Cross-Cultural Differences In Richards And O Brien

Summary

The basic theme or thesis of the book would be to “remind (or convince) you of the cross-cultural nature of biblical interpretation … by helping one become more aware of the cultural differences that separate us from the foreign land of scripture.” (p.12).

Richards and O’Brien use an iceberg as their foundation of analogy: what one sees, and the world sees (the top of the iceberg), the part that everyone has a perception about; the part just barely hidden underwater, the part that the western world only sees narrowly, and the Eastern world holds to a greater value; and the bottom of the iceberg hidden from view, those parts of scripture (culture, socio and economically as well as all the other mores that one clump together) are restricted

In the days the bible was composed, there were no “I”, “me”, “mine”, thought processes in the lives of the authors or the readers and the audience in which it was presented. It was a world where each individual was a specific part of a whole; like a hand connected to the arm; one without the other does not fit the criteria of the biblical world. The book elaborates in the fact that each part was just as imperative as the other and that it took more than just one piece to complete a whole, it took multiple pieces to make it all fit together: a jigsaw puzzle with 1000 pieces. Their analysis was so well laid out and explained that even a non-Christian could truly grasp the concept in which they

Whereas, in a non-western world when one comes to a conclusion or decision, it is at the behest of family, i.e. mother, father aunt, uncle and all others as a group. It is a matter of society as a whole and how things are done in their part of the world. Western or non-western are so very different and those are important aspects for one to understand. For one that has never taken the time to analyze that intersection, based on scripture, meaning and or application, one would never grasp that concept. In the average person readings, one does not usually take the time to see where the person was writing that scripture, on occasion it is specified to whom it is written and for what purpose, and those are an important part of a true understanding and application of the scripture as God meant it for all of the worlds: Western and Non-Western worlds