Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible by E. Randolph Richards

Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible Reviews

• 
  Darwin8u

  "While this is a book about biblical interpretation, our primary goal is to help us learn to read ourselves."
  - Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes, E Randolph Richards & Brandon J. O'Brien
  
  
  
  I read this on the way to NYC and flying back. While in the City, we visited the Morgan (Library) and saw one of its three Gutenberg Bibles (among many, many others). So, I felt primed and pumped to finish Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes.
  
  A fascinating read that reminds those who read scripture (and I think this applicable to not just the Bible but any religious text read by people from a different time and place). We bring to the text our own biases, our own context, our own age, and our own needs. Some of this is good. It is good to liken these texts to ourselves, carefully. However, according to the authors it is also EASY to misread the Bible (that is their subject) because we view it with Western eyes. Without thinking about the context of scripture when might misread, add to, or passover the actual meaning because of our cultural biases.
  
  This is a carefully written book that understands that not only the readers of this book are coming with their own blinders, but also the authors themselves. They aren't trying to provide an exact map of HOW to read the scriptures, but rather a way to read the scriptures. One of my favorite phrases from the book was "We like to say that generalizations are always wrong and usually helpful." That quote kinda captures the tone of the book. They are aware of themselves; write with humor, and point in a direction rather than at any one dogmatic reading of the scriptures. They want to teach the reader to think differently when reading, not teach them exactly what an exactly right interpretation might mean.
  
  Another Gem from this book was the advice given by C.S. Lewis to read at least one old book for every three new ones:
  
  “Every age has its own outlook. It is especially good at seeing certain truths and especially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books. . . . Not, of course, that there is any magic about the past. People were no cleverer then than they are now; they made as many mistakes as we. But not the same mistakes.” I loved that. So not only is it misreading it with Western Eyes, but perhaps misreading scripture with Contemporary eyes as well.
• 
  Robert Miner

  I'm sorry to say that, altho I expected much more of this book, I was disappointed.
  I am, myself, a European educated USAian, who has spent the last 30 years in evangelical theological education in the Arab World, so I was hoping to find orientation and insights.
  Unfortunately, I found a rambling on about cultural relativity, with examples and illustrations gathered mostly from the authors' personal experiences.
  This book would be great for someone thinking that his present culture in the "absolute" and tending to read his culture back into the scriptures. For this purpose, the book is good.
  However, for those looking for more than personal anecdotes, I'd recommend Kenneth Bailey, "Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes". More content, higher relevance, clearer thought process.
• 
  Amy Kannel

  This book will mess with your head, but in the best ways. It is smart, funny, fascinating, startling, and extremely readable. In fact, it's just the sort of book the church needs more of: a serious and thoughtful exploration of theology and hermeneutics, yet accessible to the average Christian, not a dry academic tome. The authors' premise (and they have a lot of credibility due to their experience with long-term overseas missions) is that "what goes without being said" in our culture is often very, very different from what went without being said in the cultures of the Bible--and when we map our assumptions onto the text, we're in dangerous territory.
  
  In the end, the book also provides one of the best indirect yet compelling arguments for the critical importance of diversity in the church.
  
  All in all, it's excellent--well worth your time.
• 
  Brian Griffith

  I’m surprised how much I liked this. The authors are earnest, Bible-literalist Christians, but their educations in biblical languages plus their pastoral experience in Europe, Indonesia, and the USA, makes them interestingly self-critical about the cultural assumptions they bring to the text. They note, for example, how “modesty” in the ancient Roman world was generally more about economic than sexual modesty. In the Bible’s original languages, “you” had different forms for the individual and the collective “you,” but modern North Americans commonly assume that “you” is addressed to “me.” Richards and O’Brien discuss lots of practical issues involving assumptions, which they do in an easy-going, fairly entertaining way. In the process they give some of the most thoughtful examinations of the cultural action within Bible stories that I’ve ever seen.
  
  Toward the end of the book they consider things that North Americans generally assume are Christian, but are actually either not in the book, or else contrary to biblical common sense. To give a taste of this discussion, I’ll just list the five categories of “non-biblical” values they cover:
  1. Self-sufficiency (As in the non-biblical saying “God helps those who help themselves.”)
  2. Fighting for freedom
  3. Pax Americana
  4. Leadership
  5. Tolerance
  
  Clearly there’s lots to discuss, and good reason to discuss it. As the authors note, within 30 years only about one fifth of all Christians in the world will be white Westerners, so some self-critical cultural literacy is in order.
• 
  Bob

  All of us assume things that "go without saying." And, until we encounter other cultures, we tend to assume that the things that go without saying are universally true. Furthermore, we are not aware of these assumptions ordinarily. We don't see them, we see "through" them.
  
