Skip to main content

Whose meanings should we use?

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?   

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Why did they lay their coats at Saul's feet?

The witnesses, laying their coats at the feet of Saul, were the men that would cast the first stones at Stephen in Acts 7. Why did they all lay their coats at Saul’s feet? The Talmud contains a very interesting account of the act of stoning that may provide the answer. “When the trial was over, they take him [the condemned person] out to be stoned. The place of stoning was at a distance from the court, as it is said, ‘Take out the one who has cursed.’ [i] A man stands at the entrance of the court; in his hand is a signaling flag [Hebrew   sudarin = sudar , ‘scarf, sweater’]. A horseman was stationed far away but within sight of him. If one [of the judges] says, ‘I have something [more] to say in his favor,’ he [the signaler] waves the   sudarin , and the horseman runs and stops them [from stoning him]. Even if [the condemned person] himself says, ‘I have something to say in my favor,’ they bring him back, even four of five times, only provided that there is some substance to what he

Are Saul and Paul the Same Person?

There has always been some confusion over whether Saul and Paul is the same person. The confusion begins in the Book of Acts. ● “Then Barnabas departed for Tarsus to seek Saul . . . he brought him to Antioch . . . for a whole year they taught a great many people. And the disciples were first called ‘ Christians ’ in Antioch .” ( Acts 11:25-26 ) ● “ Then Agrippa said to Paul , `You almost persuade me to become a Christian .’” ( Acts 26:28) ● “ Then Saul , who also  is called   Paul . . . ” ( Acts 13:9a ) Based on the three verses above, we would assume they are references to the same person – but is he the Paul we read about in the Epistles? The name “ Saul ” doesn’t appear in the Epistles. In order to answer that question we must examine the stories of the “ conversion experiences ” of Saul in Acts and Paul in Galatians . Pay close attention to the time periods and places mentioned in both accounts. Saul’s experience is found in Acts 9 and it took

Rabbi Stephen S. Wise’s Sermon at Synagogue on Jewish Jesus Causes a Storm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Samuel_Wise#/media/File:Stephen_Samuel_Wise.jpg Rabbi Stephen S. Wise gave this sermon in late December 1925 and it set off a storm of protests in Jewish communities.  Before you read the article, it is important for you to be aware of some of the accomplishments of Rabbi Wise. ● a founder of the New York Federation of Zionist Societies in 1897 ● first vice-president of the   Oregon State Conference of Charities and Correction in 1902 ● appointed Commissioner of Child Labor for the State of Oregon in 1903 ● co-founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) ● founding of American Jewish Congress (AJCongress) in 1918 ● founded the   Jewish Institute of Religion, an educational center in New York City  in 1922 ● founding president of the World Jewish Congress in 1936 (created to fight Nazism) ● co-chair of the American Zionist Emergency Council in WWII ● held press conference