This, the fourth installment in my response to a former student, turns attention to the second axiom that can provide a guardrail against reading into Scripture our own preferences, namely careful attention to the three contexts against which any biblical passage should be read: the cultural context it reflects, the literary context in which it is situated, and the cultural context of its reader. Scripture is culturally and historically rooted. The individuals who composed the various sections of the Bible quite naturally reflected the worldviews, the cultural practices, the societal norms, the crises, etc. of the times in which they lived. Interpreters of scripture should not automatically assume that these cultural and historical contexts, in themselves, convey any information concerning the will or character of God. Often such cultural artefacts trouble contemporary readers of the scripture. If, however, we recognize them as such, we can forgive the ancients for being ancients. (One day our descendants will look back on us with horror, or, if we’re lucky, pity.) Examples abound.

• The author of Genesis 1 shared with the Egyptians, the Assyrians, and the Babylonians (remember that Abraham came originally from Ur in Mesopotamia) a cosmology that envisioned a solid dome suspended above the earth, separating the space beneath it from the waters above (Gen 1:6-8).  The Hebrew word translated “firmament” in the KJV (raqiya`) comes from the world of the metal-smith and means “a thing hammered into a shape.” The ancients had no concepts of the vast expanse of space, of the difference between stars, planets, and moons, or of a solar system. The Bible does not want to tell us to replace what we know today with ancient ideas.  Instead, with the author of Genesis 1, we can assert that the existent universe (regardless of its shape) is God’s good creation.
• The ancient Israelites lived in the midst of cultures that practiced polygamy. It was a given, so the Israelites practiced polygamy. God did not endorse the practice. God did not inspire or require them to do so. Neither, however, as far as the Bible records, did God prohibit the practice until, arguably, the New Testament era. Consequently, we should regard biblical polygamy as a cultural artefact, not a vital component of the scriptural witness.
• For the ancient Israelite, the death of a man before he could father children posed a compound threat. He would be without memory, his heritage would revert to another line of the family, and his wife would be without means of support. They found a solution, so-called levirate marriage, in which a younger brother of the deceased married the widow and the first child conceived in that marriage was considered the child of the deceased in a legal fiction. Even those who claim to interpret the Bible “literally” recognize the culture-bound nature of this practice and the texts that call for it (Deut 25:5-10).
• Patriarchy functions as a substrate in both Testaments because it characterized the cultures of the world in which Israel and later the Church came into existence. As early as Genesis, however, the Bible undercuts the idea that gender hierarchy conforms to God’s will. God created humankind in God’s image; both male and female reflect God’s likeness (Gen 1:26-27).  According to the account of the creation of Eve from Adam’s rib, God did so because God recognized that Adam was alone.  God decided to make Adam a nigdo (Gen 2:18, 20), a unique Hebrew word comprising a preposition that means “opposite, over against” with a pronoun that means “him/his” and that functions grammatically here as a noun.  Although many translations render it “helper,” which hints at a secondary or subservient role, it ‘literally’ means “his opposite” or “his counterpart.” In fact, the Genesis 2 account explains that, because of the way God created Eve, a man leaves his parental home and “cleaves” to his wife – not the other way around. A range of other texts about prominent women in the Hebrew Bible contribute to a critique of the notion that gender hierarchy represents God’s intention:  Deborah, Jael, Huldah, etc.
• Examples of culture-boundedness appear in the New Testament, too, and one of the clearest examples also reflects a patriarchal substrate. The author of 1 Tim 2:8-12 wrote:

I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling; also that women should adorn themselves modestly and sensibly in seemly apparel, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly attire but by good deeds, as befits women who profess religion. Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent. (RSV)

Perhaps the first thing one should note in this text involves the fact that, as discussed in the first installment of this blog series concerning 1 Cor 7:25-26, the author reports his own position and practice:  “I desire,” “I permit.” He makes no claim to be proclaiming a divine mandate.  Second, as mentioned in the immediately preceding installment, the text notably expresses as much concern for women’s appearance as it does for their silence. The description of a well-dressed and well-coiffed woman speaking before a group of men calls to mind the hetairai or “courtesans” known in the Hellenistic Mediterranean world. Paul elsewhere expressed concern that Hellenistic converts who came from unsavory backgrounds (“And such were some of you,” 1 Cor 6:11, RSV) take care to distance themselves from their pasts. In our culture, expensive clothing, fashionable hairstyles, pearl necklaces, and rhetorical skill do not encode “courtesan,” although we might agree with Paul that Christians who wish to represent a holy God to the world may wisely give some attention to appearances.  Third, as I will discuss at greater length in the next installment, 1 Tim 2:8-12 should also be read in the literary context of the entirety of scripture, including Paul’s statement concerning the equality in Christ of Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female (Gen 3:28).

While, in many cases, we should not and cannot replicate the assumptions and practices that constitute the background for many biblical texts, the fact that ancient culture shines through biblical texts does not negate their capacity to become Word of God for us. They are not, or need not be, merely historical artefacts.  Instead, interpreting scripture well requires us to undertake ‘cultural translation,’ as it were. If we transpose the thrust of a given passage into a comparable contemporary context, we will find that an insight into God’s will and character or a principle for human conduct sounds across the ages.