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The Bible is not a Western book, and the world of the New Testament
is not our world. The New Testament world was preindustrial,
Mediterranean, and populated mostly by nonliterate peasants who
depended on hearing these writings read aloud. Only a few of the
literate elite were part of the Jesus movement, and they knew
nothing of either modernity or the Western culture we inhabit
today. This means that for all North Americans, reading the New
Testament is always an exercise in cross-cultural communication.
Travelers, diplomats, and exchange students take great pains to
bridge the cultural gaps that cloud mutual understanding. But North
American readers habitually suspend cross-cultural awareness when
encountering the Bible. The result is that we unwittingly project
our own cultural understandings onto the pages of the New
Testament. Rohrbaugh argues that to whatever degree we can bridge
cultural gaps between ourselves and New Testament writers, we learn
to value their intentions rather than the meanings we create from
their words. Rohrbaugh's insightful interpretations of Gospel
passages go a long way toward helping to span distances between the
New Testament world and the present.
The authors build on their earlier social-scientific works and
enhance the highly successful commentary model they developed in
their social-scientific commentaries. This volume is a thoroughly
revised edition of this popular commentary. They include an
introduction that lays the foundation for their interpretation,
followed by an examination of each unit in the Synoptics, employing
methodologies of cultural anthropology, macro-sociology, and social
psychology.
Building on the unique format and success of their Social-Science
Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, Malina and Rohrbaugh extend
their framework to the Fourth Gospel. Unlike the usual historical,
exegetical, or theological commentaries, this rich and engrossing
work catalogs the pertinent values, conflicts, and mores of ancient
Mediterranean culture. Its Gospel outline, detailed textual notes,
and "reading scenarios" bring life to the social circumstances the
Gospel text relates about childhood, money, divorce, military
service, farming, family life, cities, demons, patronage, and a
host of other aspects of the ancient world. The Fourth Gospel, the
authors disclose, addresses an alienated anti-society,
fundamentally at odds with the predominant culture. With its
format, charts and photos, this social-science commentary is the
ideal companion for the study of the Fourth Gospel.
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