Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

WORLDVIEW

A way of looking at reality; the basic assumptions a people have about the world. A worldview is derived from people’s experience of their social and physical environments, and provides a more or less coherent way of thinking about the world. It serves in turn as the cognitive basis for the people’s interaction with their social and physical environments. The worldview of the Israelites included assumptions about the self and its relation to other selves, gender, causality, space, and time.

The distinction between the self and one’s environment is fundamental to all worldviews, yet how the self is understood is culturally specific. The majority of people in the United States, e.g., define the self in individual terms; the self is coterminous with the body and the individual’s behavior is largely determined by personal goals. Although pervasive throughout Western culture, individualism is rare in the history of humankind. The Israelites in contrast defined the self in collective terms. The self belongs to a group and self-identity is embedded in the group. The person’s social behavior is largely determined by the goals of the group. Individual desires and values are subordinated to the desires and values of the group.

In collectivist societies such as Israel, other selves (including their resources such as land and animals) are classified according to what group they belong. All in-group members share similar goals and values, whereas the goals of the out-group will be unrelated, inconsistent, or even hostile to those of the in-group. An Israelite’s self-identity was embedded foremost in his or her kin group. Other in-groups in which an Israelite was embedded include professional (priests, prophets, sages), class (administrators, landowners, elders, “people of the land”), geographical (clans, tribes), and political groups (Israelite, Judahite).

The Israelites’ assumptions about gender were rooted in their understanding of procreation and the contribution that males and females each make to the process. Although the biological differences between males and females in sexual reproduction have no meaning in and of themselves, the Israelites defined these differences in terms of agriculture. The man is like a farmer and the woman arable land. Just as a man sows seeds into the soil and thereby causes the earth to produce vegetation, a man can sow his seed (semen) into a woman causing her to give birth to a child. In both cases, the man provides what is essential for life: seed and semen. The man’s semen, like seed, determines the character or quality of what will be produced; it contains all the essential characteristics of the child that will be born. The woman, who is like the soil, nurtures to full development the seed planted within her. She contributes nothing essential to the makeup of the newborn child. Her role in procreation is dependent upon the man’s seed.

This metaphorical relationship is presented in the Yahwist Creation myth which, among other purposes, served to symbolize and thereby reinforce the Israelite construction of gender. The man (Heb. hāʾāḏām) is born from the arable land (hāʾăḏāmâ), anticipating human births from Eve, the mother of all living. Yet the arable land is dependent upon the man to till and sow it; the land remains barren without the man’s contribution, and for this reason he was created (Gen. 2:4-7). Similarly, the woman (ʾiššâ) is taken from the man (ʾîš), constructing a metaphor between the woman and the land (Gen. 2:21-23). Like the arable land, the woman will give birth to new life, and with the acquisition of knowledge the woman knows to bear children. However, she is also dependent upon her husband to sow seed in her, just as he plows and sows the field (Gen. 3:16-19). This understanding of gender is also articulated in the numerous references identifying a man’s “seed” with his descendants. The Israelites’ assumptions of gender were expressed through their social values of honor and shame.

The Israelites’ assumptions about causality are best described in contrast to the assumptions made by most Westerners, which include both personal and natural causality. The Israelites, in contrast, perceived only personal causality. All change in the world was attributed to personal agents — to either humans (and animals by personification) or the gods. Natural events were manifestations of divine activity. One common example is that the Israelites attributed childbirth and infertility to God’s agency rather than natural causes; God opened and closed the wombs of women (cf. Gen. 29:31; 30:2).

The Israelites’ assumptions about space were shaped by their experience of theophany. God’s appearance gave orientation to space and introduced qualitative distinctions within space. Two complementary orientations to space can be detected. According to a horizontal orientation, God’s life-sustaining activity in creation is located at the center of the world and diminishes in its significance and effect as one moves to the periphery. God’s theophany makes the land at the center holy in a cosmological sense. The land is characterized by divine order; it is the point from which the creation originated. The divine sacredness of the center stands in contrast to the periphery which is experienced as demonic and diabolical. The periphery is chaotic, hostile to life. It is symbolized by both the desert and the sea which form the boundary between the land of the living and the netherworld. The periphery is a sterile region inhabited by demons, wild animals, and sea monsters. Humans are unable to dwell there apart from divine assistance.

According to a vertical orientation, the world is oriented around a cosmic mountain. The base of the mountain is the ordinary world of human beings. As one ascends to the summit, one reaches heaven, the dwelling of God. Thus, the Israelites built their temples and shrines on mountain peaks. Beneath the mountain lies the underworld, the realm of the dead. Often a spring issues from the base of the mountain, originating from a source of water in the underworld. The mountain serves to unite heaven, the earth, and the underworld, making communication between the three realms of the world possible.

The Israelites’ assumptions about time can best be described as a present orientation. In contrast to most Westerners who look toward the future to achieve goals and solve problems, the Israelites focused on the present. Rather than simply a moment in time, the present encompasses a range of human experiences: all that one has experienced in the past relative to what one is currently experiencing and what one is about to experience as a result of the past and the present. The present is repetitive, marked by regular intervals, during which the tasks of life — working, eating, sleeping, playing — are carried out. As a result, the present is subject to environmental constraints. The times of planting and harvesting, e.g., are determined by the ecological conditions of a region. Times of eating and defecating are necessitated by the biological demands of the human body. The rainy winter months were typically a period of reduced outside activity.

Beyond the present is an imaginary time. It is outside the scope of current human experience, and as such, is not subject to the constraints of human experience. Imaginary time is the time of monsters and mythological creatures, heroes and heroic exploits, miracles and disruptions of the rhythms of nature. From the perspective of the Israelites, imaginary time was the exclusive domain of God. The possible worlds of the past and the future are made possible by God; they are outside of human control. As the time of God, the past and the future give warrant to Israelite society in the present. Present concerns and aspirations are projected onto the past and the future. The Israelites turned to the past in order to explain certain customs, such as the redemption of the firstborn child from sacrifice (Gen. 22:1-18; Exod. 13:11-16), or to justify social demands, such as the laws of the covenant. Israel also enforced the demands of the laws by turning to the future with prophetic warnings of God’s coming judgment.

Bibliography. R. J. Clifford, The Cosmic Mountain in Canaan and the Old Testament. HSM 4 (Cambridge, Mass., 1972); M. Kearney, World View (Novato, Calif., 1984); B. J. Malina, “Christ and Time: Swiss or Mediterranean?” CBQ 51 (1986): 1-31; R. A. Simkins, Creator and Creation: Nature in the Worldview of Ancient Israel (Peabody, 1994); H. C. Triandis, “Cross-Cultural Studies of Individualism and Collectivism,” in Cross-Cultural Perspectives, ed. J. J. Berman (Lincoln, 1990), 41-133.

Ronald A. Simkins

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

WORLDVIEW

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)