This was an insightful read. Bailey explains the composition styles of the Middle East in the Biblical times, and walks through various parables and historical accounts, showing how the original authors and readers of the texts understood them. This information was very helpful, especially when it came to some hard-to-understand stories, like Jesus talking to a woman about feeding scraps to dogs.

I did feel that some of the literary/translation jargon became a bit repetitive, and there were a couple of instances where I felt Bailey was reading too much into certain texts, without anything to back up his thoughts, but these things were relatively minor. Also, the ending was very abrupt, as there was no concluding chapter.

I’d definitely recommend this book to all Western Christians to get a deeper understanding of Scripture passages which are so familiar that we take them for granted, and a better understanding of who Jesus was and is. ( )

cultural studies in the Gospels

Beginning with Jesus' birth, Ken Bailey leads readers on a kaleidoscopic study of Jesus throughout the four Gospels. Bailey examines the life and ministry of Jesus with attention to the Lord's Prayer, the Beatitudes, Jesus' relationship to women and especially Jesus' parables. Through it all, Bailey employs his trademark expertise as a master of Middle Eastern culture to lead us into a deeper understanding of the person and significance of Jesus within his own cultural context. With a sure but gentle hand, Bailey lifts away the obscuring layers of modern Western interpretation to reveal Jesus in the light of his actual historical and cultural setting. -- from back cover.
"Jesus Through Middle Easter Eyes is Bailey's most recent 400 page call to western Christians who need to time travel to the Middle East. And in page after page, he identifies themes and reflexes assumed in the gospels that slip right past us." (Gary M. Burge, Evangelical Quarterly, July 2009)

"Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes is intended, explains its author, 'to contribute new perspectives from the Eastern tradition which have rarely, if ever, been considered outside the Arabic-speaking Christian world.' Strictly speaking, of course, Kenneth Bailey does not offer new perspectives, but ideas frequently as old as the earliest church and as the ancient church fathers, that may well be new to many of his Western readership. Here is an imaginative, humorous reading of key Gospel passages, an engaged and engaging set of studies that emphasize the concrete world presupposed in the New Testament. Bailey is informed not only by faithful contemporary scholarship, but also by the great exegetes of the past, and shows his humility by offering alternative explanations of passages where these may be of help to the reader. His writing and argument are cogent to the ordinary reader, tackling problems for the contemporary church, without allowing twenty-first-century debates to dictate the scope of his discussion." (Edith M. Humphrey, William F. Orr Professor of New Testament, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary)

"Among the many New Testament scholars interpreting the Gospels today, few offer new and dramatic insights like Kenneth E. Bailey. From a childhood in Egypt to a career working within the Middle East, Bailey has established himself as the premier cultural interpreter of the life of Jesus. Using insights from cultural anthropology and skilled exegesis, suddenly the Gospels come alive as the Middle Eastern stories that they are. Long after other scholars' books are forgotten, Bailey's work on the Gospels will continue to be a timeless resource into the world of Jesus. This newest volume, written for the nonspecialist, is a splendid place to begin. Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes is guaranteed to become a favorite on many Christians' bookshelves." (Gary M. Burge, professor of New Testament, Wheaton College Graduate School)

"While no book on Jesus and the Gospels can be perfect or final, writing any really good book on them places staggering demands on an interpreter. To name just seven: literary aptitude, linguistic competence, critical shrewdness, cultural sagacity, theological acumen, spiritual sensitivity and hermeneutical sophistication. In this highly stimulating study Kenneth Bailey manages to reflect them all, and more besides, in part because he stands on the shoulders of Middle Eastern interpreters whom few in the West can even read. This book will sharpen historical understanding, improve much preaching and fuel new scholarship. It may shed as much new Licht vom Osten ('light from the ancient East') on Gospel passages as we have seen since Deissmann's book by that title a century ago. And in all of this, Bailey keeps the cross and the message of his sources at the center where they belong." (Robert W. Yarbrough, associate professor and New Testament department chair, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School)

The author's experience of living in the middle East informs his understanding of the New Testament, and it was interesting to see how the stories of Jesus, especially the parables, would have "played" to the local audience.
However, it is somewhat depressing that he can draw inferences almost directly from the culture today to 2000-plus years ago.
I also think he speculates beyond both the texts and his knowledge to impose a psychiatric character on Jesus that I personally don't always agree with. ( )

Bailey gives us a view into the cultural contexts surrounding the familiar stories in the Gospels. Understanding the Bible requires knowledge of the cultures into which the different pieces of the book were given. Baily helps us understand the very different mindset and view of people in the Middle East. ( )