The Biblical interpreter: An agrarian Bible in an industrial age

Rohrbaugh, Richard L.

Religion & Spirituality

Fortress Press

This work assembles and catalogs the values, conflicts, and mores of ancient Mediterranean culture pertinent to the Fourth Gospel. In many ways, the authors disclose, the Fourth Gospel addresses an alienated antisociety, fundamentally at odds with its predominant culture. With its unique format, charts, and photos, this social-science commentary is the ideal companion for the study of the Fourth Gospel.

Social-Science Commentary on the Gospel of John

Reference

Malina, Bruce J.

Encyclopedias & Subject Guides

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.

Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels: Second Edition

Christian Books & Bibles

The New Testament in Cross-Cultural Perspective (Matrix: The Bible in Mediterranean Context)

Description: 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. Endorsements: "Rohrbaugh's diagnosis of the ills of so much Western Bible reading is incisive; his prescription of hermeneutics as 'cross-cultural encounter' is healthy; and his own use of that hermeneutic offers many new and persuasive understandings of the Gospels." --Catholic Biblical Quarterly "Rohrbaugh's sensitivity to the social dynamics of Mediterranean cultures allows him to read familiar stories in an unfamiliar and yet highly convincing manner. He repeatedly exposes the ethnocentric nature of many modern interpretations, and illustrates how a knowledge of Mediterranean anthropology casts an entirely different light on the significance of the parables and sayings of Jesus. Clearly written and argued, The New Tesament in Cross-Cultural Perspective can serve also as a primer for Mediterranean anthropology." --John S. Kloppenborg, Professor of Religion, University of Toronto "This collection of significant articles by Richard Rohrbaugh is very welcome. Published through many years and in many different places, they have been major ways into social-science interpretation and cross-cultural understanding for many readers. Now they are accessible together in this book, which will take its place among the most important tools for raising issues of cultural difference in biblical interpretation." --Carolyn Osiek, Charles Fischer Catholic Professor of New Testament, Brite Divinity School About the Contributor(s): Richard L. Rohrbaugh is Paul S. Wright Professor of Christian Studies Emeritus at Lewis and Clark College. He is the coauthor of Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, Social-Science Commentary on the Gospel of John, and the editor of The Social Sciences and New Testament Interpretation.

Wipf and Stock

The Biblical Interpreter: An Agrarian Bible in an Industrial Age

It is ultimately the preacher who determines how the biblical text is used in the church. To assume that professional scholars alone can produce a definitive interpretation of the Bible for the church is to lose sight of that fact. Richard Rohrbaugh adds a new dimension to the process of biblical interpretation by providing a cross-disciplinary study which takes into account both the interpreter and the text being interpreted.The Biblical Interpreter makes the findings and insights of scholarship available in such a way that the preacher is given new resources for interpreting the text today. Drawing from sociology and the sociology of knowledge, as well as contemporary biblical studies, Rohrbaugh examines the Scripture in its agrarian social setting. This outlook is compared with how the text is usually interpreted in industrialized societies. The clash and contrast of these two world views dramatically illustrates the importance of seeing the Bible in its sociological setting if we are to understand its contents in our age.

The Biblical Interpreter

Wipf & Stock Publishers

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.

Cascade Books

Interpretation: A guide to understanding the Bible today (Kerygma program)

The Kerygma Program

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