Cultural Appropriation in Bible Study

 I go from a quasi, squishy defense of the Georgia Election bill to using a term like "cultural appropriation." I hope readers are confused. 

I was in a writers group meeting in the last year (therefore it was virtual) where something interesting happened. Two born and bred Protestants started "splaining" to the one Jewish member about the Old Testament and Judaism. Yeah. 

I'm still perplexed, and the Jewish member was gracious but, I think, confused. Their information (I don't remember the specifics, but it had to do with Jewish customs in the first century) came not from Judaistic sources but what they had been taught second hand through Bible studies. And these are smart people, so it's not an issue that they were wrong, so much as, I would say, out of their lane. 

Can you imagine a Muslim telling a Baptist what the meaning of baptism is? There are any number of examples. Now, one can argue that religionists don't always know everything about their own professed religion; that is true. But one is getting on thin ice when he/she professes to know another's culture better than the one who lives in the culture just because they read a book about it or heard some sermons. 

And back to the previous post: A person in state A who tells the people in state B how evil their laws are, well, that's not going over well. 

I attended a Passover Seder at a Presbyterian Church once. That did not make me an expert in Jewish holidays.