The Bible

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The Bible On Culture Lucien Legrand
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Israel and Canaan Emergence and Opposition
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• Israel emerges from the wider Canaanite
  culture.
• Israel and Canaan share a common cultural and
  religious background.
• Yet, much of Israels identity was derived from
  its opposition to Canaanite culture and religion.

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In the biblical text, Canaan stands as a symbol
of what Israel rejected with regard to the
Semitic cultural background in which it
originated. This statement can be taken both
ways. Canaan stands, on the one hand for what
Israel rejected, but, on the other hand, for the
milieu that nurtured its growth. (15)
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A Biblical Paradox
Immanence Transcendence Incarnation
Judgment Belonging Dissent
The transcendent God is also immanent.
Incarnation and judgment cannot be dissociated.
A witness to that God and fidelity to him imply
that the prophetic protest against the unholiness
of the world be expressed from within a total
communion with this world. (16)
Protest
Belonging
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Kings and Prophets Culture and Counterculture
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Kings Political Acculturation
Prophets Countercultural Protest
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A King Like All the Nations
It is not you they have rejected but they have
rejected me as their king. (1 Sam. 8)
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Prophetic Counteraction

• Radical Resistance
• Cultural Dialogue

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Elijah Showdown on Carmel
A radical all-or-nothing stance against the
culture of Baal.
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The Rechabites Return to the Wilderness
A life of strict separation and return to the
past.
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Amos Afflicting the Comfortable
Sharply criticized culture for its oppression of
the poor. Hearkened often to the God of Israels
wilderness past.
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Hosea The Baal of Israel
Converts the language and thought forms of
Canaanite religion in order to reject Baalism and
present Yahweh as the true husband of Israel.
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Isaiah Prince of Peace
Borrows royal language and motifs from the
surrounding cultures to present his image of the
Messiah.
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Abraham and Moses Call of the Beyond
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Abraham departs
Moses breaks free
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Land and itinerancy form the two poles of
Abrahams life and of Israels identity. The two
aspects are well expressed in the opening verse
of the patriarchal saga in Genesis 121 Go from
your country it is the call to follow a god who
cannot be encompassed by any locality. To the
land I shall show you God will give the people
his blessings and their identity in the earthly
world he created. Like their ancestor, the
descendents of Abraham will have to carry in
their destiny and culture the two opposite
aspects of the initial call. Belonging and
transcending will characterize their attitude
toward surrounding cultures. (65)
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Thus are posited, form the outset, the two poles
of a biblical attitude toward culture. The
children of Abraham live in history and are
deeply rooted in and committed to the reality of
a world that has been blessed in creation and
sanctified in incarnation . . . But the people of
Abraham and Moses have inherited and continue to
heed the call addressed to their ancestor by the
God of the beyond. This call and their response
in faith make them a prophetic people Beyond
the realm of created things, they look up at the
ultimate. Through cultures but beyond them, they
get a glimpse, ever so dim, of the glory of God.
(69)
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Jesus Marginal Jew
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Like the Pharisees, Jesus lived among the common
folk and was one of them. Unlike the Pharisees,
he sympathized with their forlorn situation
Ultimately, it was with those accursed people
that he identified best A mixed lot of simple
honest souls and of professed sinners, of poor
people struggling to make both ends meet and of
corrupt
publicans, they had this in common that they were
more concerned with the cares of daily life than
with theological issues But this marginal
group formed the majority of the population and,
in this sense, Jesus belonged very much to the
mainstream of Jewish society. (95)
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• Jesus parables, emerge from the subculture of
  the common Galilean folk.
• The language of these parables, though common,
  is great. It took a genial creativity to
  reverse the traditional literary and theological
  codes and to make folk language the medium of the
  highest spiritual experiences.

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The words anti-culture or counter-culture do
not do justice to Jesus vision. Jesus did not
identify with the opposition groups. His is an
attitude of integral freedom. From within the
culture he belongs to and in which he was born,
he transcends the cultural as well as the
countercultural set patterns. Jesus would
probably better be known as
trans-cultural. (112)
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Paul Both Jew and Greek
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• Paul was the product of hybrid culture
  Hellenistic Judaism a mixture of Jewish and
  Greek thought.
• Was Jewish. Trained by the Pharisee Gamaliel.
• Also a Roman citizen by birth. Raised in a
  Hellenistic city. An able Greek writer and
  rhetorician.

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• Paul the Jew was devoted to his people, yet saw
  that the glory of all cultures even Jewish
  culture fell short of Gods glory.
• Paul the Roman did much to convert the language
  of Christianity to meet the urban, introspective,
  Hellenistic mind. Yet he squarely confronted
  Greek wisdom with the foolishness of the cross.

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• The view offered by Paul in his letters is
  black-and-white, showing the discontinuity
  between the new age that has come in Christ and
  the old order of things. Pauls theological
  outlook is commanded by an apocalyptic contrast
  between good and evil.
• Whereas, the view offered by Luke in his gospel
  and Acts emphasizes the openness of the nations
  to the gospel, and is more likely to see the
  points of convergence between the gospel and the
  Gentile world. The most notable example being
  Lukes account of Paul in Athens (ch. 17).

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Conclusion
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Cultural Reality Cultures are
plural Biblical Response Communion
Embracing the richness of Gods
family Cultural Reality Cultures are
ambivalent (mixture of good and
evil) Biblical Response Prophetism
Confronting culture with the holiness of
God Cultural Reality Cultures are limited
(by our humanness) Biblical Response
Eschatology Looking beyond culture to the
fullness of time