Cultural Gap Principle
The Cultural Gap Principle is where our
culture is different from the story in the text. By not understanding the different cultures
involved throughout the Bible we can become confused and take the text out of
context.
There are
hundreds of different nations around the world, and many of these nations have
many different languages and subcultures within them. Because the Bible was written in Roman empire
and Israel, we must understand the Bible in their cultural context
Genesis 14:18-19: “And
Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest
of the most high God. And he blessed him, and said, blessed be Abram of the
most high God, possessor of heaven and earth. “
In order to understand this story
of the Bible, the Bible student must understand the customs of the day. Those customs are very much different than it
is today.
In chapter fourteen of the book
of Genesis it tells the story of four kings led by a king named
Chedorlaomer. They attacked five kings
in the valley of Siddim. In today’s
world that would seem unreasonable and illegal.
What we need to understand is that in that day it was normal! Kings in that day went to war in order to
collect loot and prestige. When Abram’s
nephew Lot was taken captive, Abram was duty bound to come to his rescue and
meet out some level of revenge.
Abram
pursued these four kings and soundly defeated them. According to the times of that day, Abram had
the right to all of the loot that was taken from the raid of the valley of
Siddim. That would be unheard of today.
In that day it was the norm.
There
is an old saying, “everyone has a boss.”
And Abram had a boss. God may had
promised all of this land to Abram, but he did not control the land. The king in charge of that area of land was
the king of Salem, Melchizedek. In that
day the man in charge had the right to ten percent of any spoils. Today this would be unheard of and illegal by
international law.
In order for the Bible student to
understand this story we must understand the customs of that day, and how those
folks thought. If we can put ourselves
in their shoes then we can understand the story much better. This is a cultural gap we need to cross and
understand.
Genesis 47:13-26: “And
Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh; for the Egyptians sold every
man his field, because the famine prevailed over them: so, the land became
Pharaoh’s. And as for the people, he
removed them to cities from one end of the borders of Egypt even to the other
end thereof.” (Genesis 47:20-21).
These verses are set up by the
happenings in chapter forty-one. Let me set up the context. In chapter
forty-one Joseph is given a dream from God about an upcoming seven years of
plenty and then seven years of famine!
Chapter forty-two through chapter
forty-six we have the story of Jacob and his family coming to Egypt and getting
settled in. In chapter forty-seven we
get into the seven years of famine.
There were no farmer co-ops back
in those days so the Egyptian government would buy the grain and cattle and
sell it domestically or ship it to foreign lands.
As the famine continued, the
people of Egypt bought grain from the government (Joseph). Then they sold their cattle. Then they sold themselves into slavery for
food. Remember, the government had all
of the grain!
What the Bible student needs to
understand is that that was the normal way of doing things in that day. Today that would be unheard of! Selling oneself to the government into slavery
for food that was all controlled by the government would never happen! But in that day, it was normal and the
slavery institution itself was considered normal. That is a very large cultural gap from that
day to today.
Ruth 3:9: “And he said,
Who art thou? And she answered, I am Ruth thine handmaid: spread therefore thy
skirt over thine handmaid; for thou art a near kinsmen.”
If we can put the subject of the
kinsman redeemer aside this time. The
reason I am using this example is the fact that Ruth is asking Boaz to cover
her in his skirt.
Men for thousands of years wore
dresses and skirts! They wore them for
freedom of movement of their legs. This
is especially so for Roman and Greek soldiers.
These soldiers wore skirts for the freedom of movement in hand combat
reasons.
Dresses and skirts were wearing
by both men and woman and both genders had a different design. The Bible student today needs to understand
this rather large cultural gap! The
standard of dress is very different in different cultural today and most
especially in ancient times. Those
differences are not wrong, just different.
Nehemiah 2:2: “Wherefore the king said unto me, why is thy
countenance sad, seeing thou art not sick?
This is nothing else but sorrow of heart. Then I was very sore afraid.”
Why would
Nehemiah be afraid? And not just afraid,
but “sore afraid.” That means in today’s
English that he was terrified! Well, in that day and culture, servants of
the king had to be happy and have a big smile, for the king’s pleasure. The king and the royal family did not want to
have servants with sad and long faces.
They were therefore to have a happy face and attitude under the pain of
death if they did not. Nehemiah was so
concerned about Jerusalem’s run-down condition that he slipped up and had a sad
face around the king. So, Nehemiah
feared death for this simple mistake!
Unthinkable today but a real fear in that day.
Mark
7:11-13: “For Moses said, Honour thy
father and thy mother; and, whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the
death:
But ye
say, if a man shall say to his father or mother, it is Corban, that is to say,
a gift, by whatsoever thou mightiest be profited by me; he shall be free, And
ye suffer him no more to do aught for his father or his mother; Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition,
which ye have delivered: and many such
things do ye.”
Jesus
upbraids the Pharisees soundly for their concept of Corban. In the practice of Corban, a man could
declare that all his money would go to the temple treasury when he died, and that,
since his money belonged to God, he was therefore no longer responsible for
maintaining his aging parents. Jesus
argues that men were using this Pharisaic tradition to render God’s command
(the fifth commandment) of no account.
Without a knowledge of the cultural practice of Corban, we would be
unable to understand this passage.[1]
The reason why Pharisees went along with that
practice is that they received a monetary bribe in order for him to declare a
Corban. The priest’s had access to all
of the temple’s money and they took bribes on the side to make more. The preachers of that day loved their money
as some still do today. The priest’s and
scribes were guilty of placing human tradition and their own greed above divine
revelation.
William J. Roop, M.A.B.S.