  Richards and O'Brien take these insights and apply them to how we read the Bible, a collection of books situated in different times and cultures (as well as a transcendent perspective!). They draw on their own cross-cultural missions experience to provide numerous helpful examples of how they discovered their own "western eyes". As matters that lie "above the surface", the authors explore mores, especially around sex, food, and money, race and ethnicity (particularly the presence of these issues in biblical narrative--for example, the book of Ruth), and our use of language. Below the surface come matters of individualism versus collectivism (we read the Bible very individualistically--much of the world does not), honor and shame versus right and wrong (western culture emphasizes the latter), and our conceptions of time (chronos vs kairos). And deep below the surface, they see issues of rules and relationships (which comes first), virtue and vice, and how we understand the will of God (all about me vs God's will for the world and his people).
  
  They conclude each chapter with questions to help internalize the content and conclude the book with some beginning steps to recognize our cultural blinders. They also include an extensive listing organized around the book's chapters of resources for further study.
  
  In reading this book, I find myself still wrestling with the desire for a protocol for reaching the 'right' interpretation of the biblical text, which I realize reflects my western embrace of right vs. wrong categories as well as my individualism. What this book helpfully does for me is remind me of the lenses I use in reading scripture as well as my need to read and understand the scriptures in a community that includes those who read with different lenses as well as being reminded of the different cultural horizon of the text. And that reminder also renews in me the sense of how we need the illumination of the Spirit to see more clearly.
• 
  Eric

  The book rescues itself somewhat in its final chapters. Prior to that, I would have given the book a much more negative rating. The first 3/4 of the books suffers from over identification with Indonesian culture and it itself appears to be a reading based on Western academic assumptions that the West must be wrong
  
  I was amazed to find out that Paul was using a racial slur in his address to the Galatians. Unlike Spurgeon, who critiqued about 1000 commentaries, I do not have a large enough database to know if that reading has been proffered before, or before 1965.
  
  The book closes with some credible common sense admonitions on exegesis and the effects of reading contemporary culture back in to the Bible. Unfortunately, the majority of the book advocates clearly incorrect theories of meaning, language and culture. Also interpretative positions are taken without a consideration of all texts that might bear upon the issue (a failure to follow the exegetical principle that Scripture interprets Scripture).
  
  Indonesian culture is adduced at various points as (presumably) superior to the West. While I agree that the West, in its current iteration, is in open defiance to God, and misreads or rejects clear injunctions from Jesus and the Bible, that does not valorize any third-world culture, in whole or in part. To say that reading the Bible cannot be culture free is itself based on a cultural view. The premise of the book cannot privilege itself.
  
  I would suggest that a better approach would be to start with more traditional approaches to understanding the Bible. Then those traditional approaches can be critiqued in light of the effects of cultural bias and insights from believers from other cultures and times. This allows corrections in approach and interpretation to be made (the ongoing reformation of the church so to speak). The Word is without mistakes, our readings are certainly not. However, the Bible was written so ordinary persons could understand and follow it, not just scholars (or third-world citizens). Even with the gloss of the West, what Mark Twain says is still true: it is not the parts of the Bible that I do not understand that bothers me, it is the parts that I do understand.
  
  To co-opt a passage from the book, it is not what Uriah knew and when he knew it that is the point of the story, it is David's rebellion against the revealed moral standards of God, God's forgiveness (Psalms 32), but the ongoing consequences of his sin (rebellion, war, death, etc.) that is the point. Shame, guilt or conscience, or all of the above (dichotimized in the book) are present, but only as pieces of the moral being taught.
• 
  J. Aleksandr Wootton

  I put off reading this, expecting it to be a well-researched, exhaustive, corrective work targeted primarily at academics. (Something about the cover design, I suspect).
  
  Instead, to my delight, I found it a well-researched, highly readable, extremely interesting introduction to reading the Christian sacred text as a cross-cultural experience. Didactic nonfiction is rarely a page-turner, but this one was for me.
  
