The Text in Cultural Context
Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” Acts 16:30 ESV
Must I do– How do you read this question? If you’re like most Western believers, you will read this as a personal need for salvation. You will identify with the trauma of the jailer, and think of this question as if you were asking it. Perhaps you’re right. But there are other considerations about the Roman culture in the first century that need to be brought to bear.
The first of these is that individuality is a modern invention. “The idea that individual self-development is an important pursuit is a comparatively recent one in human history; and the idea that the arts are vehicles of self-expression or can serve the purpose of self-development is still more recent. At the dawn of history, the arts were strictly functional; and functional for the community, not for the individual artist.”[1]
Anthony Storr notes:
“Pre-industrial societies have little notion of a person as a separate entity. A Nigerian psychiatrist told me that, when a psychiatric clinic was first set up in a rural district of Nigeria to treat the mentally ill, the family invariably accompanied the sufferer and insisted upon being present at the patient’s interview with the psychiatrist. The idea that the patient might exist as an individual apart from the family, or that he might have personal problems which he did not want to share with them, did not occur to Nigerians who were still living a traditional village life.”[2]
The idea of individualism can be seen in the Western development of the arts.
“The majority of pre-industrial societies seem not to have a word signifying ‘art’ as such, although they of course have words for particular artistic activities like singing and carving. As Western civilization developed, belief in the magical power of the image declined, but painting and sculpture continued to serve communal, rather than individual, interests. Artists were craftsmen who were not expected to be original, but to carry out the orders of their patrons. Their chief task was to remind worshippers, who were often illiterate, of the tenets of the Christian religion; and, to this end, they painted the walls of churches with scenes from the life of Christ and the saints. The medieval artist was recruited from the lower ranks of society. Because painting and sculpture involved manual labour, the visual arts were regarded as inferior to literature and the theoretical sciences. It was only from about the middle of the thirteenth century AD that the names of individual painters began to be recorded.”[3]
“ . . . consciousness of individuality first developed in Italy.”[4] If this is true, then perhaps the jailer isn’t quite like us. Perhaps his question isn’t about his personal salvation at all. That would be a blow to most evangelical exegesis, but it doesn’t seem likely that he is thinking in personal terms in a culture without a clear idea of individuality. Perhaps he’s asking something else, like, “What’s going to happen to me and my family?” “How are we going to escape the consequences of this event?”
I wonder if it’s really possible for us to think of Scripture in communal terms? We are so brainwashed by our notions of individuality and personal identity that it just might not be possible to peel back the layers in order to understand the conversations from 2000 years ago. We don’t think like that anymore. But maybe we should try to. At least we need to be aware of our differences, and not pretend that the men and women of Scripture even thought of themselves like we do.
Topical Index: individual, salvation, Acts 16:30
I take issue with the idea that “individuality is a modern invention”. The Shema states that God is one. If man was created in the image of this God, wasn’t it as an individual (since we are not trinitarians, nor polythesists)? Is He not known as the God of Abraham, the God of Isacc, the God of Jacob? We just spent a week examining the complex pychological lives of Abraham and Sarah as individuals (albeit in a community). While I do not deny the need or power of community, must it be at the expense of the individual? The repeated call to the “whosoever” in the Scripture is directed to the indivdual, not the masses.
Perhaps my sensivity to this idea of is due my own personal struggle with idenity issues or by my life long inability to find community, but it feels dehumanizing and degrading to the noblility of the individual person created by YHWH.
Skip, I, too, have found myself forced to start over with this individual and identity thing for many reasons that I have run into both in the secular world as well as the religious one. Something unholy got split way back there that should have stayed together on this one, too, I am convinced. I have yet, I confess, to find myself able to put my finger on it but I am willing to explore because my ship has already left the dock on this a while ago. Thank you!
I don’t think that the individual has profited, as a whole, from the modern notion of the individual. Mental illness is now at a global, historical, all-time high (one of those secular facts that have been forcing me to re-examine the notions about identity: we all seem to be having ‘identity issues’ that modernity seems to have few real ‘answers’ (cures?) for). The religious world seems to have been doing little better, for, even though mental illness is still lower, statistically (and significantly, according to many studies that I have seen referred to), it’s still on a catastrophical rise. People within communities of faith are now suffering on levels of mental illness (identity issues) never before seen or recorded. I suspect if you took a pew count of how many folks are on prescription drugs, say, for depression, sleep disorders, anxiety, etc., the true picture might become apparent.
Meanwhile, back in the few remaining traditional cultures (such as the tribal hill cultures of SE Asia (like north Thailand, where a precious person in my life goes often), the idea of mental illness at all is not even known; they just don’t seem to suffer from the stuff much at all, from what studies I have seen referred to on this subject (as well as what this person also has been able to tell) anyway.
