Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels
Beginning with Jesus' birth, Ken Bailey leads you on a kaleidoscopic study of Jesus throughout the four Gospels. Bailey examines the life and ministry of Jesus with attention to the Lord's Prayer, the Beatitudes, Jesus' relationship to women, and especially Jesus' parables.\ Through it all, Bailey employs his trademark expertise as a master of Middle Eastern culture to lead you into a deeper understanding of the person and significance of Jesus within his own cultural context. With a sure but...
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Beginning with Jesus' birth, Ken Bailey leads readers on a kaleidoscopic study of Jesus throughout the four Gospels. Bailey examines the life and ministry of Jesus with attention to the Lord's Prayer, the Beatitudes, Jesus' relationship to women and especially Jesus' parables. Through it all, Bailey employs his trademark expertise as a master of Middle Eastern culture to lead us into a deeper understanding of the person and significance of Jesus within his own cultural context. With a sure but gentle hand, Bailey lifts away the obscuring layers of modern Western interpretation to reveal Jesus in the light of his actual historical and cultural setting.About the Author:Kenneth E. Bailey (Th.D., Concordia Seminary, St. Louis) is an author, lecturer and emeritus research professor of Middle Eastern New Testament studies for the Tantur Ecumenical Institute in Jerusalem
Preface 9Introduction 11The Birth of JesusThe Story of Jesus' Birth: Luke 2:1-20 25The Genealogy and Joseph the Just: Matthew 1:1-21 38The Savior, the Wise Men and the Vision of Isaiah: Matthew 2:1-12; Isaiah 60:1-7 48Herod's Atrocities, Simeon and Anna: Matthew 2:13-18; Luke 2:22-36 56The BeatitudesThe Beatitudes 1: Matthew 5:1-5 65The Beatitudes 2: Matthew 5:6-12 76The Lord's PrayerThe Lord's Prayer: God Our Father: Matthew 6:5-9 91The Lord's Prayer: God's Holiness: Matthew 6:9 104The Lord's Prayer: God's Kingdom and Our Bread: Matthew 6:10-11 113The Lord's Prayer: Our Sins and Evil: Matthew 6:12-13 124Dramatic Actions of JesusThe Call of Peter: Luke 5:1-11 135The Inauguration of Jesus' Ministry: Luke 4:16-31 147The Blind Man and Zacchaeus: Luke 18:35-19:11 170Jesus and WomenJesus and Women: An Introduction 189The Woman at the Well: John 4:1-42 200The Syro-Phoenician Woman: Matthew 15:21-28 217The Lady Is Not for Stoning: John7:53-8:11 227The Woman in the House of Simon the Pharisee: Luke 7:36-50 239The Parable of the Widow and the Judge: Luke 18:1-8 261The Parable of the Wise and Foolish Young Women: Matthew 25:1-13 269Parables of JesusIntroduction to the Parables 279The Parable of the Good Samaritan: Luke 10:25-37 284The Parable of the Rich Fool: Luke 12:13-21 298The Parable of the Great Banquet: Luke 14:15-24 309The Parable of the Two Builders: Luke 6:46-49 321The Parable of the Unjust Steward: Luke 16:1-8 332The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector: Luke 18:9-14 343The Parable of the Compassionate Employer: Matthew 20:1-16 355The Parable of the Serving Master: Luke 12:35-38 365The Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man: Luke 16:19-30 378The Parable of the Pounds: Luke 19:11-27 397The Parable of the Noble Vineyard Owner and His Son: Luke 20:9-18 410Bibliography 427Indexes 437
\ Robert W. Yarbrough"While no book on Jesus and the Gospels can be perfect or final, writing any really good book on them places staggering demands on an interpreter. To name just seven: literary aptitude, linguistic competence, critical shrewdness, cultural sagacity, theological acumen, spiritual sensitivity and hermeneutical sophistication. In this highly stimulating study Kenneth Bailey manages to reflect them all, and more besides, in part because he stands on the shoulders of Middle Eastern interpreters whom few in the West can even read. This book will sharpen historical understanding, improve much preaching and fuel new scholarship. It may shed as much new Licht vom Osten ('light from the ancient East') on Gospel passages as we have seen since Deissmann's book by that title a century ago. And in all of this, Bailey keeps the cross and the message of his sources at the center where they belong."