  The various texts that make up the Bible were written by numerous authors from many cultures over thousands of years. That they have had a formative influence on Western culture, and been translated into Western languages, actually makes us more prone to subconsciously supplanting their foreign elements with familiar tropes. Even if you've studied ancient Near-East cultures or biblical historical contexts, Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes does excellent work highlighting what you may have been staring at without seeing.
  
  
• 
  Joost Nixon

  This book is badly needed by anyone who teaches Bible in a non-Western setting. However, you might, like me, have at times wanted to somehow have a physical copy of the audio book to throw out the window of your car. Some of the exegesis is as strained as pulp-free orange juice. Other insights are simply fabulous. This is one to read with all the discernment filters on, but one definitely to read. Really effective at making you aware of your own biases.
• 
  Betsy

  I expected something fairly academic, but this was a surprisingly easy read. Or, as I think another reviewer called it, accessible. It didn’t make me feel bad for being from a western culture, but reminded me that mine is not the only one.
  
  Both authors are white males, and are primarily speaking to a middle class American audience. One of the authors lived extensively in an Eastern culture, and has many stories about the cultural differences he didn’t expect, and how they challenged his presuppositions about the Bible, and the Christian life.
  
  The chapters on individualism and collectivism and the strengths and weaknesses they both give to Christians and their interpretation of the Bible were especially good. I also appreciated their observations about the western view of time (it’s very important here!), “acceptable sins,” and obsession with everyone being a leader, and how that contrasts with Christ’s command to “follow me.”
  
  The discussion questions were some of the most helpful ones I’ve seen. I find most questions like this boring and or manipulative, but these were truly thought provoking.
• 
  royaevereads

  On the whole, an extremely interesting read that I found illuminating. It really draws attention to the assumptions we (Westerners) make without thought.
  
  The most engaging sections for me were about:
  • Mores (norms that are socially accepted without question). For example, as a society we’re currently much more concerned with sexual modesty than economical modesty.
  • Virtues and vices. Some that we hold onto are cultural rather than biblical.
  • The contextual meaning of verses vs our own personal application/understanding of them.
• 
  Neil R. Coulter

  There are no shortcuts in the process of removing cultural blinders. If you are thirty years old and Western, then you’ve been developing Western habits of thinking and reading for thirty years. It’s unreasonable to expect to reverse those habits by reading a single book or bearing a few principles in mind. We’re not trying to teach you a new methodology. We’re trying to help you become a certain kind of reader: the kind of reader who is increasingly aware of his or her cultural assumptions. And that takes time, self-reflection and hard work. We’re convinced the reward is worth the hard work. (212)

  Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes is a very good reminder of what a complex book the Bible is and how easy it is to misinterpret it based on cultural assumptions. There is so much potential for confusion, whether for Christians who accept the Bible as authoritative but unknowingly misunderstand key aspects of it, or for people who believe they are rejecting the Bible but in fact are rejecting wrong cultural interpretations of the Bible, not the actual book itself. Course corrections for all audiences are always valuable, and so this book is very worthwhile.
  
  It reads at an undergraduate level, and I think it would make a good course reading, especially if supplemented with other, more rigorous, readings (such as some of the titles listed in the “Resources for Further Exploration” in the back of the book).
  
  Though the topic is great, and I found much of the content compelling and enlightening (the final chapter, “It’s All about Me,” was particularly good and should be read by many Western Christians), for me the book is not as eye-opening as books on this topic by authors such as Kenneth Bailey and John Walton. Because I’d already read those authors, the main point here was not new to me, and I sometimes wanted more specific biblical interpretation, rather than the general “intro to culture” lessons.
  
  Also, I would have enjoyed a more comprehensive research scope to support the authors’ points. One of the authors, Randy Richards, was a missionary in Indonesia for some years, and a lot of sentences in this book begin, “When I (Randy) lived in Indonesia . . .” These anecdotes are fine (it’s all very much like things I say in my classes about “when I lived in Papua New Guinea . . .”), but greater breadth of examples from more parts of the world—and based on research rather than personal anecdote—would elevate the quality of the book tremendously.
  
