The Secrets of the Cross Trilogy by Elizabeth Musser

Last month, I read this fascinating trilogy by Elizabeth Musser. It doesn't directly touch on Jewish culture (though there are Jewish characters in the series), but I did see correlation as far as honor/shame cultures and the importance of family.

So, I wanted to share the Secrets of the Cross Trilogy with you!

Set primarily in the early 1960s (book 3 is set in 1994), the story follows characters in southern France and northern Algeria during the French-Algerian conflict, detailing the dynamics of racism and clashing cultures between Algerians loyal to their country, descendants of Algerian soldiers who are loyal to the French army and fought against Algeria in the war, Europeans living in Algeria as a result of the conflict, and all of those 3 also living in France. 

From a cultural standpoint, it's a fascinating story to explore, as I knew little of this dynamic. Combined with daring rescues, harrowing escapes, plots, and intrigue, it's a great read!

But what I wanted to share is what stood out to me on page 204, as the character of Ali, an Algerian socialist, vows revenge on his father's death against the descendants of the man who killed his father (who is also dead): "Ali spat. 'Captain Duchemin! You traitor. I'll find your daughter and granddaughter, and then I can draw the line through your family no one will remember them. My father will be avenged'".

This reminded of the blogs I wrote a few years ago about the importance of family, names, and the dynamics of honor and shame in Eastern cultures. This character is so focused on revenge that he wants to wipe out the whole family line of a man who is already dead (so he won't know it happened) in order to avenge his dead father.

He's focused on the name. He wants to completely remove the name. There is importance in names in Eastern cultures that we don't pick up on right away in Western cultures. As I stated in this blog, "The idea is so much deeper in Jewish culture, however. 'It's hard to overstate how important names were in Biblical times,' Lois Tverberg states in Walking in the Dust of Rabbi Jesus. 'In ancient thought, without a name, an object or being didn't even exist. Egyptian documents describe the time before creation as "when no name of anything had yet been named,' and it was only when God created and named things that they officially existed.

Names in ancient Near Eastern culture were more than just descriptive words. They were reputations... legacies... identities."

Wow! That's very different from Western culture. What other media (books, movies, tv shows, etc have you seen this)? I'd love to know in the comments below!

You can find the trilogy here on Amazon!

Mysteries of the Messiah: The Firstborn

While we could spend weeks talking about Rabbi Jason Sobel's Mysteries of the Messiah, I'm only going to focus on one more important thing he shared in his latest book: the importance of the firstborn in ancient Middle Eastern culture.

The 10th plague that God sent over Egypt in Exodus was the death of the firstborn son. As horrific as the thought of losing a child is, the significance of this cannot be ignored. Sobel explains that:

• The firstborn son was meant to lead the family after his father's passing, which is one reason he was given a double portion of the inheritance.
• Because of this, the destiny of the family depended on the firstborn son. "Destiny and identity go hand in hand. In fact, identity is destiny. The death of the first born, on a psychological level, represented the death of identity and hence a family's destiny" (pp. 107-108).

Pharaoh's son actually held the title of 'hereditary crown prince', as the firstborn son of a firstborn son, and "was meant to be the priest, protector, and primary leader of the family. The future of the family lay with the firstborn. The 10th plague struck at the heart of the Egyptians emotionally, economically, culturally, and spiritually" (page 112). 

So the enormity of the loss went beyond the depth of grief over each family losing a child (which is beyond what I can imagine). It also meant a loss of identity—and destiny—culturally and nationally.

I also find that interesting because the firstborn isn't always who God chose to lead. "The Lord hose Isaac over Abraham's firstborn, Ishmael; Jacob over his firstborn brother, Esau' Judah, the fourth son of Jacob, to be head of the 12 tribes, and David, the youngest of all his brothers, to be king over Israel" (page 112). So this doesn't matter as much to God as it does to man in this culture. 

But... Jesus, the Messiah, is the firstborn Son (the only begotten Son). Paul calls Him the first fruit of the the dead. 

For the firstborn to symbolize both identity and destiny... that is a powerful picture for those who follow the Messiah.

Seeking Allah, Find Jesus by Nabeel Qureshi

At first glance, it could seem like this week's book feature has nothing to do with Israel. But since 60% of the population of Israel is Arab, and Islam also claims Jerusalem to be a Holy City, there's a strong connection. 

In Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus, Nabeel Qureshi describes his journey as a devout Muslim from a Pakistani American family who eventually came to follow Jesus as Lord. 

