Back of the Envelope

These are notes on last week's Thursday Night Bible study, written by the group leader, Brian Bucher, then cleaned up by myself. Brian warns that these are a rough draft, and may be replaced later.

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High context situation/society- people are assumed to be familiar with the relevant context
Low context situation/society - people are not assumed to be familiar with the relevant context

Quiz: You walk into the home of someone in the ancient Near East (ANE). He says, "You have honored me by coming into my home. I am not worthy of it. This house is yours. You may burn it if you wish." What is your reaction?

1. Leave quickly because he's gone nuts.
2. Woo hoo! Free house!
3. Reply, "I am unworthy of your honor and of being a guest in your home."

People in that society were expected to recognize this use of language as literary and not 'literal'. Someone who is unfamiliar with such language might well be confused.

The New Testament was written in what anthropologists call a "high-context" society. People who communicate with each other in high-context societies presume a broadly shared, well-understood knowledge of the context of anything referred to in conversation or in writing. For example, everyone in ancient Mediterranean villages would have had a clear and concrete knowledge of what sowing entailed,largely because the skills involved were shared by most (male) members of that society. no writer would need to explain. Thus writers in such societies usually produce sketchy and impressionistic writings, leaving much to the reader's or hearer's imagination. They also encode much information in widely known symbolic or stereotypical statements. In this way, they require the reader to fill in large gaps in the unwritten portion of the writing. All readers are expected to know the context and therefore to understand the references in question." [Malina and Rohrbaugh, Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, pg 11.]

Low context readers often assume that they are free to fill in the gaps (read between the lines) of the New Testament from their own experience. When our modern context doesn't match the ancient Near East context, we fill in the gaps with ideas that are different from theirs. This causes problems. Here are some examples:

Luke 14:25-26

Now large crowds were accompanying Jesus, and turning to them he said, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother, and wife and children, and brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple."

I have to hate my own family? When one isn't used to the type of extremist (hyperbolic) language used so commonly in the ANE, then one might think one is literally to 'hate' his family and not recognize that the meaning is just to 'love less' things other than Jesus.

Lev 13:9-13

When someone has a diseased infection, he must be brought to the priest. The priest will then examine it, and if a white swelling is on the skin, it has turned the hair white, and there is raw flesh in the swelling, it is a chronic disease on the skin of his body, so the priest is to pronounce him unclean. The priest must not merely quarantine him, for he is unclean. If, however, the disease breaks out on the skin so that the disease covers all the skin of the person with the infection from his head to his feet, as far as the priest can see, the priest must then examine it, and if the disease covers his whole body, he is to pronounce the person with the infection clean. He has
turned all white, so he is clean.

Hmmm, so

1. If he has a skin disease he's unclean.
2. If the skin disease covers the whole person he's clean.

HUH?

This is another example of where we fill in the gap of 'clean/unclean' with our own context. Is it the right context? We'll see in the next biblestudy. :)

Recontextualization - putting a text back into the correct context

This is what we do to understand what the text means. We begin to fill in the gaps with the right context instead of our own experience.

Group-oriented culture versus Individual-oriented culture

Question: What makes a person?

One of the major differences between our modern Western society and the societies of the ANE is the difference in how people understood themselves in relation to the rest of society.

Modern peoples in the 'West' are individual-oriented:
We are persons with identities independent of our family group. They do not define who we are. We are supposed to form our own opinions. My behavior reflects on me and should not be considered to reflect on whatever group I belong to.

Ancient peoples were group-oriented, or 'collectivistic':
A person is embedded in others and his identity defined in relation to the group(s) in which he belonged. Groups included ethnicity, citizenship, nation/clan/family with kinship (family) generally being the most important.

We are not independent of our family group. What one member is, all members are. We are expected to adopt the opinions of others, especially those in high esteem. My behavior reflects on my group.

Individuals depend on others for:

• sense of identity
• understanding of status and role in society
• understanding of duties and rights they have
• understanding what is honorable and shameful behavior

They will internalize the expectations of the group and consider themselves successful when they fulfill them.

Acts 21:37-39

As the soldiers were about to take Paul into the barracks, he asked the commander, "May I say something to you?"

"Do you speak Greek?" he replied. "Aren't you the Egyptian who started a revolt and led four thousand terrorists out into the desert some time ago?"

Paul answered, "I am a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no ordinary city. Please let me speak to the people."

Paul is saying in effect "I am from Tarsus, so you should accord me the credibility that is given to all citizens of Tarsus."

Phil 3:4-5

If someone thinks he has good reasons to put confidence in human credentials, I have more: I was circumcised on the eighth day, from the people of Israel and the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews. I lived according to the law as a Pharisee.

Paul has great 'human credentials' because of which groups he belongs to.

Because one's identity is embedded in the group, groups and group stability were of the highest importance. Societal/group stability was extremely important because of the tenuous nature of life. People were a lot closer to disaster and death than those of us in the modern west. Instability for us means losing one of our cars. For them instability means death.

A high value was placed on structure in society because structure contributes and provides for stability. This is like a company where good structure is necessary for stability. One 'president' and ten thousand workers without any chain of command would be chaos.

Question: How does one promote social stability and retard social deviancy?

Next time: Honor and Shame, Patronage and Reciprocity

If you can, get Honor, Patronage, Kinship & Purity by David Desilva. It's a great (and inexpensive) introduction to these four core concepts in the ancient Near East.

Other good ones:
Handbook of Biblical Social Values by Pilch and Malina
Honor and Shame in the Gospel of Matthew by Jerome Neyrey