  However, many Christians (and others) would benefit from considering the points the authors bring up in these chapters. May we all learn to see ourselves and the Bible with greater clarity and true understanding!
• 
  Mark Stacy II

  I had been anticipating reading this book for some time due to 1. how many I saw reading it and 2. Because of the positive response. I could not have been more disappointed. Far more bones than meat. There is a clear anti-western and anti-white bias, the anti-western bias saturates the entire book. The book is built around the ridiculous notion that western = less biblical and eastern = more biblical, therefore we ought to think less western and more eastern. It is just another book in a long list of books intended to discredit the west and western culture, a culture built upon and saturated by judeo-Christian values. I believe strongly that context matters. In fact, I believe it is the most important factor in correctly interpreting any scripture, and I thought before reading that this book was intended to bring out that point, I was wrong. Instead, the implication from the book is that if you are born and raised in the west you are culturally predisposed to interpret scripture incorrectly, a truly ludicrous idea. If you skip this book you are not missing anything.
• 
  Heidi

  This will be a difficult book for me to review, simply because it was so challenging and so well-done on so many levels.
  I appreciated the authors’ emphasis on how we can open our eyes to our cultural preconceptions as we read Scripture. Their questions at the end of each chapter were deep and thought-provoking and would make great discussion questions for a group study.
  The authors’ experiences in Indonesia also helped, as they had many stories to relate that helped broaden my perspective.
  I also appreciated that this was not an overly academic book but was truly written for a layperson. There was not a dull page in the book.
  American culture is very individualistic, and I see many ways in which that damages the American church and skews our approach to Scripture. And many, if not most, cultures are instead, collectivist — including the culture in which scripture was written. I totally disagree with some of the reviewers’ criticisms that this book seemed to insult western culture and favor eastern cultures. Instead, I saw the authors trying to help me get into the mindset of an Israelite in biblical times, which in some cases totally changes my understanding of a story, such as David’s interactions with Bathsheba and Uriah. The book does not demean western culture, but instead says we all can learn from other cultures’ perspectives on scripture, since it is inspired by God for ALL cultures at ALL times! That said, the culture IN WHICH it was written is particularly important for us to understand if we are to rightly read and interpret it.
  
  A corollary of the individualist/collectivist culture contrast is the innocence/guilt culture in contrast to the honor/shame culture. Of the nine cultural categories covered in this book, that was by far the most challenging for me. It’s hard for me to NOT view honor/shame values as people pleasing, fear of man, lack of conscience. And to view an awareness of innocence and guilt as morally and spiritually mature in comparison. And yet, as I consider the impact of something I highly value - true community - I also can recognize that it would perhaps invite God to work in different ways than just through an individual conscience - that the community, in fact, would be how God chooses to convict and humble a believer. That Chapter more than any other opened my eyes to how deeply ingrained that particular cultural value is in me, and how hard it is for me NOT to see it as somehow morally superior.
  The indices and appendices were also very helpful and helped me add to my reading list on this topic.
  I will most definitely be rereading this book. And i recommend it to every serious student of scripture.
• 
  David

  My only complaint was that it did not go into more depth. I feel like it could have been much longer and more thorough; revealing how modern western bias has influenced our understanding of scripture. That being said, the book deftly explains the difference between our individualistic culture and the collectivist culture which was the modus operandi of the time, which cleaves to one of their core points, that the Bible does not speak to the individual in the sense that every passage and verse can be applied to "me," but rather to a people. In our individualistic lifestyle, collectivism and the concept of internal conscience versus the honor/shame dynamic of collectivism is utterly foreign; much to our loss, as the Bible was written with these concepts held as fundamental truths. Other fascinating aspects of the book dealt with conceptions of time, the Greek Kairos vs. Chronos, the racist worldview that was present when the Bible was written and is reflected (whether we like it or not) in the text, and how some of our most deep-seated Western 'virtues,' i.e. Saving for a 'rainy day,' self- sufficiency, the false notion that 'God helps those who help themselves,' and the value of labor in order to be worthy of reward are either un-biblical or downright anti-biblical, particularly in regards to treatment of the poor and downtrodden.
  
  A worthy read
• 
  Elizabeth

  Insulting. This book is a few good points embedded in a load of rubbish. The main point is a good one and can be communicated in one sentence: When you read the Bible, be aware of your cultural perspectives and biases. That's great, but the book includes nonsense such as "Leadership is not a biblical teaching" (What about Moses? Joshua? Nehemiah? Paul?) and a general tone of negativity about Western culture. It's insulting to me as a Westerner. For example, the authors say that Westerners believe that the Bible teaches us to save money, but we are wrong to believe so because Indonesian fisherman would be foolish to save fish, as they would spoil. It's insulting to accuse Westerners of applying the biblical principle of saving to fish. We're not stupid, but this book sure seems to attempt to make that point.
• 
  Tim

