Jesus In His Cultural Milieu

On Wednesday morning Fr. Michael McGarry explored with us the culture of Jesus’ time. To know the influences of the thinking, beliefs, expectation, the daily life of the middle eastern society helps one read the Jesus’ stories with an authenticity one might normally miss.
Understanding that middle eastern society is still largely an honour-shame society helps us to know that the fabric of everyday life is vastly different from western life and far from our western assumptions. What an individual does brings either honour or shame upon to entire family system with great repercussions. Jesus re-arranged or challenged many aspects of his own society: the place of family, marriage, Pharisees, Sadduccees, approaches to conflict, status, dependence, power, conformity and authority to name a few.