Above the Surface
I (Randy) was recently in Scotland to visit an American friend who teaches there. A British New Testament scholar was driving the car and telling a story. Even from the back seat, I could see she was still quite flustered and embarrassed about what had happened. She explained that a Baptist pastor and his wife had been visiting from Georgia. As their hosting professor, she had picked them up at the airport. The pastor’s wife was going to ride in the back seat so that her husband could ride up front.
My British friend then stopped the story and exclaimed, “The wife opened the door, said the F-word and sat down in the seat!”
I looked wide-eyed at my North American colleague. He started laughing. “You know what the F-word is, don’t you?”
Pastoral ministry has changed, but I still couldn’t imagine a scenario in which a pastor’s wife would say such a thing. I was appalled. Our British friend was aghast. My friend continued laughing and said, “She means fanny.”
Our British colleague in the front seat grimaced. “Yes. The woman said, ‘I’m just going to park my’—oh, that word—‘right here on the seat.’” My British friend couldn’t even bring herself to say “that word,” since in British usage, fanny is impolite slang for female genitalia. (Our apologies to British readers.)
This story illustrates at least two cultural differences that we’ll discuss in the chapters that follow. One is language. Language is perhaps the most obvious difference between cultures. It’s the tip of the iceberg, the part of worldview that is clearly visible. Whether we are traveling from the United States to France or from Germany to the Philippines, we are well aware of the fact that one language is spoken in our home country, while another language is spoken elsewhere. That is to say, language differences come as no surprise to travelers. Granted, language differences may be more surprising if one travels between countries that share a language (such as the United States and Scotland). We use the word fanny in the U.S., but we use it quite differently than our British friends do. Even so, it is easy enough—once warned—to expect differences of this sort. We discuss language in chapter three.
This story also touches on another source of cultural differences. Mores are the social conventions that dictate which behaviors are considered appropriate or inappropriate. For example, profanity exists emotionally only in one’s mother tongue. When we learn a new language, we have to learn the naughty words so we don’t accidentally say them and offend our hosts. To us, though, it is just a list. Native speakers may blanch and have a difficult time telling us the words; even spelling the words may rattle them. Missionaries have to be careful or they can easily develop foul mouths. The fact that we know what fanny means in British English but are not bothered by writing it just goes to show that the word itself is neutral. After all, in North America, Fanny can even be a woman’s first name! It is culture that supplies the connotations of a word. This raises an important question. Paul said to avoid “obscenity” (Eph 5:4). But who defines obscenity? We address that issue in chapter one. Then we’ll take on the touchy topic of ethnicity in chapter two.
On the whole, the cultural differences we discuss in this section are harmless enough once we’re made aware of them. They surprise and may even delight us. For tourists, this is often where the fun occurs. A miscommunication due to language confusion, a taxi ride in a country where driving seems to be a contact sport, eating as a meal in a foreign land something that would be a family pet or a household pest in your own: these make for great stories to tell when you return home. In this case, what is true of traveling can also be true of biblical interpretation. Some differences between our Western perspective and that of ancient readers are obvious enough that they don’t result in profound misinterpretation.
Even so, if left unconscious, our presuppositions (what goes without being said) about the following cultural differences—mores, race and language—can lead us to misread the Bible.