The dirty little secret is now pretty much out: the individual in modern society is obviously NOT doing well (arts-wise notwithstanding, I think, personally). Perhaps it may be time to ask what exactly IS identity, and why are we struggling with it so in a modern society that purportedly has ‘fixed’ this ‘problem’?
How long now have we been pushing the notion that all the problems would be solved if we just ‘found’ our ‘individual expression’? Well, we wouldn’t be ‘looking’ for something that hadn’t already been lost, would we? Let’s do this: let’s start by asking who the individual actually is and where ‘they’ might have gotten ‘lost’ in the first place!
Good Morning Laurita. That sounds like a good idea.
Perhaps a trip back to the “garden” is a place to begin? Or maybe to examine the parting of light from dark? As I ‘think’ (oops.. individual activity here!) a division of some sort happened. Yah’s ways are not our ways? A higher purpose for the greater good (unity?).
Creation is designed to divide and multiply… over and over again. Were we all misled? And then Yeshua tells us to ‘give it all up’ and take no offense as not to be a stumbling stone for someone else. Are these conflicting ways? Or perhaps examples of what/what not to do in this realm? Parables? Mysteries? I do ask in sincerity.
I often ask (myself.. or I ‘think’ I am talking to Yah)… am I a ‘snowflake’ ready to melt when the heat gets turned up OR am I a warrior, battling the darkness that dwells within? How do I get back to being one, in unity, with YHVH? To be a citizen of the Kingdom of :YHVH? To lose the ‘me, myself and I’ to serve the greater good of Yah? I do ask in sincerity.
Thank you Skip for this wonderful, thought provoking idea… community matters. And thank you Laurita for applying a compress to the wound.
Hello. Skip, and others, I have always found the titles intriguing. In the middle of reading the title, and then reading the first two posts, I had the idea of tribal leadership, 12 tribes, 12 leaders, responsible to one headship, could we live this way, in the messiah’s body?
Accountable to God’s word, to our leadership, into each other,?
I have been reading articles on establishing leadership, very interesting, first we all need a common Bond of trust in God’s word, then trust in choosing leadership, then trust in each other. No individualism there.
Hey, what do I know? But I’ll jump in here anyhow .
As I am fairly new to the whole idea of not having dualistic thinking, thanks in part to Richard Rohr who “harps” on this because fundamental Christianity has gone so black-and-white( maybe has always been) it’s difficult for them to separate from that way of thinking and live with variables, not wanting to feel any sense of uncertainty in regards to faith, doctrine etc. They are unable or unwilling to be fluid in their thinking thus becoming close minded and rigid. By the way, I love the definition of fluid. It speaks of something that is living and growing.
Back to topic. I tend to agree with Michael and appreciate his honesty and vulnerability. When I sit with the story in Acts it SEEMS like the first thing the jailer thinks about is saving his own butt. Now it may be his motivation is for his family, if he has one, his involvement in community etc. but the initial response or reaction in most of us is self-preservation. Because if we are not here who is going to do what we do, who is going to care for what we care for etc.
I would say in my journey of personal growth and development I have become a little more focused on self, but hopefully it’s because I have a purpose in mind. It would be similar to loving your neighbor as you love yourself or loving yourself and then your ability to love your neighbor. If I can find my way to greater freedom, I, hopefully, will have the capacity to also help others find the same road. I agree that it used to be more about the family and community and that certainly has changed. For many good and not so good reasons. We have become a much more suspicious and cautious people, thus becoming more isolated and separate! Of course the technical world has ’helped’ in this regard because we can easily isolate and still be in contact with the outside world having a pseudo-sense of closeness and community. ….
Larry, good thoughts as usual.
I would say the choices that the jailor made directly affected his family! If the prisoners had escaped, the jailor’s life would have been forfeit, but, effectively speaking, so would his family’s. When Achan buried the goods in the tent floor, he was choosing the destruction not only of himself, but also his family, for his family would have also profited(!) from those goods if he had gotten away with it. When the jailor asked about his own salvation, he was also asking for his family, too, and when he was converted, his family was there with him, making that choice, too.
Whole families have traditionally been affected by ‘individual’ choices historically. This is still true in Islamic societies, as well as most of the East and tribal cultures in general. The family exerts great pressure on choice, and goes so far as to punish or even to kill members who deviate because they know they will be held accountable, too. This is all very different from our society.