\ \ \ \ \ Edith M. Humphrey"Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes is intended, explains its author, 'to contribute new perspectives from the Eastern tradition which have rarely, if ever, been considered outside the Arabic-speaking Christian world.' Strictly speaking, of course, Kenneth Bailey does not offer new perspectives, but ideas frequently as old as the earliest church and as the ancient church fathers, that may well be new to many of his Western readership. Here is an imaginative, humorous reading of key Gospel passages, an engaged and engaging set of studies that emphasize the concrete world presupposed in the New Testament. Bailey is informed not only by faithful contemporary scholarship, but also by the great exegetes of the past, and shows his humility by offering alternative explanations of passages where these may be of help to the reader. His writing and argument are cogent to the ordinary reader, tackling problems for the contemporary church, without allowing twenty-first-century debates to dictate the scope of his discussion."\ \ \ Lynn Cohick"Kenneth Bailey, a master storyteller and expert observer of Middle Eastern culture, applies his sixty years of experience living in this region to produce a groundbreaking work on Jesus' world. Bailey animates the Jewish cultural world of first-century Roman Palestine through clever, often humorous personal vignettes and observations of current Middle Eastern culture. The blurry outlines of enigmatic biblical characters such as King Herod or Zacchaeus take clearer shape, and unnamed women such as the Syro-Phoenician mother or the adulterous woman are painted with colorful, culturally sensitive strokes. Bailey offers a feast for the mind and heart in his brilliant discussion of the Lord's Prayer and Jesus' parables; each chapter has plenty to savor. Throughout, Bailey connects theological and christological significance to his cultural insights, producing an original, engaging study. Bailey's passion for the biblical story coupled with his conversational prose render Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes a captivating read for scholars, pastors and laypeople alike."\ \ \ \ \ Craig A. Evans"Kenneth Bailey's Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes is rich with interpretive and cultural insight. He sheds light on what is so often missed in most commentaries and books about Jesus written from a Western perspective. Indeed, Bailey's book provides the much-needed corrective to the dubious results of the Jesus Seminar, whose distorted Jesus is a product of Greco-Roman culture and literature, instead of the Judaic culture and literature of Palestine. Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes is easy to read—students and pastors will benefit from it tremendously—but there is also much for scholars."\ \ \ \ \ Craig Keener"I have long been an admirer of Kenneth Bailey's helpful insights. As in his earlier works, his breadth of knowledge of Middle Eastern culture sheds rich light on numerous points in the Gospels, providing fresh perspectives and often illumining details we have rarely considered. He provokes those of us who depend mostly on ancient written sources to consider new approaches, often cohering with but often supplementing such research."\ \ \ \ \ Gary M. Burge"Among the many New Testament scholars interpreting the Gospels today, few offer new and dramatic insights like Kenneth E. Bailey. From a childhood in Egypt to a career working within the Middle East, Bailey has established himself as the premier cultural interpreter of the life of Jesus. Using insights from cultural anthropology and skilled exegesis, suddenly the Gospels come alive as the Middle Eastern stories that they are. Long after other scholars' books are forgotten, Bailey's work on the Gospels will continue to be a timeless resource into the world of Jesus. This newest volume, written for the nonspecialist, is a splendid place to begin. Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes is guaranteed to become a favorite on many Christians' bookshelves."\ \ \ \ \ Mary J. Evans"Learning to read Scripture through other people's cultural spectacles, as well as our own, always brings huge enrichment. Kenneth Bailey has done a fantastic job in enabling us to put on the spectacles of a Middle Eastern believer and to therefore gain new insights into what was always there in Scripture but not quite so clear when only viewed through our lenses."\ \
