The Cultural Dictionary of Bible

This book hit the nail on the head for me in one respect. But for Divine inspiration, the richness of the Good News would be lost to anyone unaware of the Mediterranean/Hebrew culture. This cultural dictionary of the Bible provides valuable companion reading with the Bible. However, having explained the Middle Eastern culture as it relates to the Bible, the author seems to have forgotten the Hebrew perspective when he suggests Sunday readings and readings for Easter, Lent, etc. This is a Greco-Roman perspective. Jesus and his countrymen observed the seventh day/Sabbath, the Passover, Feast of Tabernacles. It is good to help people to read the Scriptures but Easter, Lent, etc. are unBiblical observances contrary to Jesus's culture. In any case, it is up to each reader to search the Scriptures for himself, learn the history of the Holy Land, and thereby come to understand the Bible more and more.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this book! It was loaded with social and cultural information that added immensely to my reading of scripture. I would encourage anyone who is interested in bible study to get this book. In fact, I think it's indispensibke and full of info you won't find elsewhere,

A friend loaned me this book, and when I sat down to thumb through it, I was suddenly hooked. It made me wonder why these definitions and explanations didn't find their way into our Bibles' footnotes. I found myself reading some passages with a better understanding of what they meant--beyond the conventional and ordinary. For a heightened appreciation of the language of the Bible,I enthusiastically recommend this compact volume.

I enjoyed Pilch's book very much. I received some valuable insights into the culture of the New Testament. I was very excited about his comment that the salt in the passage in "salt of the earth" referred to a fire-starting agent. But when I looked all over on the internet to find any one else's reference to this idea, there was nothing. My family, who lived for years in Nigeria, never found salt as a fire starter. In fact, if I remember correctly, salt doesn't burn. That made me wary of the other information. I would double check before citing it.

Thanks!

I am honestly not sure whether I read this or not and I cannot find it on my shelves, so either I DID read it and threw it out or I loaned it out and did not get it back. I think the latter applies, since I have several dictionaries that deal with this very subject and figured that I didn't need anymore.

+ good

There is so much that is good about this book, I am hesitant to give it only three stars. I'll get to the (perceived) flaws below, but first I would like to say what is good about it. First, it is flat-out interesting. It's an entertaining read. It's the kind of book one can pick up, flip to a random page, and learn something interesting and perhaps useful. The book also works as a reference for the non-specialist; its organization lends itself to that. The flaw is in the general tone of the book, which looks at holy scripture through the eyes of a cultural anthropologist, and ONLY through those eyes. It is a rather uni-dimensional approach to the scriptures. Perhaps the answer to this criticism is "Of course! This book, by its very nature, is intended to look upon scripture from just that one point of view." Well, maybe. But I got the impression in reading it that the author(s) would not admit of any OTHER way of looking at scripture. A minor quibble as well (and being a non-specialist I am on shaky ground here): The author makes a big point that the Mediterranean Culture uses questions not so much to gain information, but to challenge or belittle. I submit that this is a more universal phenomenon. Every place I've ever been on this planet uses questions in the so-called "Mediterranean" manner. Minor and major quibbles aside, I have enjoyed this book, and will probably buy a few more copies to give to my friends.