becoming

A positive and encouraging introduction to Bailey’s Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels by New Testament Professor Gary Burge of Weaton:

Most scholars recognize that a cultural gap exists between what we read in the gospels and what actually happened in Galilee some 2,000 years ago. Modern exegesis labors to extract meaning from these gospels using well-established methods of interpretation. Every student has to master the Greek text along with the nuances of its syntax and grammar, word choices, and idioms. The problem with this method is that, just as a gap exists between that Greek text and our modern English translations, so too a gap existed long ago between the original stories of Jesus told by Aramaic-speaking Jews and their final write-up in Greek by the evangelists, who understood Middle Eastern culture (though they were writing in Greek).

Read it all here. [books & culture]

I wrote chapter-by-chapter summaries on Bailey’s book a year ago, but had to stop at chapter 9 because of work. Hopefully I will pick it up again in not so distant future.