  Every student of ancient texts should read this book. It is nearly impossible for a reader to dissociate themselves from their cultural perspective. Richards offers some tools to help us do this. Great examples of biblical texts that are often misread due to cultural biases and brief explanations of the implications. As a teacher of the Bible, I always tell my students, "The task of the teacher/preacher, is to determine what the writer was expressing to his audience at the time that it was written, which is interpretation. Then, we must find the timeless truth in that writing and apply it to our own audience." This is a formidable task. Ancient texts are not open to private or cultural interpretation. We must interpret them correctly. Excellent read! Very valuable! Highly recommend.
• 
  Kofi Opoku

  This was good for revealing some of our cultural biases. Not very helpful when it came to application. A lot of the application could be dangerous if pursued. I think he was on to something in his discussion on collectivism, but his lack of acknowledgment of the covenantal motif led him to go off the rails. While it is true that the Bible does typically speak of God’s people as a collective, it logically follows that the collective is made up of individuals. Those two things are not mutually exclusive.
• 
  Porter Sprigg

  It was pretty naïve and arrogant of me to think I knew what this books was going to say before I read it but there ya go. I was dead wrong. I’m very grateful for the way this book graciously and firmly strikes at cultural blinders. The writers do a great job of giving examples and stories that really illustrate their arguments. The last couple chapters courageously hit at the core of some fundamental assumptions of Western Christians and will certainly make an impact on how I preach and teach.
• 
  Layne Coleman

  an eloquently written & much needed gut punch for the western christian
• 
  Jay Vellacott

  This book was brilliant and frustrating. And I fear that many of its readers may not have the discernment to know when it's doing which.
  
  This book would raise some excellent points where western readers are prone to misunderstand Bible because of cultural blinders. I would want to hug the author and give the book 5 starts. Then a paragraph later the author(s) would use this same point to sloppily misinterpret the passage. It was like watching someone make an amazing one-handed catch under heavy defensive coverage and then letting the ball slip out of their hands 1 yard from the endzone. This happened constantly. I would say that at least a third of the Biblical passages that were being re-interpreted through a new cultural lens were misinterpreted in some way. And I know what you're thinking: "Jay you're just a readers who is unwilling to have his interpretive perspective changed because of his western bias." Although there may be a hint of truth to this at times, the misinterpretations they made that I'm talking about are ones that objectively contradict other passages of Scripture.
  
  For example, in chapter 5 the authors explain that western cultures focus far more on individualistic right and wrong and personal conscience. Eastern cultures emphasize honor and shame and are far more community oriented in their ethics and morality. Excellent point to remember when we read Scripture. However, the author went on to apply this to David and Bathsheba by saying: "We typically assume that David was aware of his sin but stubbornly refused to repent. Then when Nathan confronts David - or, in a sense, tricks him - David's conscience is pricked, he gives in to his inner conviction and he publicly repents. It is far more likely that David had not given the matters a moment's thought. Remember, we Westerners tend to be introspective, but biblical characters were generally not" (Pg. 112-113).
  
  Psalm 32, although not written about David's sin with Bathsheba, was still written by David about another grievous sin he had committed.
  
  Psalm 3:3-5
  When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away
  Through my groaning all day long.
  For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me;
  My vitality failed as with the dry heat of summer. Selah
  I acknowledged my sin to You,
  And I did not hide my guilt;
  I said, “I will confess my wrongdoings to the Lord”;
  And You forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah
  
  In Psalm 32, David's conscience was eating him alive until he confessed his sin to God. How does the author jump to the conclusion that after committing adultery and murdering a man, "it is far more likely that David had not given the matters a moment's thought." The author(s) will frequently commit large leaps in logic such as this.
  
  The author(s) questioned whether our western emphasis on private personal devotions is Biblical. They said that many other cultures have their "devotional" time in a room with other people. Why do we assume we have to have our intimate time with Jesus alone? In their whole debate on the topic they ignored the fact that Jesus frequently withdrew early in the morning to a desolate place to pray (Luke 1:35).
  
  I find that the Bible's worldview and message often strikes a balance between modern eastern and western cultural emphases. Claiming that the east has a monopoly on the Bible's culture is a stretch, although the Bible's culture may be slightly more eastern than western. You can find many western cultural emphases that are unbiblical, but you can also find many eastern cultural emphases that are also unbiblical. The authors seem to acknowledge this balance to a small degree, but they still seem prone to overemphasize the eastern culture.
  
