All of us assume things that “go without saying”. And, until we encounter other cultures, we tend to assume that the things that go without saying are universally true. Furthermore, we are not aware of these assumptions ordinarily. We don’t see them, we see “through” them.
In Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible (InterVarsity Press, 2013), E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O’Brien take these insights and apply them to how we read the Bible, a collection of books situated in different times and cultures (as well as a transcendent perspective!). They draw on their own cross-cultural missions experience to provide numerous helpful examples of how they discovered their own “western eyes”. As matters that lie “above the surface”, the authors explore mores, especially around sex, food, and money, race and ethnicity (particularly the presence of these issues in biblical narrative–for example, the book of Ruth, and our use of language. Below the surface come matters of individualism versus collectivism (we read the Bible very individualistically–much of the world does not), honor and shame versus right and wrong (western culture emphasizes the latter), and our conceptions of time (chronos vs kairos). And deep below the surface, they see issues of rules and relationships (which comes first), virtue and vice, and how we understand the will of God (all about me vs God’s will for the world and his people). [Read more…] about Book Review: Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes