The Story of Joseph & High and Low Cultures

We individualists generally belong to what anthropologists term low-context cultures. That means that when we communicate, we assume a low level of shared information. We therefore assume it is good communication to spell things out. Not everyone thinks this way. The Bible was written in high-context cultures. People in these cultures assume there’s a high level of shared information between them and their audiences. This means they don’t feel the need to state everything explicitly. They take it as a given that everyone knows how things worked—and at the time, they did. This is not a sign…