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    Jesus, the Middle Eastern Storyteller
    Jesus, the Middle Eastern Storyteller
    Jesus, the Middle Eastern Storyteller
    Ebook145 pages2 hours

    Jesus, the Middle Eastern Storyteller

    By Gary M. Burge

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    About this ebook

    Storytellers made history, and Jesus was the greatest of them all. But how can modern readers know what he actually meant in such iconic parables as the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan? Jesus, the Middle Eastern Storyteller combines the readability of a popular novel and the authority of scholarship to uncover the hidden meaning of references too often misinterpreted or left shrouded in mystery. The first volume in the Ancient Context, Ancient Faith series drives to the heart of readers’ desire to know the culture behind the Scriptures. Colorful maps, photos, and illustrations enhance the context of the times that shaped Jesus’ vivid communication of core truths. This expert guide is an invaluable resource for study groups, teachers, leaders, and inquiring Christians who want to dig deeper and enrich their spiritual life.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherZondervan
    Release dateAug 30, 2009
    ISBN9780310866404
    Jesus, the Middle Eastern Storyteller
    Author

    Gary M. Burge

    Gary M. Burge (PhD, King's College, Aberdeen University) is visiting professor of New Testament at Calvin Theological Seminary. Gary has authored a number of books, including Who Are God’s People in the Middle East? What Christians Are Not Being Told About Israel and the Palestinians; John and Letters of John in the NIV Application Commentary series; The New Testament in Antiquity (coauthored with Gene Green); and the first three volumes in the Ancient Context, Ancient Faith series: The Bible and the Land, Jesus, the Middle Eastern Storyteller, and Encounters with Jesus. Gary specializes in the Middle East, its churches, and its history in the Hellenistic period.

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    • 4/5
      Synopsis: In this short book, Burge guides the reader to interpret Jesus as a storyteller - a teacher who uses allegory and hyperbole to make important points within his own social context. The book is filled with beautiful pictures and several examples of Jesus' use of hyperbole to teach an important point. Burge provides historical and cultural insight into what Jesus may have been talking about when telling his parables. My thoughts: I was surprised at how fun this book was. Although it's quite short, and half of it was pictures, it made me look at Jesus from a interesting new perspective. Of course, I already knew that Jesus used parables and hyperbole to make points, but it was really interesting to read Burge's cultural analysis of those parables. The story I found most enlightening was Burge's interpretation of the fig tree incident - the one where Jesus cursed the tree. Burge pointed out that the fig tree represented the Jewish state and religion. Throughout the New Testament Jesus repeatedly pointed out the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, who made a public spectacle of themselves fasting, praying, and giving alms; but who did not have the spirit of the religion in their hearts. They prayed for the approval of the people, not for the approval of God. Thus, they were not "bearing fruit." Of course, I realize that this insight about the fig tree and the Pharisees is not uniquely Burge's. What's important is that Jesus, the Middle Eastern Storyteller introduced me to some interesting interpretations that I could look into in more detail later. In that way, this book was a valuable resource for me.For my full review, go to my blog: Resistance is Futile
    • 5/5
      Ab. So. Lute. Ly. Amazing.

      Outside of their Ancient Near-Eastern context, the meanings of the parables become a jumbled mess. Only by placing them within that cultural context do they suddenly spark to life the way they did originally, when Jesus first told them to his audiences.

    Book preview

    Jesus, the Middle Eastern Storyteller - Gary M. Burge

    0310280451_content_0001_0010310280451_content_0003_002

    ZONDERVAN

    JESUS, THE MIDDLE EASTERN STORYTELLER

    Copyright © 2009 by Gary M. Burge

    All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Zondervan.

    ePub Edition August 2009 ISBN: 978-0-310-86640-4

    Requests for information should be addressed to:

    Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530

    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

    Burge, Gary M.

           Jesus, the Middle Eastern storyteller / Gary M. Burge.

              p. cm. (Ancient context, ancient faith)

           ISBN 978-0-310-28045-3

           1. Jesus Christ – Parables. 2. Bible. N.T. Luke – Criticism, interpretation, etc. 3.

        Storytelling – Religious aspects – Christianity. 4. Middle East – Civilization. I. Title.

        BT375.3.B87 2008

        226.8’06 — dc22

    2008021319

    Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, Today’s New International Version™. TNIV®. Copyright © 2001, 2005 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

    Any Internet addresses (websites, blogs, etc.) and telephone numbers printed in this book are offered as a resource. They are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement by Zondervan, nor does Zondervan vouch for the content of these sites and numbers for the life of this book.