This book is incredible. Qureshi's writing drew me in, and his story is so powerful. But what I loved, almost as much as his journey to becoming a Christ follower, was how much I learned about Islam through this book—and Eastern culture as well. Through his story, I learned about what he believed and why, giving me a greater understanding of basic teachings and beliefs of Islam.

He also gave so many insights of being an Easterner in the West who is wrestling with converting to a 'Western' religion (hopefully this series on the global early church refutes that last claim) and I wanted to share a few of them here. The most heartbreaking were how he agonized over the affect his conversion would have on his family (and did have). While this is difficult to understand in an individualist culture, he does a great job of explaining this on a basic level with a simple example in Chapter 18: "Honor and Authority". 

"Islamic cultures," Qureshi explains, "tend to establish people of high status as authorities, whereas the authority in Western culture is reason itself. These alternative seats of authority permeate the mind, determining the moral outlook of whole societies.... Much of the West's inability to understand the East stems from the paradigmatic schism between honor-shame cultures and innocence-guilt cultures [the West]. This reliance on positional authority explains some characteristics in parts of the Muslim world that confound many Westerners, such as the continued practices of honor killings, child brides of 6 or younger, and blood feuds. For one reason or another, the prevailing sources of social authority in these regions deem these customs acceptable, perhaps even preferable. No amount of sheer reason is going to change these practices, nor will externally imposed prohibitions.... If there is no dishonor, it is not wrong" (pp. 108-109).

The example he gives is a simple one, where as kids, he and his friends would order water at fast-food restaurants, then go get soft drinks instead. But one day, a friend of his was caught getting Mountain Dew Code Red instead of water. An employee said, "You ordered water; you can't get soda!"

"At this," Qureshi says, "many people turned to see the commotion and my friend immediately blushed..... For my friend, this was the moment that made his actions a poor choice [not the actual stealing of the soft drink]. He had suffered dishonor in front of many. Stealing the soda was not the issue for him before being caught. In fact, it was still not the issue after being caught. As strange as it might sound to Westerners, it was more dishonorable for him to be called out by a minimum-wage employee than to be caught stealing soda. So he denied it, asserting firmly, 'I am getting water!' He filled the rest of the cup with water and walked away from the counter, as if were perfectly normal for water to be a deep, bubbly pink" (page 109).

This is fascinating to me, because it is such a different way of thinking than an innocence-guilt culture. It made me think of Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes' commentary on the story of David and Bathsheba (and confirmed this analysis of the story from an Eastern perspective). 

Anyway, exploration of Eastern culture is not the point of this book, but I picked up on it because it's something that I am learning more about—and it was impossible for Nabeel Qureshi to tell his story without incorporating it in. I loved every second of reading this book, and praise God for his testimony! 

I highly recommend this book! If you are interested, you can get it here on Amazon! And if you have read this book, I'd love to know your thoughts below!

*Nabeel Qureshi went on to teach with Ravi Zacharias International Ministries and was diagnosed with stage 4 stomach cancer in 2016 and went to be with the Lord in 2017. 

**For more on honor and shame in Eastern cultures, please check out these posts!

A Multitude of all Peoples: the early church in Asia

For the last several weeks, we've peeked at the history of the early church in Africa and the Middle East, based on A Multitude of All Peoples: Engaging Ancient Christianity's Global Identity by Vince L. Bantu. 

I say "peeked" because I just choose small things that stood out to me, in hopes that it inspires you to go read this book and fully explore Bantu's work. 

This week, we're going to explore his chapter on the early church in Asia. Like the previous posts, I'm just going to point out what stood out to me the most:

• Christianity entered Persia through Jewish communities no later than the 2nd century, and over the next 200 years, while Christians in the Roman Empire experienced severe persecution, this was not the case for Syriac-speaking Persian Christians. This means it was safer for Christians to live in places like Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan than in Greece or Italy! (pp. 165-167)
• As Christians from the Roman Empire fled east to the the Persian Empire, the government began to be suspicious of all Christians, connecting Christianity with the Roman Empire. "The Western cultural captivity of the Church began under Constantine, and the Persian Christians were the first non-Western Christians to suffer the consequences of this phenomenon" (i.e. people today thinking that Christianity is the 'white man's religion'). p. 170
• The Nicene Creed is written in the collectivist 'we' versus the Western "I", showing the Eastern influence of thinking in its creation (p. 172). To read more on this topic, check out this post. 
• In the 7th century, the Church continued to expand East, from Afghanistan and Uzbekistan to the earliest Christian mission to China (p. 177). 9th-century Syriac Christian manuscripts have been found in a monastery in China dating back to the 5th century! (p. 191)
• "In the medieval period, the Church of the East experienced some of the greatest missionary success and expansion of any Christian community in history, starting in Persian territory and extending all the way to the Pacific and Indian ocean" (pp. 179-180).
• Mongol leader Ghenghis Khan was tolerant of Christianity in the lands he conquered, including China (p. 212)
• The decline of Christianity in Central and East Asia began with Islamic persecution at the beginning of the 14th century (p. 216).

