Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies In The Gospels

Product Information

Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, by Gregory Beale and D. A. Carson, is a one-volume commentary on how New Testament writers understood and interpreted the Old Testament.

Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes - InterVarsity Press Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes - InterVarsity Press

I was quite excited to start reading Bailey's book on 1st century culture and the Bible. This subject was a significant part of my studies in seminary (biblical studies and cultural anthropology), and my years living overseas have only heightened my interest and expertise. I thought the first chapter was quite insightful. Inspiration is not a moment when Jesus opened his mouth. Inspiration is a process that lasted about 60 years. It’s what produced the Greek New Testament that has changed the world,” Bailey says. Middle Eastern village context

The expectation of Two Messiahs first appears in the Bible in Zechariah 4:14, which dates in the 6th Century B.C.: "'What are these two branches of the olive trees, which pour out the oil through the two golden pipes?' He said to me, 'Do you not know what these are?' I said, "No my lord." Then he said, 'These are the two anointed ones (i.e. Messiahs) who stand by the Lord of the whole earth.'" Middle East scholar Kenneth Bailey's books, lectures, and more invite Christians to strip away cultural mythologies and worship the real Jesus of the Middle East. A feature story exploring the life of Jesus through his own Middle-Eastern culture. By: Joan Huyser-Honig Tags: culture, middle east, parables, symposium 2013 Feature Story posted on May 7, 2008 That’s how things go in Open Hearts in Bethlehem: A Christmas Musical Drama, written byKenneth E. Bailey, who, also, by the way, says Jesus was born in summer or fall, not on December 25. urn:lcp:jesusthroughmidd0000bail:epub:6d0a886d-6703-4f8f-b756-d91c2ac3ada8 Foldoutcount 0 Identifier jesusthroughmidd0000bail Identifier-ark ark:/13960/s26vvzggbxr Invoice 1652 Isbn 9780830825684 The intentional comparisons between the Israelite prophetic writing tradition (of Isaiah and Amos in particular), while at the same time incorporating the Greek funeral oration of Pericles

Bailey on Jesus through Middle Eastern Eyes Kenneth E. Bailey on Jesus through Middle Eastern Eyes

In the parable of the prodigal son, is the father running down the road a big deal? For us, no. For a Middle Easterner, yes,” he says. In Finding the Lost Cultural Keys to Luke 15, Bailey quotes Ben Sirach, a Jewish philosopher who 200 years before Christ wrote, “A man’s manner of walking tells you what he is.”

Paul took on all of these issues in his first letter to the Corinthians (or at least his first letter that survives). He also gave them some of his most powerful and enduring passages: the hymn to the cross (as Kenneth E. Bailey calls it) in 1 Corinthians 1:17-2:2; Chapter 13, the love chapter; and Chapter 15, the argument for the Resurrection. The distinctiveness of these essays is their interaction with early Syriac and Arabic Christian literature on the Gospels, such as the powerful ideas of Ibn al-Tayyib, a medieval scholar from Baghdad. Interaction with Arabic versions of the New Testament (translated from Syriac and Coptic) also provide insights into Eastern exegesis of the Bible. Since these linguistic sources share the broader culture of the ancient Middle East “… all of them are ethnically closer to the Semitic world of Jesus than the Greek and Latin cultures of the West” (p. 12). This is another solid contribution to the field of New Testament studies from Kenneth E. Bailey. Not quite as enjoyable or as potentially useful to the working pastor as his fine "Jesus through Middle-Eastern Eyes," it nonetheless contains several very helpful passages. Beginning with Jesus' birth, Ken Bailey leads you on a kaleidoscopic study of Jesus throughout the four Gospels. Bailey examines the life and ministry of Jesus with attention to the Lord's Prayer, the Beatitudes, Jesus' relationships with women, and especially Jesus' parables. Arabic-speaking Christians—whom Bailey calls “the forgotten faithful”—have always understood Jesus as born in a house or a cave. Many Palestinian homes began as caves.

Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes - Kenneth Bailey - SPCK

In his latest book, Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes , Kenneth Bailey provides further discussion of various parts of the New Testament Gospels, from the perspective that has been his own unique contribution over the past three decades or so. To my knowledge, there is no comparable New Testament scholar who is a native speaker of English and yet who has grown up, lived and taught in the Middle East and been fluent in Arabic, and as a result has been able to mediate the cultural perspective of that region on the New Testament to English-speaking readers. As such, Bailey provides a genuinely unique perspective, and I expect anyone interested in understanding the New Testament will want to read his latest book, as well as earlier ones. Bailey’s seven chapters on Jesus and women reveal how the Lord and the Gospel writers elevated women to a place of equality with men. These chapters discuss the woman at the well, the Syro-Phoenicean woman, the woman caught in adultery, and the woman in the house of Simon the Pharisee. Bailey’s discussion of the woman at the well is intriguing, for he discusses twelve “surprises” in the incident (pp. 202–13). At the heart of this cultural approach to the Gospels is Bailey’s appeal to recognize the historical nature of the Scriptures. He emphasizes that the Word of God is spoken through people in history: “Those people and that history cannot be ignored without missing the speaker or writer’s intentions and creating our own substitutes for them” (p. 281). Part 1: Birth of Jesus - very good and worth the time, some genuine insights from a Middle Eastern perspective Now this isn't to say I don't think this is a solid offering, especially a solid supplemental one to the mainstay 1 Corinthian commentaries. It is and I think what it offers is more than made up in my perceived mark-missing. Not only does it bring good sense of the Middle East/Mediterranean world to bear on the interpretive enterprise--and when he does it's solid--the commentary also brings a (perhaps, much) stronger rhetorical analysis to that effort. Bailey brings much detailed rhetoric analysis to Paul's letter, even if it is more innovative and different than the prevailing structural analysis of 1 Cor commentaries of yore. It also provides interesting intertextual links between the Tanak, especially Isaiah, and has a fascinating appendix discussion on the role of the Book of Amos in the opening of the letter.

Metaphorical theology creates meaning through story, symbol, and metaphor. And then you can extract ideas from it.

Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in

While all of the sections are thought-provoking, the first section, “The Birth of Jesus,” is noteworthy. Bailey argues that over the centuries, traditional understandings of the birth narratives have obscured the true meaning and message of the text (p. 25). This imprecision can be combated by re-reading the text bearing in mind cultural customs and attitudes contemporaneous to the text and by consciously stripping away long held traditions that have blinded us to Middle Eastern culture and customs that still remained unchanged even up to this day.He laments that Christians “too often understand Jesus as a simple man, telling simple tales to children. We see him as the perfect example of love, the agent of salvation, the Word made flesh among us, all of which is true. But he’s also a theologian, once you see him as a metaphorical theologian rather than a conceptual theologian. Middle Eastern cultures have valued family and hospitality for millennia. When Caesar Augustus decreed that people had to register for the census in their hometown, Joseph went to Bethlehem “because he belonged to the house and line of David” (Luke 2:4).