New Testament Background and Culture

Hi Lynden,

Here are some of my favorites:

Honor, Patronage, Kinship and Purity by David A. deSilva

The Essential IVP Reference Collection Version 3

Christian Origins and the Question of God Series (3 vols.) by N. T. Wright

I haven't finished the N.T. Wright books but I think he provides good background information. 

Lynden

I would add Palestine in the Time of Jesus which gives insight into the social structures operating in Palestinian society in Jesus' day.

Every blessing

Alan

Here is a short excerpt from the book Honor, Patronage, Kinship & Purity : Unlocking New Testament Culture it was one of my textbooks from undergrad. 

[quote]

“My words were taken out of context!” We frequently hear some prominent individual saying these words to object that a journalist has misrepresented his or her speech. Perhaps you have used this familiar expression to correct a false impression that has been created by a third party. This person may have used your exact words but removed them from the close connection with an event, a place or a series of other words that would have allowed them to convey your true meaning. Your words convey a very different meaning if a listener repeated them without also relating the social setting in which you said them or without explaining the events that evoked them. The potential for misunderstanding increases exponentially if that listener is communicating with someone from another culture, with different customs and even a different language. The reporter would need to explain what significations your words would have in your cultural context or else risk serious misunderstanding. If we would concern ourselves that our words not be taken out of context, or that we not report someone else’s words out of context, we should be far more careful with the words of Jesus, Paul or James—or, as so many Christians take these words to be, the words of God.

Biblical scholars have grown increasingly aware of the importance of looking at texts not only in their historical or literary or social contexts but also in their cultural contexts. “Culture” includes those values, ways of relating and ways of looking at the world that its members share and that provide the framework for all communication. The readers of the New Testament shared certain values, such as honor, and codes of forming and maintaining relationships, such as patronage and kinship, and ways of ordering the world, expressed frequently in terms of purity. If we are to hear the texts correctly, we must apply ourselves to understand the culture out of which and to which they spoke. We need to recognize the cultural cues the authors have woven into their strategies and instructions. This enterprise prevents potential misreading of the texts. Modern readers, too, are fully enculturated into a set of values, ways of relating and so forth. Without taking some care to recover the culture of the first-century Greco-Roman writers and addressees, we will simply read the texts from the perspective of our cultural norms and codes. Negatively, then, this task is essential as a check against our impositions of our own cultural, theological and social contexts onto the text.

David Arthur deSilva, Honor, Patronage, Kinship & Purity : Unlocking New Testament Culture (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 16-18.

Thanks Philana somehow I seem to have missed the deSilva title looks good.  I'll have to check that one out further.

Lynden Williams said:

What five (5) books do you consider indispensable for someone seeking to get an understanding on New Testament Background and culture?

I have Platinum, plus a lot of other stuff. I am focusing primarily on Logos software. If a must have is not in Logos, then list it please.

Thank you for your assistance. 

I would do a search for books concerning the Manners and Customs, since they would be era specific. Logos lists a few…..