  The author also presented the "four loves" idea at a certain point in the book (agape, phileo, eros, storge). For those who don't know, these words have far more overlap than most people realize. For example, there are some times where agape CAN'T mean unconditional love. In Luke 6:32, Jesus says "If you agapo those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners agapo those who love them." Even sinners only give their unconditional love to people on the condition that those people unconditionally love them? Or "do not agapo the world or the things in the world" (1 John 2:15). Do not exhibit D.A. Carson brings this flaw up in "exegetical fallacies" and many other authors have debunked it as well. I guess I just expected better from a biblical scholar so when Richards made this point it made me lose some trust in his thoroughness.
  
  There are other times when the author(s) don't so much misinterpret the text as read details into it that aren't there. They speculate a lot into biblical passages. Many of these unwritten cultural details probably were in the background of the story, but I'm not always convinced. I've seen scholars often take a cultural practice that was used marginally somewhere around the same time as a biblical story and apply it to everything they read. We must be careful to not go "beyond what is written" (1 Cor 4:6). Or the author will assume that a certain cultural practice was at play that affected people to act in the way they did. It often felt like they were reading far too much culture into a certain action. Often times while reading this book I had to stop and go "but we don't really KNOW that." It's hard to explain but maybe when you read their account of David and Bathsheba (page 120-127) you'll know what I mean.
  
  Having said that, this book brings up some excellent points that are worthy of our notice as we read the Bible. This book exposes people to a worthwhile idea. The authors were spot on with many statements. And it was very easy to read.
  
  To any readers: practice discernment as you read this book and be willing to spit out a decent amount of fat.
  
  This book reaffirmed my firm belief in the importance of scripture interpreting scripture. The importance of this principle cannot be overstated. You can have a mountain of degrees, books, cultural knowledge, historical knowledge, and linguistic knowledge, but without a deep familiarity with the Bible's content you will make silly, unbiblical points because you have little awareness of which bible verses are debunking the statements that are coming out of your mouth. (Not accusing the authors of this, although there are times where the shoe may fit a little bit).
• 
  Bobby

  In “Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible,” E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J O’Brien challenge the way the Western church reads the Bible. The Bible, the authors remind us, was written in a foreign culture with the primary audience of a foreign culture. As such, reading the Bible should inherently be a cross-cultural experience. However, the authors argue, the Western Church doesn’t do this well. Too often, our culture determines how we read scripture rather than the other way around. The authors combine their Biblical analysis of real-world examples based on their experience with the Indonesian church, resulting in concrete illustration of what different cultural blinders can look like. The book does an excellent job of addressing many issues in a small space, which ultimately seems to raise more questions than answers. However, I think each of the questions it raises are well worth considering for anyone raised in the Western Church.
  
  “Misreading Scripture” tackles many topics. Here are a few key takeaways that stood out to me:
  The challenge of language. The authors point out that “our culture (via our language) shapes our worldview, which in turn filters what we notice and how we interpret reality” (71). For this reason, we often miss or misinterpret things that were obvious to the original listeners of the Bible: “Our unconscious assumptions about language encourage us to reshape the biblical narrative to fit our framework” (72). These assumptions can come from things like our language’s grammatical structure or our desire to read figurative language literally. The authors have no real substitute for learning to read the Bible in its native language but suggest that reading multiple translations can help.
  
  The next section moves into the cultural values and assumptions that drive our interpretation of scripture. Particularly, they discuss the difference between individualist and collectivist cultures. For example, “For some, maintaining individual choice is more important than improving safety and education” (96). This affects how we read scripture in more than one way. “Because individualism goes without being said in the West, we can often get the wrong idea of what an event described in the Bible may have looked like” (100). Another example is the failure of the English language to differentiate between the individual and collective “you.” Almost always, we automatically read “you” in the Bible as speaking to the individual, which is not often the case.
  While the authors also discuss cultural differences such as the difference between “right/wrong” and “shame/honor” cultures and between how different cultures understand time, I found more interest in the third section on even deeper cultural differences.
  
