Thursday, May 27, 2004
Bible and cultural anthropology
I just found the article Illuminating The World of Jesus Through Cultural Anthropology. It refers to and comments on the document by the Pontifical Biblical Commission L'interpretazione della Bibbia nella Chiesa.
I should focus in the next days on the following points of the article:
I should focus in the next days on the following points of the article:
- Cultural Designation: the necessity of reflecting upon the labels people use to identify themselves and to identify others. Cf. Yehudim/Ioudaioi mistakenly translated in the anachronistic "Jews" (this mistake does not occur in Italian translations, where Jesus' designation is translated as "Re dei giudei").
- Group-Orientation: The Judeans - a collectivistic or group-oriented society. Collectivistic societies tend to identify people by stereotype. Nicely put: consider the people whom Jesus healed as reported in Mark's gospel. There is Peter's mother-in-law, a paralytic, a leper, a man with a withered hand, a man with an unclean spirit, a woman with a menstrual irregularity. The vast majority are stereotyped by their illness. Only one name is reported, Bar Timaeus (10:46), but Timaeus is the father's name, not the blind man's name. The reader learns not an individual but rather a family relationship, a collective rather than an individualistic value.
- Honor and Shame: the core culture values of collectivistic Judeans. Notice how genealogies (e.g. in the case of Jesus) are more concerned about honor than about lineal purity.
- Challenge and Riposte. This is an often used strategy when it comes to defend the key value "honor". See examples.
- From stereotype to prejudice. This seems a common pattern in both collectivistic and individualistic societies (wherever simplifications and uneasiness with cultural differences abound, I'd say). Cf Pharisees, fishermen, publicans, "from Nazareth", "from Jerusalem". On the other hand, Jesus appears to see and point past generalizations.
