Also, PtME's historical scholarship is often outdated or out of touch. Bailey warns at the beginning that his scholarly focus is not Pauline literature. He appeals to older commentaries and older historical works. The result is that some of the same old misunderstandings continue to be propagated. Bailey says we often don’t see that “the way we reason and what becomes reasonable for us is influenced by our language, culture, history, tradition, economic system, and our military. That’s the sieve through which we perceive the world and come up with what is reasonable. But somebody halfway around the world processes the same data and comes up with a different conclusion.” Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, by Gregory Beale and D. A. Carson, is a one-volume commentary on how New Testament writers understood and interpreted the Old Testament. Some Christians feel unsettled to hear that Luke didn’t know Jesus. Luke did not personally see or hear what the gospel of Luke reports Jesus saying and doing. These same Christians may feel uneasy to learn that the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Johnweren’t written till decades (30 to 60 years) after Jesus ascended into heaven. The Center of Biblical Theology in Acts: Deliverance and Damnation Display the Divine by James M. Hamilton Jr.

Kenneth E. Bailey, Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes Review of Kenneth E. Bailey, Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes

Bailey shares insights from Syrian and Arabic Christian thought about Jesus that are almost unknown to the rest of the world. He has the gift of communicating interesting ideas in a devotional way that church members who love God's Word will appreciate." L. R. K. ISBNs: 9780830875856, 9780830825684, 9781662004674, 9780281059751, 0830875859, 0830825681, 1662004672, 0281059756 His years of living, researching, and teaching in the Middle East convince him that “the most profound theology in scripture comes out in story—Psalm 23, parables of the Good Shepherd and/or prodigal son….”In chapter 12, it is suggested that Jesus may have been nurtured with a “theological education” in the lay movement of the haberim that sprung up around this time (p.147). The Dead Sea Scrolls are appealed to as shedding light on the Messianic understanding of Isaiah 61 (pp.149-150), and the Targum also helps us contextualize the passage as it was understood in early Judaism (pp.155-156). The complaint that follows Jesus’ reading of that text in Luke’s Gospel is, according to Bailey, to be understood as expressing the community’s feeling that Jesus has departed from their own understanding of the passage. Nazareth was a “settler town” (p.152), and the community took offense at Jesus’ omission of those very lines from Isaiah that gave voice to their expectation that the Messianic age would be glorious for them, while a time when God’s vengeance would deal with their enemies (p.162). Cultural Intelligence is an essential skill for all those in the worshiping community, especially those in leadership positions.

Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in

In books such as The Cross & the Prodigal: Luke 15 Through the Eyes of Middle Eastern Peasantsand Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels, Bailey explains what Christians miss out on when they don’t “participate in the culture of those who first heard the gospel. At the heart of this cultural approach to the Gospels is Bailey’s appeal to recognize the historical nature of the Scriptures. He emphasizes that the Word of God is spoken through people in history: “Those people and that history cannot be ignored without missing the speaker or writer’s intentions and creating our own substitutes for them” (p. 281).Again, an interesting methodological position, but also seemingly innovative in comparison to the modern exegetical tradition. That's not to say it's a bad thing. But I think it's a supplemental position, since it does seem to be an unusual one. A simple village home in the time of King David, up until the Second World War, in the Holy Land, had two rooms—one for guests, one for the family. The family room had an area, usually about four feet lower, for the family donkey, the family cow, and two or three sheep. They are brought in last thing at night and taken out and tied up in the courtyard first thing in the morning. Bailey has a gift of clear, lively expression; he takes advantage of his personal experiences, interest in Hebrew poetic structure, and knowledge of Arabic to bring insights into NT interpretation. Author: Ruth B. Edwards Source: Journal for the Study of the New Testament

Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the

Paul wrote about Jesus being in the form of God, yet emptying himself and being made in human likeness. “This high Christology is not something dreamed up by the church. It’s at the heart of what Jesus said about himself,” Bailey says. Inspiration a divine processThe crux of Bailey's argument is that since Paul was a Jewish Pharisee (rabbi) then it makes sense that he would also use this same style. In other words, if the scripture Paul read was filled with this then it is probably how he thought too. Bailey sees this clearly in Paul's letter to the Corinthian church. He says that while scholars have tended to see 1 Corinthians as thrown together in response to problems in the church it is actually a well-thought out, intricately crafted series of essays that is for the whole, universal church, though it is motivated by specific concerns in Corinth.