That's it for this series on A Multitude of All Peoples! What did you think? I'm purposely not covering the chapter on the Church in the Western world for one reason - I want to give full focus to how the church began throughout the non-Western world. However, I do want to leave this series with a quote from Bantu's conclusion:

"The tendency for Western culture to act as the barometer of Christian orthodoxy is a trend that reaches back to the Romanization of Christianity. It is important to recognize and lament the reality of the Western, white cultural captivity of Christianity, and for the people of God to take responsibility for the genocide wrought on countless millions in the name of (Western) Christianity. It is equally incumbent to recall that the Christian faith did not have its beginnings—nor the totality of its history embedded in white supremacy.....

This point is crucial, as contemporary non-Western non-Christians can easily dismiss the rapid growth of Christianity in the non-Western world as simply a function of Western colonialism and US American globalization.... 

Cognizance of Christianity's deep African and Asian roots dispels the common sense of indebtedness of Christianity to the Western world. Rather, early African and Asian Christianity provides an entry point free from Western dominance for a contemporary non-Western convert to Christianity" (pp. 220-221).

and

"The Western, white cultural captivity of the church [the belief that it is the 'white man's religion'] is the single greatest obstacle for people coming to faith in Christ....Christianity was expelled from China twice for cultural, rather than theological reasons....If it is the desire of the Church to exist deeply rooted for the long term for all nations, tribes, and tongues, it is necessary for the Gospel to be stripped of any geocultural association" (p. 225). 

My hope for every reader out there is what I experienced in reading this book: a greater appreciation and understanding of the history of the Church as a whole. It is so rich and way beyond the depths that even Bantu could plumb—although I know I'll be coming back to this book again and again to re-learn and gain greater understanding, as it was too much to take in for a first read-through. This book is definitely going on the shelf! 

I hope you enjoyed this series; I most definitely did! If you are interested in reading this book, you can purchase it here on Amazon!

Walking in the Dust of Rabbi Jesus: Names

In Chapter 6 of Walking in the Dust of Rabbi Jesus, Lois Tverberg focuses on the mystery of names in Jewish culture. This is something that is very different from Western culture.

Tverberg states that from ancient times until today saying "in the name of" is the equivalent of claiming that's person's authority or behalf. It's like how today, when we pray, we often end with, "... in Jesus' name, Amen". We are claiming his status and authority as God's Son in that moment.

The idea is so much deeper in Jewish culture, however. "It's hard to overstate how important names were in Biblical times," Tverberg states on page 84. "In ancient thought, without a name, an object or being didn't even exist. Egyptian documents describe the time before creation as "when no name of anything had yet been named," and it was only when God created and named things that they officially existed.

Names in ancient Near Eastern culture were more than just descriptive words. They were reputations... legacies... identities. As we talked about in the posts "Family is Important" and "Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Honor and Shame", your name and the name of your family are vitally important in this culture. This is why when God redirected someone's life, he often changed their names (like Abram, Jacob, Saul, etc). And why Moses appealed to God's name in his attempt to persuade God not to destroy the Israelites for worshipping the golden calf in Exodus 32.

Throughout the Bible, the concept of God's name spreading throughout the earth is a common theme. And this is why the 3rd commandment, "You shall not take the Lord your God's name in vain" is such an important thing. Western Christians often see it as not swearing with God's name. But it's so much more than that. Tverberg states, "The text literally says, 'you shall not lift up God's name as an empty thing.' One of the was that rabbis interpreted this was as doing something evil publicly and associating God with it. It is a sin against God Himself, who suffers from having his reputation defamed" (page 88).

We see examples like this every day, and throughout history. From slavery, oppression, and prejudice, people who blow up abortion clinics or abuse family members who are under their leadership. We see it in religions of the world as well—horrible things done in the name of the god they believe in. The rest of the world is thinking, 'what kind of god is this that he would want you to do such a horrible thing?" His reputation is damaged, or taken in vain, just as God's is when people do things in His name that aren't of His commands or character.

