Honor, Patronage, Kinship, and Purity: Unlocking New Testament Culture

For contemporary Western readers, it can be easy to miss or misread cultural nuances in the New Testament. To hear the text correctly we must be attuned to its original context. As David deSilva demonstrates, keys to interpretation are found in paying attention to four essential cultural themes: honor and shame, patronage and reciprocity, kinship and family, and purity and pollution.

Through our understanding of honor and shame in the Mediterranean world, we gain new appreciation for how ear...