That it’s not good for the man to be alone isn’t a denial of the individual, but a proclamation of the function of the individual. Perhaps it’s not the idea of the individual (look closely at that word) that’s an issue but rather the modern idea of it, which goes something like my individualism is attained at the expense of yours, that is the problem. The ten are given for the management of the space between for the sake of unity (echad) and you get a better yield with two in unity than you do with two laboring independently. Apple trees don’t produce oranges. I had a friend ask me the other day whether I thought that all that “seemingly” random stuff out in space would be united with earth one day (I know that’s a weird question, but there was a legitimate reason for it) and I pointed to revelation where it says that there was no sea and that there was no need of the sun or moon. In Genesis there is division of the waters and the land appeared (gathered) and the water is the space between, that’s healed in revelation and if heaven and earth are truly “united” there’s also no “space” between us. Nothing loses it’s individualism, it’s just put in it’s proper order of function and peace ensues.
Don’t you mean that we GAIN our individualism, Robert, in that world where there is no “space” between us (I love where you seem to be going with this)? Isn’t the function of the whole to provide the matrix for the pieces?
I know, I know, that in math class we were taught that 2 is a ‘function’ of 1 added to 1, but what if there could be no 1’s unless there was 2 FIRST? What if we have it ALL BACKWARDS?
I think we do, Adam was whole first then he was “split”. Is that the process in motion of making man into the Image and likeness of God? Just a thought.
Robert, my mind stays blown. What is just as profound to me is that Adam recognized he had a problem and asked YHVH to fix it in the first place!
Adam recognized he had a problem? Really? Wasn’t it GOD who recognized there was a problem?
They were both (Adam and YHVH) still joined at the hip at that sinless point. If Adam was lonely, he would have noticed that fact, too; surely it would have been a mutual understanding for both of them. There were multiple reasons Eve was not a ‘separate’ and simultaneous creation; Adam was intimately involved and complicit. Surely Eve was somebody he wanted before he got her.
Maybe we’re not on the same page here. It is clear that God recognizes that Adam needs another being like himself. That’s what I thought you were talking about. But it is also clear that Adam is present at the conversation with the serpent, that he follows the directions of his mate, and that he knows it is against God’s instruction. So, in that sense, he chooses her over obedience. Is that what you were talking about?
I was talking about Eve’s creation. What were you talking about?
As you said, we think that two is one added to one. How bout one is the product of two being divided. That’s our problem and that’s the solution given to us. When I see the “other” as the other half of me, we will begin to go forward.
What is Skip going to write about tomorrow, Robert, now that you have blown the “rest of the story”???
Ohhh, I’m sure he will think of something! ? Skips conclusions always are a surprise and never seem to on the beaten paths. Isn’t that the beauty of this forum? The working out of the diversity of ideas and being able to apply them to our walk? Thank you for all your contributions as well, I love them.
I won’t come up with anything tomorrow (Shabbat) but I’ll try to investigate something on Sunday – like punctuation and its role in interpretation, for example. And maybe a bonus too.
? I love puncuation, and I love abusing it as well. If you’re expecting one thing and you see another, it makes you stop and consider it. Isn’t that how the “misspelling” in the Hebrew text works? Looking for your thoughts on punctuation and the bonus. I’m in suspense until then.
Yep this is how I see it as well. It’s that easy and that hard…
Jos 7:1 The children of Israel committed a trespass because Achan took the accursed thing. That is very hard for me to understand. The Bible is a collectivist book that has elevated the individual. What is solid is what seems to be that which is passed from father (one with mother) to son. The individual stone is part of the building which is to be the dwelling of God. The individual star is part of the heavens which display the glory of God. The individual piece of fruit has a whole tree or vine in it but becomes wine when part of the whole. We are to consider the ants. What is one ant without the others? I think Skip is right to point us to a more collectivist reality as the truth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmD5ahkOPAQ
If individual self development is a “modern invention”,
how do you explain Eve’s need to further develop herself
by eating from the tree?
Didn’t that start the ball rolling? It seems to me that self
preservation is as natural as the natural order itself.
Is not the whole intention of God’s Word to bring one to
the unconditional surrender of self? And thus to begin the
healing transformation of true relationship i.e., oneness
between God and man.
“that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me
and I am in you.” Jn 17:21
OK, this one I will address. Do you really think the woman’s objective was to “develop herself”? Or is it possible, given her status as ‘ezer kenedgo, that she made the choice because it was presented as a way of enhancing her relationship to her man? In other words, it wasn’t based on self-improvement as a goal but rather on the development of the MUTUAL relationship.
How could we possibly ever know her deeply entrenched
and absolute motivations? Sure, she may have desired to further
her relationship with Adam, but even that could be because of
her deeper desire to further herself. Who knows?
The heart is deceitful, writes Jeremiah. Who can understand it?
One thing I do understand is God’s desire for Eve, Adam, and all
of us, to re-engage in a mutual relationship with Him!
