#4 Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes — E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O’Brien
You know, this is the first full review on a nonfiction book. How about that.
Have you ever been reading your Bible and hit a passage and just thought “Wait, what?” Typically, it seemed like something important got completely glossed over, or something mundane got explained in great detail. Odds are you just hit something of cultural significance. If you’re reading this (hello to the five of you), I’m guessing you come from a western background. So you’re starting from the same perspective as me. The bible, however, was not written by westerners. So when we bring in a western mentality, we risk misunderstanding scripture.
Sometimes the cultural disconnect hits you completely in your face. The passage that jumps to mind for me is 1 Corinthians 11, when Paul is encouraging women to cover their heads during church. But why? That seems a completely unnecessary ritualistic addendum. Is there some greater spiritual relevance? Should women still be covering their heads?
Well, what’s the cultural context? Why would a Roman women have her head covered or uncovered in the first place? Here the authors point out that a married Roman woman would were head coverings in public, but not private. Was church supposed to be a public invitation or a private party? And here we have found our answer.
This one is easy, because it is very rare for western women to wear head coverings in any situation. It is so different from our culture that it stands out and begs to be investigated. But what about ones that don’t stand out? What if we’re missing something crucial in our study of the Bible because we’re bringing in assumptions to interpret passages that the author left vague because he didn’t need to explain his audiences assumptions back to them?
This book is a primer for catching all the (as they put it) “things left unsaid” in the Bible. Relevant cultural contexts that we don’t pick up on. It does a great job about making things easy to understand, although some things will require more follow up to grasp entirely. The Honor / Shame culture is something I plan to read in more detail.
Two complaints with this book. The first with its sourcing. I don’t know if it was in an effort to keep word count down, but they had a tendency to paraphrase verses to highlight the relevant point. Still always made sense with the entirety of the verse, but kind of annoyed me. The second was that, in the chapter about race, the authors argue that everyone is a little racist. I completely disagree. Everyone certainly has misconceptions and assumptions about other cultures, but that only escalates to racism when you assume that a person of a certain race must necessarily fit into the cultural norms (rightly or wrongly understood). For example, there are several Indian families in my apartment complex. I assume they hold Indian values, not because of their race, but because they are typical dressed in Eastern fashion and speak to each other in (what I assume is) an Indian language. I also had an Indian acquaintance in high school named Nil. I assumed he held western values, because he acted like your typical western high school kid. Could I be wrong in both cases? Sure, but neither of those things are racist, just incorrect. Racism is terrible, and shouldn’t be watered down by lumping it in with cultural misunderstandings.
Other than that, great book, highly recommend. — 4.5/5