Handout: Session Four: A Model for Cross Cultural Comparison

I. Values and Human Activity:

  Middle East: Being > Doing > Being-in-becoming

A. Being (spontaneous response to cues)

 Matt 11:16-19
 Matt 12:1-8
 Matt 12: 9-14

 Matt 26:47-65//Mark 14:47//Luke 22:50//John 18:10; compare Lev 21:16

B. Being-in-becoming (developing all aspects of human activity)

Etic perspective:

Heart - Eyes: Zone of emotion-fused thinking
Mouth - Ears:  Zone of self-expressive speech
Hands - Feet:
Zone of purposeful activity
 

 

Emic perspective: (the distinct vocabulary) :

Emotion fused thought: eyes, heart, eyelid, pupil; to see, know, understand, think, remember, choose, feel, consider, look at; thought intelligence, mind, wisdom, folly, intention, plan, will, affection, love, hate, sight, regard, blindness, look; intelligent loving, wise, foolish, hateful, joyous, sad, etc.

Self expressive speech: : ears, tongue, lips, throat, teeth, jaws; to speak, hear, say, call, cry, question, sing, recount, praise, listen to, blame, curse, swear disobey, turn a deaf ear to; speech voice, call, cry, clamor, song, sound, hearing; eloquent, dumb, talkative, silent, attentive, distracted, etc.

Purposeful action: hands, feet, arms, fingers, legs; to do, act, accomplish, execute, intervene, touch, come, go, march, walk, stand, sit; to steal, kidnap, commit adultery, build,; action, gesture, work, activity, behavior, step, walking, way , course; active, capable, quick, slow, etc.

For example:

 Matt 5--7
 

C. Doing (calculated, planned activity)

 Matt 7:21
 Matt 12:46-50
 Matt 26:36, esp 39,  42

 Matt 8:14-17
 

 Is Jesus counter-cultural? or rather counter-structural?

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de Gėradon, Bernard.  "L'homme à l'image de Dieu."  La Nouvelle Révue Théologique  80 (1958) 683-695.

John J. Pilch "Interpreting the Bible with the Value Orientations Model: History and Prospects." Biblical Theology Bulletin
     32 (2002)

John J. Pilch, Introducing the Cultural Context of the New Testament (Eugene, OR: Wipf  Stock), pp. 244; and 93-126.