Ralph Gower
The
People of the Bible
"Christians are faced with problems of meaning when they
come to the Bible. God's Word came in particular places, at
particular times, to particular people. It is only as we
stand in those people's shoes and understand what God was
saying to them that the words can have full meaning for us.
Part of standing in their shoes is to understand the
language in which the revelation came. This has been made
possible for most Christians through the work of Bible
translations.
The other aspect of standing in the shoes of Biblical people
involves gaining a feel for what the terminology refers to.
We can get such a feeling by placing ourselves back into the
context of the Bible era's homes, countrysides, and
marketplaces...
The life-style of the people has also been recorded in words
and artifacts, in pictures, and even in the rubbish of the
past. It is through the study of such sources that it is
possible to recapture something of how things were in Bible
times.
The people of the Bible may have been conservative in
attitude, but their was a richness and variation in their
culture. Within the so-called Fertile Crescent between the
Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf there was great
variety. Life for the poor was not the same as life for the
wealthy; life in the hot valley of the river Jordan was
different from life in the cool mountains surrounding
Jerusalem; life in summer was different from life in winter;
life for the nomadic herdsman differed from life for an
urban tradesman; and in a land that was subject to continual
warfare, life was different under the occupation of the
Assyrians from life under the occupation of Greeks and
Romans."
Ralph Gower,
London "The New Manners and Customs of Bible Times"
(Chicago: Moody Press, 1987) p. 8
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