As self-evident as it may seem, those who read the Bible (which always involves interpretation) must constantly remind themselves that

the Bible is not a Western book. . . . the plain fact is that it was written by, for, and about people in the ancient Mediterranean world whose culture, worldview, social patterns, and daily expectations differed sharply from those of the modern West (Rohrbaugh, The New Testament in Cross-Cultural Perspective, ix).

Failing to remind oneself of this can result in ethnocentric and anachronistic interpretations. There are a number of ways this could foul up an interpretation. For example, one might miss the meanings intertwined with certain customs (rituals or ceremonies) like footwashing (click here for a good article on this topic). But there is a more insidious problem: the unchecked assumption that the ancient circum-Mediterranean world (i.e., the world of the Bible) functioned just like the interpreter’s world—that what is "common sense" for us was "common sense" for them.

Westerners' basic value preferences differ quite substantially from those of the ancients. The following table compares the generalized value preferences of the culture reflected in the Bible and that of Western (esp. US) culture. The table is based on the work of Pilch, Malina, and other social-scientific critics (Pilch and Malina, Handbook of Biblical Social Values, xxv; Pilch, Introducing the Cultural Context of the New Testament, 244).

There’s not enough space here for me to provide examples of the impact all of these differences have on understanding the Bible, so I’ll just pick one basic category, interpersonal relationships, and zero in on individualism vs. collectivism.

A collectivist (or group-orientated) culture may be defined as "a culture in which persons understand themselves as parts of groups or collectives such as family, tribe, or nation. People are defined by the groups to which they belong and do not understand themselves as having separate identities" (Rohrbaugh, New Testament in Cross-Cultural Perspective, 64). Individualist cultures, on the other hand, "produce a sense of self that remains detached" (or very loosely attached) to groups/collectives, and emphasis is placed on self-identity, self-worth, self-expression, personal privacy, and the like (Rohrbaugh, New Testament in Cross-Cultural Perspective, 10). [These are, of course, just brief, broad-brushstroke definitions that will suffice for my purpose here. For a fully-orbed and detailed definition and discussion, see Triandis, Individualism and Collectivism).] As the chart above indicates, generally speaking, the culture reflected in the Bible was collectivist/group-oriented while Western culture is, generally, individualistic (the US is very individualistic even compared to other Westernized cultures). How can this affect our interpretation of the Bible?

One example is how we understand a concept like "love" (ἀγάπη, agape and cognates) in the New Testament. Western cultures tend to view love through an individualistic lens: it’s considered one’s own personal feeling(s) and attendant self-expression of affect toward another individual or individuals. However, in the collectivist culture of the New Testament, as I’ve written in another post, "love" (ἀγάπη) betokens more than affectionate feelings but attachment/bonding to a person and her/his group. That is, "love" in the NT—especially in Paul—is about loyalty to the group and group unity. Thus, in 1 Cor 13, the "love chapter" as it’s commonly called, Paul draws on the concept of love as a means of correcting the Corinthians’ divisive behaviors. By contrast, in a Western social location, a person can love whomever they want, no matter what others may think or say. In fact, if the group to which a person is loosely attached negatively evaluates one’s affection for another, the individual may simply exit the group in search of another that will approve. In this way, Western culture sees the self as prior to the group, but the culture of the biblical world saw the group as prior to the self.

Reading a text from an individualistic perspective affects more than how we read about interpersonal, intergroup, and intragroup relationships; it also affects how we interpret interpersonal meaning more generally (cf. my dissertation for a definition of interpersonal meaning). Among other things, interpersonal meaning includes how people perceive and evaluate or appraise other people, things, ideas, etc. on the basis of their or their group's ideological stance and its attendant value positions—which are constrained by social and cultural location. Consider, for example 1 Thess. 5:19–22:

Notice that in this text, Paul tells the Thessalonians to "test everything" to determine whether it is "good" or "evil." What is the standard of "good" and "evil"? For those located in the highly individualistic Western world, the standard is first and foremost what is good/beneficial for the self and what will not hinder "my success" (i.e., achievements) or infringe on "my rights" or violate "my personal preferences" or "my private, subjective beliefs." Not so for Paul or the Thessalonians. For them the standard was first and foremost what was good/beneficial for the group of believers and that solidified the group’s boundaries as constrained by the word of God ("prophecies"), which also included the "good news" or "gospel" that Paul and his comrades had preached to them.

There is so much more to say about this topic, but I must conclude. Exegetes-in-training, here is the challenging truth: an extremely important component of the exegetical task that you must learn and must exercise is contextual interpretation. There is no such thing as context-less meaning; all meaning derives from and is constrained by context—specifically, context of culture and context of situation. So, if you are hoping to determine the meaning of biblical text, which is the very purpose of exegesis, you have to account for the context in which and for which the text was produced, otherwise you will simply provide a context (your own social and cultural context) from which to make meanings of the text. This happens a lot nowadays. Just listen to people: "For me this text means…" "The way I read it…"

In a future post in this series, I’ll talk about using models to help you interpret biblical texts responsibly.