    All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means — electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other — except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

    Maps by International Mapping

    09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 • 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

    For Kenneth E. Bailey

    Who taught me how to read a parable

    CONTENTS

    COVER PAGE

    TITLE PAGE

    COPYRIGHT PAGE

    SERIES INTRODUCTION

    Ancient Context, Ancient Faith

    1 JESUS’ STORYTELLING WORLD

    2 THE FRIEND WHO CAME AT MIDNIGHT

    Luke 11:1 – 13

    3 STORIES ABOUT EXCUSES

    Luke 14:15 – 24

    4 STORIES ABOUT COMPASSION

    Luke 10:25 – 37

    5 STORIES OF FORGIVENESS

    Matthew 18:21 – 35

    6 FINDING THE LOST

    Luke 15

    7 THE FOOLISH BUILDER

    Luke 12:13 – 21

    ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

    SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

    Series Introduction:

    ANCIENT CONTEXT,

    ANCIENT FAITH

    EVERY COMMUNITY of Christians throughout history has framed its understanding of spiritual life within the context of its own culture. Byzantine Christians living in the fifth century and Puritan Christians living over a thousand years later used the world in which they lived to work out the principles of Christian faith, life, and identity. The reflex to build house churches, monastic communities, medieval cathedrals, steeple-graced and village-centered churches, or auditoriums with theater seating will always spring from the dominant cultural forces around us.

    Even the way we understand faith in Christ is to some degree shaped by these cultural forces. For instance, in the last three hundred years, Western Christians have abandoned seeing faith as a chiefly communal exercise (although this is not true in Africa or Asia). Among the many endowments of the European Enlightenment, individualism reigns supreme: Christian faith is a personal, private endeavor. We prefer to say, "I have accepted Christ," rather than define ourselves through a community that follows Christ. Likewise (again, thanks to the Enlightenment) we have elevated rationalism as a premier value. Among many Christians faith is a construct of the mind, an effort at knowledge gained through study, an assent to a set of theological propositions. Sometimes even knowing what you believe trumps belief itself.

    To be sure, many Christians today are challenging these Enlightenment assumptions and are seeking to chart a new path. Nevertheless, this new path is as much a by-product of modern cultural trends than any other. For example, we live today in a highly therapeutic society. Even if we are unaware of the discipline of psychology, we are still being shaped by the values it has brought to our culture over the last hundred years. Faith today has an emotional, feeling-centered basis. Worship is measured by the emotive responses and the heart. Felt needs of a congregation shape many sermons.

    Therefore, defining Christian faith as a personal choice based on well-informed convictions and inspired by emotionally engaging worship is a formula for spiritual formation that may be natural to us — but it may have elements that are foreign to the experience of other Christians in other cultures or other centuries. I imagine that fifth-century Christians would feel utterly lost in a modern church with its worship band and theater seating where lighting, sound, refreshments, and visual media are closely monitored. They might wonder if this modern church was chiefly indebted to entertainment, like a tamed, baptized version of Rome’s public arenas. They might also wonder how 10,000 people can gain any sense of shared life or community when each family comes and goes by car, lives a long distance away, and barely recognizes the person sitting next to them.

    THE ANCIENT LANDSCAPE

    If it is true that every culture provides a framework in which the spiritual life is understood, the same must be said about the ancient world. The setting of Jesus and Paul in the Roman Empire was likewise shaped by cultural forces quite different from our own. If we fail to understand these cultural forces, we will fail to understand many of the things Jesus and Paul taught.

    This does not mean that the culture of the biblical world enjoys some sort of divine approval or endorsement. We do not need to imitate the biblical world in order to live a more biblical life. This was a culture that had its own preferences for dress, speech, diet, music, intellectual thought, religious expression, and personal identity. And its cultural values were no more significant than are our own. Modesty in antiquity was expressed in a way we may not understand. The arrangement of marriage partners is foreign to our world of personal dating. Even how one prays (seated or standing, arms upraised or folded, aloud or silent) has norms dictated by culture.

    But if this is true — if cultural values are presupposed within every faithful community, both now and two thousand years ago — then the stories we read in the Bible may presuppose themes that are completely obscure to us. Moreover, when we read the Bible, we may misrepresent its message because we simply do not understand the cultural instincts of the first century. We live two thousand years distant; we live in the West and the ancient Middle East is not native territory for us.

    INTERPRETING FROM AFAR

    This means we must be cautious interpreters of the Bible. We must be careful lest we presuppose that our cultural instincts are the same as those represented in the Bible. We must be culturally aware of our own place in time — and we must work to comprehend the cultural context of the Scriptures that we wish to understand. Too often interpreters have lacked cultural awareness when reading the Scriptures. We have failed to recognize the gulf that exists between who we are today and the context of the Bible. We have forgotten that we read the Bible as foreigners, as visitors who have traveled not only to a new geography but a new century. We are literary tourists who are deeply in need of a guide.

    The goal of this series is to be such a guide — to explore themes from the biblical world that are often misunderstood. In what sense, for instance, did the physical geography of Israel shape its people’s sense of spirituality? How did the storytelling of Jesus presuppose

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