Small examples are just as important here—businessmen who will cheat others and sit on the front pew on Sunday. Or what about cutting someone off with ours car while we have Christian bumper sticker on the back? It's giving a false witness, or a witness against Christ to the world around us.

As Christians, we carry God's name in all we do and say. And while we do know this, the full meaning of it is so much deeper because of the cultural connotations that we don't have. It's name and reputation that has been proclaimed for millennia throughout the earth—the universe—with great breadth and weight. For this reason, family names are so important in Near Eastern culture—because the name will last beyond those who bear it. In the West, it's considered admirable if someone has to rise from the adversity of overcoming negative (or toxic) dynamics and start a new, separate life. This would not be a positive thing in Near Eastern culture.

In fact, I once heard a story about a Jewish woman who heard about a practice in Germany that, due to limit land availability, grave sites are only leased for 15-30 years. After that, the grave's contents (and headstone) are removed and the land is available for a new inhabitant.

Upon hearing this, the Jewish woman said, "But what happens to their name?"

When I heard this story, I couldn't stop thinking about it. It's why it's so important to families from collective cultures to have children, and especially male children, to continue the family name. While this is important in Western culture, it's doesn't have the same gravitas. There might be shame and great pain over infertility, but the cultural implication of a complete loss of the weight of a name (identity and reputation) isn't necessarily as big of a deal. And as to people being removed from their graves 30 years after death (when it's likely that those who would visit have already passed on) is practical in light of limited land availability.

What do you think? How does the important of a name in Jewish culture from one on your own?

Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Honor and Shame

Fast-forwarding ahead to Part II of Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes, the authors take us deeper into the 'iceberg' of understanding culture and worldview.

In chapter 4, they talk about the difference between Individualist (Western) and Collectivist cultures (Eastern), and give examples of this from the Bible.

Then, in chapter 5, they explore what it means that Individualist cultures are right/wrong cultures and Collectivist cultures are honor/shame cultures—and why this is important in the Bible, which was an honor/shame world (page 114). If that sentence doesn't make sense, I definitely recommend researching this topic. It's fascinating!

To oversimplify this, Westerners see the world through right and wrong, and believe the Holy Spirit (or their own conscience) will convict them of right and wrong. Yes, actions have impact on others, but ultimately, conviction and repentance is about the individual.

In the East, "people are more likely to choose right behavior on the basis of what society expects from them. It's not a matter of guilt, or an inner voice of direction, but outer pressures and opinions that direct a person to behave a certain way. Rules and laws are less a deterrent for bad behavior than the risk of bringing shame on oneself or one's family.... If a person from a shame culture commits a 'sin', he will not likely feel guilty about it if no one else knows, for it is the community (not the individual) that determines where one has lost face" (page 116-117). The authors continue to unpack this on pages 120-127 by talking about the honor/shame language, customs, and actions in the story of David and Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 11-12. It's too long for me to summarize, but WOW- seeing this influence in this well known story really gave me another perspective!

Here are some short examples, however. In Exodus 32, when God is angry and wants to destroy the Israelites for worshipping the golden calf, Moses appeals to God's honor. "He makes a two-pronged argument to persuade God to change His mind: 1) think about what the Egyptians will say about Your name, and 2) You swore on Your name and You don't want to get a bad name! Moses doesn't appeal to God's sense of justice ('it wouldn't be right') but to His sense of honor ('You will be shamed')" p. 128.

Another example comes from Jesus. In this example, it's also important to realize something important about the concept of honor/shame. Basically, there's only so much honor. For someone to gain honor through interpersonal interaction, it means that they gained honor by shaming someone else (again, an oversimplification). Richards and O'Brien say that, "Public questions were contests. The winner was determined by the audience, who represented the community. If you silenced your opponent, you gained honor and they lost some" (page 129). This is why the disciples asked Jesus questions privately instead of publicly, as well as Nicodemus. But when the Pharisees asked questions in the open, at the Temple, it was a challenge, and every time they "lost", they lost honor. It was so enraging that they decided to kill Jesus as a criminal—this public disgrace would get their honor back (page 130).

WOW! How do these concepts impact how we can read the Scriptures? The authors conclude the chapter by recommending Bible readers to pay attention to where stories take place in Scripture (in private or in public). For us, it's a good clue as to what is a true quest for truth or a challenge.

Reading the Bible with Rabbi Jesus: Y'all

In chapter 7 of Reading the Bible with Rabbi Jesus, Lois Tverberg dives deep into a description of what it means to be from a collective society (community-oriented).

