After Yahweh Elohim spoke into nothing and out of nothing and created all that is (see Genesis 1–2) all we creatures were in a culture. The garden was a culture. It was a small society but it was a culture. After the fall we were all in various fallen cultures. Genesis chapters 4–11 chronicle for us the rise of a variety of competing cultures, as we witness, in Scripture, the development of two classes of people in the world, those who belong spiritually to the seed of the woman and those who belong to the serpent.
There are a few late-modern bromides that people repeat as if they were self-evidently true that are really quite nonsensical. One of these is: everything is relative. Well, if everything is relative, then your claim that everything is relative is also relative. By definition “everything” is all encompassing. If by that claim one is really saying, “I may therefore ignore a particular truth claim, e.g., Jesus is Lord, then on your own reasoning we may all ignore the claim that everything is relative. It is a self-defeating claim and therefore silly.
Another such claim is that all human interpretations of Scripture are culturally situated. What do people mean by this? They mean that no one reads Scripture outside of a culture. What is a culture? We could spend the rest of our lives trying to answer this question but a very short answer would include language, assumptions about the nature of things, agreements (implicit or explicit) about how we are going to be governed, food, the arts, and even sport. The astute reader may notice that I did not mention religion (cultus) or convictions about ultimate questions. Obviously, we can see the close relation between the words cult (religion, worship) and culture. In some ways it seems impossible to distinguish them since every culture has a cult, an object of religion (a god of some sort) and an approved way of worshipping that God (religion). Let it be enough for this discussion to say that culture is what is common to all of us and cult is what is sacred, and holy to a given culture.
The pagans had a religion. They worshiped gods made with hands and gods they had fashioned in their hearts and minds rather than the God who spoke in the beginning. Paganism seems to have developed rather quickly after the fall. I suppose we should not be surprised. Yahweh Elohim (the Lord God) did not say that serpent was going away but only that one day his head would be crushed. By the time we get to Noah, paganism has come to predominate in the world. When Noah announced the coming judgement, called for repentance and faith, he had few takers. Only 8 people were on the ark before the judgment waters came and took the rest of the world away (Matt 24:39). So it will be when the Son of Man returns to judge the world (2 Pet 3:1–13).
Are all interpretations of Scripture culturally conditioned? How could they not be? After Yahweh Elohim spoke into nothing and out of nothing and created all that is (see Genesis 1–2) all we creatures were in a culture. The garden was a culture. It was a small society but it was a culture. After the fall we were all in various fallen cultures. Genesis chapters 4–11 chronicle for us the rise of a variety of competing cultures, as we witness, in Scripture, the development of two classes of people in the world, those who belong spiritually to the seed of the woman and those who belong to the serpent. Those chapters give us as Meredith Kline wrote, the Kingdom Prologue.
As we move through the history of redemption, as the story gradually unfolds, through the Abraham cycle, through Moses and David, through the expansion of the Davidic-Solomonic kingdom and through the exile and return of the people, we are witnessing the raise and fall of various cultures and the persistence of the two spiritual people, those who, by grace alone (sola gratia), through faith alone (sola fide), are united to the promised Seed (Gal 3:16).
In short, since Adam named the animals and the two of them cultivated the garden, there has been a culture of some kind. There has also always been a cult, a religion of some kind. Whereas culture is common to all humans—we all have some language, clothing, agreed rules about governance, a language, art, and sport—religion, though a universal fact of human life has not been common. There has always been a distinction between those who worship Yahweh Elohim and those who will not. So, biblically and historically considered, as close as cult and culture may be, there is a distinction to be made.
