastern setting.

New Testament scholar Ken Bailey writes, The Bible is an Eastern book. We see it through the colored glasses of Western culture. Much is lost. We miss the subtleties of humor and many of the underlying assumptions. We do not understand the ingrained attitudes that illuminate a story or illustration. . . . What lies between the lines, what is felt and not spoken, is of deepest significance.

Our world: Youth is attractive Biblical world: Age is wisdom Our world: Does God exist? Biblical world: Whose god is greatest? Our world: Me—personal goals Biblical world: We—family legacy Our world: Sunshine—happiness Biblical world: Rain—utter joy Our world: Logic and reason Biblical world: Parable and prophecy

When a new king was crowned, the euanggelion was the announcement that the monarch had taken the throne, that a new kingdom had taken power.