You know what I think my biggest obstacle is when it comes to studying the Bible? If you can’t tolerate the idea of the Genesis creation accounts being compared to other creation myths of the ancient Near East . . In the Old Testament, dates of writing and specific authorship for each book are less clear than in the New Testament, where such information is marginally less controversial, although still debated. The Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible aims to help you understand the Bible writers, their audience, and their times. ): This is a really valuable tool, but it’s not for everyone. (If you own the NIV Application Commentary, this might sound familiar.). These have been designed to provide the reader with a deep and rich understanding of the nuances that the original readers and hearers of the Bible would have intuitively understood. That’s because at the time of Jonah, Assyria was focusing on internal security (different people were grabbing at power) than it was on expanding its territory. A few months ago, I told Zondervan I’d write a review of their new NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible on two conditions: they had to send me a free copy and tell me I look good in a fez. That’s what the NRSV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible provides. The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible is designed to help readers see richer meanings to familiar biblical stories and passages. Every page is packed with expert insight into the customs, culture, and literature of Bible times. A text is ideas linked by threads of writing. The article then says that we can’t really be sure of either dates. One of the better study Bibles to come along recently is the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible. It seems Israel has its own tale of the innocent sufferer. . We’re not reading the same stories. Even though I have a pretty good handle on the timeline of Israel’s history, it’s easy for me to get a little fuzzy on the “when” of what’s going on. Actually, it’s worse than that. It’s better to try to understand the message as closely as we can through the eyes of the original audiences. But they just wanna go on the collision course. File: AZW3 , 57.00 MB. Features: Complete text of the accurate, readable, and clear New International Version (NIV)2017 ECPA Bible of the Year … And I do not presume to be the model of consistency in biblical interpretation. He walks Job through the cosmos, moving from the creation and ordering of the earth, sea, and sky to discussing the intricacies of how certain animals behave. . When we take our Western, modern culture and impose it on the text, we’re putting in meaning that wasn’t there, and we’re missing the meaning that the text has.” Thus, we often make assumptions about the Bible because we read it through the lens of our culture and experience. . Full-color in-text maps, charts and diagrams, along with some 320 essays, summarize and explain important background information and ideas from Scripture. . “Something, something B.C.” just doesn’t cut it: there was so much more happening in the ancient world than what the Bible talks about. So if you’d like my take on how it handles other books of the Bible, leave me a comment! Even Christian culture can be a barrier to interpreting the Bible (i.e., sometimes I’ve been taught to interpret passages in ways that the author may not have intended). Welcome to the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible. So, here are seven really great reasons to study cultural backgrounds of the Bible. Is it basically combining the commentary into a Bible volume or is it quite different? . If you don’t want to be told that the Satan character in Job may not be the same being as the devil in the. If this interpretation is correct, then this verse is more about Job’s humility (he’s not seeking a status symbol of wealth or power) than his sexual integrity (which he defends in verse 9 of the same chapter). Anyway, I think this Bible would turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to me. Oh, and I realize that Job is only a small sample size of the Bible to draw from. These fascinating explanations will serve to clarify your study of the Scriptures, reinforcing your confidence and bringing difficult passages of … If an author gives a nod to a common custom of the ancient world, it’s lost on me. The Bible was written to people of the ancient Near East, but I’m a modern Westerner. Excellent background commentaries such as the Zondervan Illustrated Bible Background Commentaries and the IVP Background Commentaries are at the top of my Commentaries folder in Accordance, so that I can easily access them in the Accordance Info Pane. It has many pictures, maps and diagrams, and of course, commentary. . by Jeffrey Kranz | Aug 22, 2016 | Article | 4 comments, TL;DR: Zondervan sent me a copy of the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible to check out, and I liked it enough to write about it. Ancient Manners and Customs, Daily Life, Cultures, Bible Lands When we study the Bible we almost always come across references to the people, places, and things of the ancient Middle Eastern world. However, there’s great advantage to having a study Bible in Accordance because unlike a print copy where you’re stuck with the translation it came with, Accordance allows you to put any set of Bible study notes with any Bible you want—original language or translation. Huh?”. Who Was Herod? Moses: The Old Testament’s Greatest Prophet, Who Was King Solomon? The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, with notes from Dr. John H. Walton (Wheaton College) in the Old Testament and Dr. Craig S. Keener (Asbury Theological Seminary) in the New Testament, brings to life the ancient world of Scripture for modern readers. I’ve said before that background commentaries are my favorite kind of commentaries. Please login to your account first; Need help? Plus, that’s not really the point of the second article. You could say, “Oh, I know about stars, the sun, the moon, sunrises, sunsets, clouds, wind, rain, thunder, lightning, etc.” And if you wanted to sound really smart, you could list off the ways that those phenomenon work, too. . This one will be extremely useful. Not really: “Even if we could provide such dates, it would make no difference in the interpretation of the book” (p.818). 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