Culture Making Articles items tagged israel

How to be a people

2025-01-02T22:53:00Z

The book of Leviticus, graveyard of so many good intentions to read straight through the Bible, is in fact an instruction manual for the creation of a distinct people in the context of the Ancient Near East. By observing its commands and prohibitions—both the broadly ethical, such as “you shall love your neighbor as yourself,” and the narrowly specific, such as keeping meat and milk separate in Israel’s diet—Abram’s descendants will be shaping their own distinctive cultural identity. Even the most puzzling, and seemingly arbitrary, features of the Levitical code require Israel to consciously depend on the God who revealed them, rather than simply absorbing and imitating the cultures that surround them.

—Culture Making, p.128

Sorting olives

2025-01-02T22:53:00Z

Nate
: ?I wish I knew more about the olive-sorting process. Perhaps the dried-out ones drift away? Or is she just rearranging the bowl's contents so she can do a visual inspection once things have settled??

"A Palestinian woman sorts olives during the harvest in a grove next to Israel's separation barrier near the West Bank village of Abu Dis, on the outskirts of Jerusalem," by Ashraf Abu Turk (AP), The Big Picture, 15 October 2008

Can we expect to do better?

2025-01-02T22:53:00Z

There is nothing tidy about the cultural project of Israel. When we read it as a whole, rather than plucking selected passages to justify our culture wars or cultural withdrawal, the story is profoundly humbling. If God’s chosen people experienced such frustration and failure in creating and cultivating culture, how can followers of Christ, scattered among the nations, expect to do better?

—Culture Making, p.132

Everything from military strategy to songwriting

2025-01-02T22:53:00Z

The whole of the Hebrew Bible, from Genesis 12 to Malachi 4, can be seen as a record of Israel’s education in faith—not “faith” as a purely spiritual or religious enterprise, but as a cultural practice of dependence on the world’s Creator that encompasses everything from military strategy to songwriting.

—Culture Making, p.131