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

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.