I agree with you Rich I personally do not like when someone tries to psycho-analyze what I truly think or feel in any given situation. Sure there maybe nuances and hints that may cause others too presume one thinks a certain way. They may even try to convince me they think they know how I think or feel which is even more irritating . When someone says ” I have you figured out” I have to laugh because I myself sometimes am not privy to that at all times until God reveals it to me.
I believe skip’s video would help us figure it out.
https://youtu.be/23lvv-kZTl8
Thank you Skip!
Well shared Brother Skip. The interest in First Nation People makes very much sense in what you are sharing here. They are a very important People to reach with the Good News. And that sadly has never been what the church has ever seen as important. When sending out missionaries. It all boils down to Romans 1:16 the complete scripture. Sadly only the the first part of that scripture has been taught but the second part of that scripture has totally been ignored. Actually it is also never really been understood, besides the truth about anti-Semitism. Look at Israel today. She as a Nation is “flourishing” since 14th May 1948. But not as a Nation to send missionaries. The truth is that 99% of the Jewish People don’t believe that Yahushua is the Messiah. The Good News has never been preached to them. It is actually forbidden. And so the Gospel is the same in all Muslim countries. It is not welcomed at all. Also forbidden. So the idea of tribes is totally been lost. And therefore what you are sharing one can go deeper. Shalom
In note 2. Anthony Storr says: “Pre-industrial societies have little notion of a person as a separate entity.”
By the time Moses introduced God’s commandments at Sinai in the 15th century b.c.e. the Hammurabi Code had already been introduced in Abraham’s Ur region of mutli-ethnic, multi-tribal Mesopotamia for some three centuries. The Code introduced the principle of individual rights and responsibilities to all.
“The long standing Sumerian communal ideal was dead and buried, as was the Sumerian attraction to central planning and collectivism.” Babylon, Paul Kriwaczek.
This was the first experiment in history in capitalism and justice and many other changes similar to ours with similar results as we have today, for better or worse. Hammurabi would not get “an eye for an eye” (lex talionis) with Storr in the courts but maybe at least an apology.
.We are not as innovative as we think,just good at repackaging what’s been done before. Thanks much George ,nothing new under the sun rings true.
thanks for the addition here
I looked up Hammurabi’s Code and read some of the 282 laws. They may surprise you. A few of them, being current in the time and birthplace of Abraham, are very consistent with his and Sarah’s actions.
144. If a man take a wife and this woman give her husband a maid-servant, and she bear him children, but this man wishes to take another wife, this shall not be permitted to him; he shall not take a second wife.
145. If a man take a wife, and she bear him no children, and he intend to take another wife: if he take this second wife, and bring her into the house, this second wife shall not be allowed equality with his wife.
146. If a man take a wife and she give this man a maid-servant as wife and she bear him children, and then this maid assume equality with the wife: because she has borne him children her master shall not sell her for money, but he may keep her as a slave, reckoning her among the maid-servants.
(Look up the Avalon project at Yale Law, Hammurabi Code)
Dan, this is just ONE of many surprizes to discover in this book. The full title is Babylon, Mesopotamia and The Birth of Civilization, Paul Kriwaczek, Kindle, less than $10. Many 4/5 star reviews like Joel Marcus Johnson;-
Finally, the best synthesist work on Mesopotamian antiquity!
September 15, 2012
I won’t suggest that I’ve been a slouch in my scholarship, for I am a learning addict. But in recent years, with added teaching responsibilities for grad students and mid-life back-to-school types, the challenge has been wonderful. In Assyriology, over the decades I have kept up with the literature, and with such luminaries as Thorkild Jacobsen and Gwendolyn Leick. Susan Wise Bauer’s “History of the Ancient World” I have previously promoted. My current rave is Paul Kriwaczek’s “Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization.” Paul has been BBC’s Near Eastern correspondent for some decades and so has a deep understanding of literature and place – place being the important word. Having visited the ancient sites the rest of us read about abstractly, he has the intimacy of archaeological literary tourism. It has put him in a position to synthesize the works of our scholars and diggers, to give us a portrait of life from Uruk to Nineveh to the several Babylons. It’s a real wrist breaker – finally, a book on Mesopotamian antiquity which I can recommend to doctoral candidates in other fields.
One man’s opinion. One of many. Of all the people in the world, I am one. Oh, the power of one!! One LORD (wonder who that is?) One faith (One out of 30,000+) One (saving) faith. One baptism. (Are you unaware that as many as have been baptized into Christ Jesus (the Messiah Yeshua) have been baptized into His death?) E pluribus unum. Yes, “we being many are one!” We are one body – the body of Christ. Red, yellow, black or white – Friend, “if any man be in Chirst!” Oh, Hallellujah!! “Whosoever will” may come!
~ After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”~
Amen, Carl. And, oh yeah, where the heck have you been?