Talpiot tomb discussion shows need for knowledge of cultural background

Today the vast distance between the cultural context of the 21st century and that of first century Judea got emphasized all over again as Time Magazine reported yesterday that the controversy from last spring over the "Lost Tomb of Jesus" has been reopened again as Prof. James Charlesworth of Princeton Theological Seminary convened the "Third Princeton Symnposium on Judaism and Christian Origins: Jewish Views of the After Life and Burial Practices in Second Temple Judaism: Evaluating the Talpiot Tomb in Context" which met in Jerusalem earlier this week (Jan 13-16). For the link to the Time online article click here.

My colleague Dr. Darrell Bock has already started dealing in his blog with reaction and critique of the conclusions of the archaeologists, scientists, and other scholars who participated in the symposium, including a report from a friend who was at the conference in Jerusalem. To follow the reaction and evaluation on bock's blog click here. He is going to do an excellent job of handling the reaction to the assertions and announcements, so I recommend going there for updates and developments.

I want to draw attention to a couple of things related to some of the discussion on this blog related to Bible translation. Getting this whole issue splashed across the media for a second time in less than a year illustrates all over again how today Christians, Bible students, and Bible translators have to be more tuned in than ever to the cultural and historical differences and assumptions present in first-century Jewish and Greco-Roman culture and how these assumptions and historical differences, often unstated, affect our understanding of biblical practices, beliefs, and events. At least two of these differences that the Talpiot Tomb debate brings to the forefront are (1) the Judean practice of reburial using a bone box (technical term = ossuary) as a repository for the bones of the deceased, in which the oldest surviving male relative in a family would have the responsibility to enter a tomb and gather up the bones of the family member who had died, one year after death and initial burial, and place the bones in a specially carved limestone receptacle called an ossuary, which would then remain in the tomb; and (2) the belief in a bodily resurrection prevalent in some (but not all; the Sadducees were one exception) major groups within Judaism in the first century, a belief which reaches back into the intertestamental period and was held, for example, by the Pharisees in Jesus' time (a clear example of this belief can be found in 2 Maccabees 7:9-11; also 14:46).

The first instance (reburial practices in Judea) illustrates how an understanding of first century customs and practices can throw possible light on a biblical text, as the NET Bible note on Matt 8:22 illustrates. It makes a difference to the interpretation, because if reburial is in view Jesus is not telling the disciple to neglect caring for his aged father (which would in fact be a violation of the commandment to honor one's father and mother) but rather than following Jesus was more important than carrying out a cultural practice which was expected by the man's contemporaries but which was nowhere taught in scripture.

The second instance (first century Jewish expectation of a bodily resurrection) illustrates how unlikely it would be that Jesus' earliest followers would hold to a "spiritual" resurrection while his body still remained in some tomb somewhere, as some scholars involved in the Talpiot tomb debate have insisted. Such an understanding of resurrection would be significantly different from the intertestamental Jewish expectation of a bodily resurrection, and surely would have brought forth some comment from Jesus' followers like "this is not exactly what we were expecting when it comes to resurrection; I guess we have to redefine our understanding in light of events."

In both instances we are dealing with a different culture than our own, with its own set of common practices, beliefs, and expectations. We have to come to an understanding of these when we work with and translate ancient texts like the Bible, or we run the risk -- if not the high probability -- of simply reading in the practices, beliefs, and expectations of our own 21st century culture, and thus badly misunderstanding what the biblical texts are affirming.