Featured Diversity Push Reaches Bible Software

Would they have had this change of heart if there was not BLM/woke?

 

Written by two white guys with western eyes, it appears? What are their qualifications to instruct the rest of us in the matter?

 

This is an outstanding book. I finished it last week and I'm thinking through the extremely interesting explanation of the patron/client relationships in the Greco-Roman world. That was eye-opening and explained some of the other things I have been reading in regarding to Greco-Roman society and sexual mores.

 

One was a missionary to Indonesia and had quite an awakening to their communal cultural norms vs. our individualistic cultural norms. Western culture has been shaped by the "Enlightenment" in ways that we don't necessarily expect or recognize.

 

In 1988, I (Randy) moved with my wife and two sons (ages two and eight weeks) from Texas to Sulawesi, an island north of Australia and south of the Philippines. We served as missionaries to a cluster of islands in eastern Indonesia until returning in 1996, where I taught at a small Christian college in Arkansas. While in Indonesia, I taught in a small, indigenous Bible college and worked with churches scattered from Borneo to Papua. p. 18.

Besides scholarship, we draw on our own crosscultural experiences. Many of my (Randy’s) illustrations come from my time as a missionary in Indonesia. I (Brandon) speak more often of time spent in Europe and of insight gleaned from historical study. Anecdotes aren’t hard science, but we hope that these stories will help you see that many of the things that went without being said for the Bible’s original audience still go without being said in much of the non-Western world.

Next, we speak as insiders, and this has its own challenges. We speak as white, Western males. In fact, we always speak as white, Western males. Everything either of us has ever written has come from the perspective of middle-class, white males with a traditionally Western education. There’s really nothing we can do about that except be aware of and honest about it. That said, we write as white, Western males who have been chastened to read the Bible through the eyes of our non-Western sisters and brothers in the Lord.

For example, I (Randy) remember grading my first multiple-choice exam in Indonesia. I was surprised by how many students left answers unmarked. So I asked the first student when handing back exams, “Why didn’t you select an answer on question number three?”
The student looked up and said, “I didn’t know the answer.”
“You should have at least guessed,” I replied.
He looked at me, appalled. “What if I accidentally guessed the correct answer? It would be implying that I knew the answer when I didn’t. That would be lying!”

E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O’Brien, Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012), 20.

 

Would Logos then have woke up and noticed that except for Luke, ONLY Jews wrote the NT, so needed to get more inclusive now?

 

Bible doctrines and theology same regardless of culture or skin color/gender, eh?

 

Actually, no.

To a surprising degree, the way we translate, read and interpret the Bible is affected by our presuppositions. Our presuppositions are formed by our language, culture, and life experiences. In case you haven't noticed, men and women are different, and their experience in society is different, so women often see and hear nuances that a male reader would miss. That's why having a diverse group of qualified translators/interpreters interacting together is so valuable.

 

The doctrines and theology will be the same, as many times those other views are not in agreement with the scriptures!

 

All the more reason not to use it

 

Can you make the case for Luke being a Gentile?

 

I have heard things in Black churches that I heard nowhere else: things that were critical for me to hear at the time.

The black churches ... sometimes I just don't want to discuss other people here: their stories are their stories, and not mine to tell.

We don't know what we don't know.

 

Re Logos and diversity, I would have to do more research that I have either the time or inclination to in order to determine whether I think this is a business move using "wokeness" to increase sales, or a sincere attempt to bring their customers the best from a variety of sources. One I would disdain and the other I would respect.

Thanks for providing perspective. Would have to read the book to know what I really think about what they are writing. Ultimately, we all have to read Scripture with the eyes God gave us. That doesn't mean we can't recognize that we might have vision problems and seek to know what others see. We will have to take into account their vision problems as well. One might be colour-blind and the other nearsighted.

 

A businesses that advertises "wokeness" to increase sales won't make the same book choices as a library that makes a sincere attempt to fill a hole in its collection. It will be interesting to see WHAT they add.

 

Collosians 4: 1-14 note that Luke was not named among the circumcised jewishs helpers of Paul!

 

Thanks. That is probably the strongest case for Luke as a Gentile, but the totality of what Paul says there might be interpreted another way.

 

Did I miss something?
FaithLife advertises diversity, not “wokeness”

Can you point to where the term was used?

Rob

 

Yet another example of the church conforming to the world, in disobedience to Romans 12:1-2 and James 4:4.
Maybe someone should tell God he messed up when he had ONLY MALE JEWS write his book.
And no, Luke was no more a Gentile than Benjamin was born in Padanaram (Gen.35:23-26).

 

That's an angle of reading it, but not the only one.
If Colossians 4:14 means Luke was a Gentile then Genesis 35:23-26 means Benjamin was born in Padanaram, but he wasn't.

Gen 35:23 The sons of Leah; Reuben, Jacob's firstborn, and Simeon, and Levi, and Judah, and Issachar, and Zebulun:
Gen 35:24 The sons of Rachel; Joseph, and Benjamin:
Gen 35:25 And the sons of Bilhah, Rachel's handmaid; Dan, and Naphtali:
Gen 35:26 And the sons of Zilpah, Leah's handmaid; Gad, and Asher: these are the sons of Jacob, which were born to him in Padanaram.

 

I was responding to another post that was responding to another post that used the word.

I am hoping for the best outcome possible. I am hoping that more of the church is fully represented in all genres of the logos library.