The authors point out that our concept of time affects everything from our understanding of the use of wisdom and the interpretation of proverbs, to our understanding of how biblical books were composed. Although people may be aware that different cultures view time differently, it may never have occurred to the average Bible reader just how their concept of time affects their interpretation of what they read. One example of this is chapter 6 entitled, “Sand Through the Hourglass.” This chapter looks at the different perspective on time between eastern and western cultures. Many chapters do offer valuable insights and interesting anecdotes. O’Brien does not mention any experience living in an eastern cultural setting however, and even with Richards’ experience in Indonesia, one can question if everything in Indonesian culture transfers directly to biblical culture. He also brings his knowledge of Church history to the topic. 219), as well as the understandings of friends from other cultures. O’Brien’s wife grew up in southeast Asia and he confesses to drawing on her understandings as a “third-culture kid” (his expression, p. Richards was a missionary to Indonesia and shares some of his experiences there, demonstrating how an eastern culture often has a different perspective on an action or a biblical verse. The authors frequently bring their own cross-cultural knowledge to bear. Having previously read Bruce Malina’s The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology, and David deSilva’s Honor, Patronage, Kinship, & Purity: Unlocking New Testament Culture, I wondered if I was simply going to go over familiar territory on these topics, but Richards’ and O’Brien’s approach is fresh and insightful, frequently suggesting a new route for understanding and applying a difficult verse or passage. Readers of New Testament Background material will be familiar with some of these topics such as Individualism and Collectivism (chap. These are “cultural issues that are not obvious to all” (p. Part Three examines the bottom of the iceberg. Part Two involves cultural assumptions which are just below the surface––they “are visible once you know to look for them” (p. Part One, the tip of the iceberg represents the cultural differences that are most obvious. Using the illustration of an iceberg, Richards and O’Brien break their book down into three parts as they explore nine differences between Western and non-Western cultures (3 differences in each section). The authors note that we all carry cultural assumptions which we may not even be aware of––in their words things that “go without being said.” The result can be, “When we miss what went without being said for them and substitute what goes without being said for us, we are at risk of misreading Scripture” (authors’ emphasis, p. One of their stated goals is “to remind (or convince!), of the cross-cultural nature of biblical interpretation” (p. Richards and O’Brien, the authors of, Misreading Scripture With Western Eyes, state, “We can easily forget that Scripture is a foreign land and that reading the Bible is a crosscultural experience” (p. Our experience with Scripture can be similar. This is not because that person intentionally sought to offend or bewilder us, but because two people with different culturally conditioned mindsets viewed the same words or actions differently. Many have had the experience of being offended or bewildered by the words or actions of a person from a different culture. However, when my wife and I moved to England a little over ten years ago, we realized that we had settled into a very different culture. After all, I had visited the UK on three occasions. O’Brien, Downers Grove: IVP Books, 2012.Īs an American, I thought I knew England. Misreading Scripture With Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders To Better Understand The Bible, E.