Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies In The Gospels

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The six parts of this book include chapters on the birth of Jesus, the beatitudes, the Lord’s Prayer, dramatic actions of Jesus (the call of Peter, the inauguration of Jesus’ ministry, and the blind man and Zacchaeus), Jesus and women, and thirteen of Jesus’ parables.

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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). After undergraduate and seminary studies, Dr. Bailey completed degrees in Arabic Language and Literature, Systematic Theology and a doctorate in New Testament. Ordained by the Presbyterian Church (USA), Dr. Bailey spent 40 years (1955-1995) living and teaching in seminaries and institutes in Egypt, Lebanon, Jerusalem and Cyprus. Point two regards the scope of the audience, and Bailey argues that the letter to the Corinthians was far more than simply a letter to one Church. Paul might use the Corinthians as an example to highlight some particular issues, but what he has in mind is not simply the Jewish readers, but the gentiles of the Greek world and ultimately “all believers” everywhere. The sheer weight of the evidence, when seen in light of the subtle Greek terminology and symbols along with his incredible efforts to speak to his own Jewish tradition (and Jesus transformation) in the careful terms of one who is living with both Jewish and Greek/gentile in mind, is overwhelming to say the least. This is one of the areas that simply makes so much sense, and really does change the way we read so much of the text. Indeed, Paul sets out this concern in the first chapter (from the Church in Corinth to the more generalized company of those “sanctified in Christ”, to the all encompassing “all those who in every place call upon the name of Jesus as Lord”), and continues this scope all the way through. 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). In books such as The Cross & the Prodigal: Luke 15 Through the Eyes of Middle Eastern Peasantsand Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels, Bailey explains what Christians miss out on when they don’t “participate in the culture of those who first heard the gospel.Bailey leans heavily on Middle Eastern scholars and texts written in Arabic (that have yet to be translated into English):

Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes Kenneth E. Bailey, 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.”Did you design a participatory project that helped Christians from different cultures—including Middle Eastern ones—talk about their faith practices? Not that we’ve got the story necessarily wrong, but there’s an excitement that’s missing if we don’t try to penetrate the world of which Jesus was a part. Worship takes on new intensity and meaning,” Bailey says. The power of story and metaphor A simple village home in the time of King David, up until the Second World War, in the Holy Land, had two rooms—one for guests, one for the family. The family room had an area, usually about four feet lower, for the family donkey, the family cow, and two or three sheep. They are brought in last thing at night and taken out and tied up in the courtyard first thing in the morning. The Baileys now reside in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania. Dr. Bailey continues his ministry of lecturing, writing and recording in the field of New Testament. In June 1997, he was installed as Canon Theologian of the Diocese of Pittsburgh of the Episcopal Church, USA. The gospel authors used written sourcesand stories that had been passed on orally, just as a biographer today might draw on books, unpublished letters, and interviews with a subject’s relatives and friends.

Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies In The

The Gospels are "meaning tied intimately to history and to event. That is the way it is with Jesus - not neutrality, bare record, empty chronology, but living participation and heart involvement. The work will yield a rich harvest of information, pastoral support, and insight for all who read it. - Susan K. HedahlBailey’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).

Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the

Bailey is fluent in Arabic and an expert on New Testament cultural and literary forms. He researches ancient, medieval, and modern commentaries and translations in Semitic languages—Syriac, Hebrew/Aramaic, and Hebrew. These languages are closer to Jesus’ world than the Greek and Latin cultures that shaped Western thought. Again, an interesting methodological position, but also seemingly innovative in comparison to the modern exegetical tradition. That's not to say it's a bad thing. But I think it's a supplemental position, since it does seem to be an unusual one. In commenting on the guilt induced by receiving the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner found in 1 Cor 11:27, Bailey illumines the strong connotation by bringing into the discussion Middle Eastern versions of the word used over the last thousand years for the Greek enokhos (guilty): "Some read shajab (destroy) or shajib (destroyer). "Guilty against" appears along with "criminal in regard to." Khati'a ila (sin against) is used both in Arabic and in Hebrew. All of these versions recognize that something dark and sinister is taking place." So we can see commentors and words from the Middle East use strong language to talk about the person who is "guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. (322-323)

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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.