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  • From: Ratson Naharadama <yahoo-arch AT heplist.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Context
  • Date: Wed, 01 Jul 2009 20:36:28 -0600

Gary Hedrick of USA in "Geography of Genesis" wrote:
> Karl, when are you guys going to see the light? The Hebrew text
really needs a lot of reinterpreting. It actually says that Abraham
lived in Van Nuys, in a family compound just off the 101.

To which James Christian of the UK replied
> Just off the what?

A perfect example of something that complicates the study of Biblical Hebrew -- context. This seems to be needing to be pointed out because we seem to have many threads that devolve into arguments rooted in one or the other person(s) being oblivious about it; I will hopefully spell it out, here, so as to give /them/ a little context of their own.

Most often pastors and others will refer to context and mean the words around what is being quoted in a Hebrew text. But, the other context, historical, social, and geographic context (and all-together cultural context), is the part that complicates Biblical Hebrew studies to no end.

The Hebrew Bible was written by a High Context culture, ancient semitic peoples, who had a treasure trove of cultural knowledge in their heads. When writing their texts or telling their tales, there was no need to spell out any of the background in a story. The slightest detail such as a person passing a piece of bread to his left instead of his right could signal whole paragraphs of thought. An example that might make this clear is when you have a group of people together talking and one of the people say a certain string of words that he knows will signal one line of thought among a certain segment of the group, but will be utterly missed by the rest of the group (for example, some kind of inside-joke). The people on the inside of the inside-joke have higher context going for them in that conversation. For the ancient semitic cultures, everyone was on the inside of the figurative "inside-joke" while cultural successors of the Greeks and Romans (which include us) were on the outside.

Us, the Greeks, and the Romans would all be Low Context cultures. In our writing and story telling, we have to have nearly everything spelled out for us. The amount varies from situation to situation, and some good comedy is based on that inside joke (I'm sure fans of Seinfield, as just one example) would fit into a higher context realm, but overall, we are Low Context. This is where our conflict with semitic writings really hits the dirt, and where we get a lot of our misunderstandings (not just of the text, but on the nature and intensions of the writers and the text itself). Then we say its all BS because the writer didn't mention or spell out something that WE would expect them to spell out. We say, "they describe all this, but we know from archeology and from text X and text Y that this situation prevailed... why would they not have mentioned it if what they are talking about is true?" But the reason why we think they SHOULD have is the very reason they did NOT. Those facts were part of their day to day context, and every action and every thought was flavoured by that very context.

Perhaps an example?

=[ A man went to Washington, and threw paint at the White House.

For most English speaking peoples, they know that the person, in this short story, who threw paint is going to be in a WHOLE lot more trouble than he would for any normal act of vandalism. This "White House" is not any ordinary "white house." The significance isn't that the house was white and that the house was vandalized by someone throwing paint on it. The significance is that this particular white house is the capital residence of the President of the United States of America — all this information comes from cultural context.

James Christian not knowing what Gary Hedrick meant by "just off the 101" is another example, this one more geographic, although not completely apparent to anyone who did not get the cultural context behind the statement. Also the statement of "in a family compound" would spark other culture references in mind for a lot of people. I have a feeling the specification of "Van Nuys" in particular might have something in particular behind it, but I — at least — seem to be on the outside of this section of the joke since I don't know what specifically is being referenced with that one (even though I use to live in its vicinity long ago). The overall picture of biblical context built around the the cultural backdrop brought to mind by Gary was quite humourous to those on the inside of the context, but what about those who are on the outside of one or even both halves of the cultural background of that picture? It would probably read as just a normal statement, believed by the reader that person was being quite serious and no humour involved at all.

Now, with all this in mind... I hope there is some new perspective for a few people.

--
Ratson Naharädama
Denver, Colorado




  • [b-hebrew] Context, Ratson Naharadama, 07/01/2009

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