  The authors address the difference between understanding the world through rules and the world through relationships. As Westerners, we tend to look at things in terms of hard and fast rules, rather than in terms of a relationship. This, the authors suggest, is mostly as a result of the Enlightenment. “Today Westerners have a tendency to view all relationships in terms of rules or laws. The way we relate to the cosmos, to each other and to God is determined in large part by reference to natural and even spiritual “laws.” This, of course, influences the way Westerners read the Bible” (160). In the perspective of the authors, this can lead to a Western idea that all “rules” established in the Bible are always absolute and binding even to God. They counter this idea and suggest that perhaps God can allow exceptions to some rules when they meet his purpose. To suggest otherwise creates a dualism where “God is in charge of supernatural things, and natural things just run on their own” (170). This can lead to a mindset where we habitually exclude God from our daily affairs.
  
  The authors potentially most controversial section is where they discuss cultural values and vices and their effect on reading scripture. Their general idea is that cultural values cause us to emphasize different virtues. For example, “If Roman Catholicism talks about God’s preferential care for the poor, Protestants believe that ‘God helps those who help themselves’” (187). Of particular relevance, they question if freedom and peace by military force are really Christian, or are merely Enlightenment values deeply ingrained into our society that we choose to find in scripture. Personally, I wish they had discussed this topic more. Regardless, their point that the way Jesus lived do not illustrate American freedom or peace by force would be difficult to argue.
  
  Overall, I would anticipate that many traditional Evangelical Christians will initially question at least some of what the authors present in this book’s pages. However, I would challenge those who question to follow the authors recommendation for engaging the cross-cultural aspects of Scripture: to embrace complexity, to beware of overcorrection, to be teachable, and to embrace the reality of error in our reading of Scripture. Whatever you conclude in your own examination, I think you’ll find your previous assumptions challenged.
  
• 
  Carmel Rietveld

  Great book that will definitely lead me to think more carefully about how I’m reading and interpreting the Bible. The chapters on honor/shame and individualism/collectivism were especially interesting.
• 
  Adam Shields

  Short Review: My new favorite book to recommend about how culture obscures scripture. Misreading Scripture is as much about cultural anthropology as it is about scripture, but that is a real strength. Culture matters and it especially matters to those that have little exposure to different cultures. (If you were unaware, the bible was written in a different time, culture and place and that matters.)
  
  Misreading Scripture has nine chapters about basic, but important issues, like differences in language, understanding of time, how honor/shame cultures work vs our standard Western right/wrong culture and more.
  
  The best feature of the book is that it is very well written and engaging for the reader that is not academically trained in theology or bible or culture, while not watering down the content. While it may seem from my description that the book is mostly about culture instead of the bible, the issues are continually brought back to how this matters to reading actual scripture.
  
  I highly recommend it. My full review is on my blog at
  http://bookwi.se/misreading-scripture...
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  Johnathan

  Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes is a great book for anyone who is interested in properly reading and interpreting scriptures. While the book is not written with the precision of a textbook, it does offer a fairly simple read for westerners seeking to understand the cultural differences that provide the Bible its primary context. Misreading Scripture is strongly recommended for those looking to understand a birds-eye-view of the cultural themes that vary between eastern and western cultures that inform ones interpretation of the scriptures. Richards and O’Brien do not go into major details regarding the cultural differences and nuances of Biblical times versus modern westerners. In spite of this, their book does give nine major themes to consider when reading a Biblical text, providing a solid foundation from which to begin to re-read scripture with less biased eyes.
   
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  Jennifer Yates

  I was excited to get some cultural understanding of Jesus' first century, Eastern world, but instead this book took one perspective (Indonesian culture) and compared it to Western culture. Then the authors used Scripture out of its textual context to make a point about the cultural context. There were a couple of good examples of misunderstanding Scripture because of our cultural bias, but even those were approached with the wrong tone, in my opinion. Very disappointed!
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  Grace Coleman

  “If our cultural blindspots keep us from reading the Bible correctly, then they can also keep us from applying the Bible correctly. If we want to follow Jesus faithfully and help others to do the same, we need to do all we can to allow the scriptures to speak to us on their own terms.”
  
  Loved this book and honestly it has forever changed the way I will read God’s word! The authors breakdown many facets of our western culture that “go without saying” and how that effects the way that we read our cultural values (efficiency, individualism, morality frameworks, time, etc.) into the Bible without even realizing it. I especially loved the final chapter titled “It’s all about me”, that dives into the way American Christians tend to assume all scripture directly applies to their lives without exception. The authors write “Our emphasis on ‘me’ can lead us to have unrealistic expectations of God which, when shattered, can cause us to doubt the truth of scripture and the promises of God.”