We all think, act, and communicate in ways that are primarily predetermined by our culture. We didn't choose our culture any more than we chose our parents. We just arrived and found ourselves in a particular family and culture. Since a culture plays such an important role it is very important to understand what it means:
Culture is the whole behavior and technology of any people that is passed on from generation to generation. Culture consists of the knowledge, beliefs, morals, laws, religion, customs, concepts, habits, skills, institutions, and any other capabilities of a given people in a given period.
Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz provides additional information:
A culture is more than a set of rules to guide behavior; it is a comprehensive worldview and way of relating to one's fellow human beings. Like all complex cultures, Jewish culture does not spell everything out literally, but leaves much to inference. A culture's strength lies not only in what it says, but also in what it chooses not to say, and this too must be learned.
As long as both the Source (speaker / author) and Receptor (hearer / reader) are from the same culture, speak the same language, live during the same time period and reside in the same general location -- their chances of accurately understanding each other are very good. However, if the Source and Receptor come from different cultures, speak different languages, live in different time periods, and resided in different locations, the chances of accurately understanding each other decrease dramatically.
The words of our Bibles were written by Sources from different cultures, who lived in different time periods, spoke different languages, resided in a completely different geographical locations. Unless the Receptor takes time to learn about the culture, language, time period, geographical area of a Source, where would he or she get the meanings for the words they read? Wouldn't it be from their culture, etc.? Wouldn't it be much better to view the words of our Bibles through the eyes of the ancient authors?
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