She begins by pointing out itself how the language in the Bible is community-oriented. A primary example is the word "you". In English, we don't have an official word for "you plural"... unless you count the southern "y'all" (and I do!). Officially, "you" can mean 1 person or a group.

But many languages, including Hebrew, differentiate between the two forms. And Tverberg says that many places in the Bible where English speakers see "you" and automatically think "me" should think "us". For instance, on page 132 she uses the example of 1 Corinthians 6:19, where Paul says, "Don't you know that you are the temple of the living God?" The "you" there is plural (y'all). How does that change how we read this verse? Or Jesus saying, "You are the light of the world"?

This concept ties in directly with the idea of the importance of family and group identity, as we talked about in the last post, and it is mind-boggling (in a good way) for a Western reader. 

How would our understanding of the Bible be different if we looked for the "y'all" in the context?

Reading the Bible with Rabbi Jesus: WEIRD Filters

In her book, Reading the Bible with Rabbi Jesus, Lois Tverberg writes about how American, European, and Australian readers we have WEIRD filters.

WEIRD doesn't mean bad or strange*. In fact, it's an acronym for:

• Western (they are Eastern)
• Educated (we think in abstractions and logic, they thought in pictures and parables)
• Industrialized (We focus on work outside of the home; they focus on growth and strength of family)
• Rich (easy access to food and housing)
• Democratic- in voting countries. (We focus on individual good versus the good of the community)

Tverberg shares an example I've never thought of before in her description for "Rich". She mentions the story of Luke 12:15-21, how the rich man built barns for his overflowing crops, in order to take care of him in the future. This makes sense to a modern, Western reader. But Tverberg points out that this would have shocked readers in the first century, because it means he didn't share his wealth with the community first. 

What does this example and the WEIRD filters show us about the difference in first-world life? How can it help us read the Bible differently?

*from pages 36-38

Update on September 24, 2018—check out this updated discussion here!

Reading the Bible with Rabbi Jesus: Removing Western Filters

I started this series on Lois Tverberg's Reading the Bible with Rabbi Jesus talking about the idea of how it's easy for a reader to view Scripture through the lens of the 21st Century—and even a Western perspective.

On page 18, she quotes New Testament Scholar Kenneth E. Bailey, where he writes:

"The Bible is an Eastern book. We see it through the colored glasses of Western culture. Much is lost. We miss the subtleties of humor and many of the underlying assumptions. We do not understand the ingrained attitudes that illuminate a story or illustration... what likes between the lines, what is felt and not spoken, is of deepest significance..... It is my perception that for us as Westerners, the cultural distance "over" to the Middle East is greater than the distance 'back' to the first century. The cultural gulf between the West and the East is deeper and wider than the gulf between the first century (in the Middle East) and the contemporary conservative Middle Eastern village."

What does this mean for the modern, Western reader who wishes to follow Christ and live according to His Word? How can we learn the Jewish perspective and read with Eastern eyes?

Do you agree with this statement—that it is harder bridge to understanding the cultural differences between the East and West than to the mindset of someone 2000 years ago?

It's because of this that I've been embarking on this study. As a Western female in 2018, I do not want to miss even one drop of truth from the Bible because I don't understand a cultural nuance—even though I know that I have. I know I have these filters, so I am asking God to help me read with Eastern eyes.

Reading the Bible with Rabbi Jesus: Removing Our Filters

Recently, I've been trying to peel back the filters of being a 21st century, American, female reader when reading the Bible. It's so easy for me to assume so much from my culture and worldview as I read the Bible. But what would it mean to read with Jewish eyes?

To this end, one of the books I read recently is Reading the Bible with Rabbi Jesus by Lois Tverberg.

Tverberg opens the book with statements supporting this view: "How can [non-Jewish] Christians be equipped to read the Bible from the Hebraic perspective of its first readers? What big-picture ideas do we need to understand?.... In the past few decades, we've been realizing that Jesus has been overly cast within Greco-Roman society to the neglect of His Jewish context. Jesus interacted with a wide spectrum of people—Samaritans, Romans, Greeks—and yet His Galilean upbringing and ministry were profoundly, deeply Jewish. While we find Paul preaching to Greek audiences, Jesus' words fit far better into Judaism than a Gentile context." (p. 11, emphasis and insertions mine).

This is what I want to discover, and I feel like this book is an excellent introduction into this topic. Care to dive in with me? In the next few posts, I'll explore just a few of the themes Tverberg focuses on. Stay tuned!