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Bailey's work first appeared in a once obscure (now very popular) little book called The Cross and the Prodigal (1973). Here he took his knowledge of culture and ancient background and applied it to the three parables of Luke 15. Today the book has been revised in a 2nd edition and reissued by InterVarsity Academic, and is perhaps the go-to book for understanding the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Then in 1980 came Poet and Peasant: A Literary Cultural Approach to the Parables in Luke. Here for the first time, Bailey outlined and defended his methodology. This was followed by a parallel volume, Through Peasant Eyes, yet another examination of parables as stories requiring the key of Middle Eastern culture from antiquity. Soon the trajectory was set: Bailey was emerging as the spokesperson for how we might find the meaning that is beneath the Greek text of the New Testament. In 1992 he returned to Luke 15 with a more thoroughgoing academic treatment of these touchstone parables in Finding the Lost: Cultural Keys to Luke 15. In 2003 he offered Jacob & the Prodigal: How Jesus Retold Israel's Story, explaining how the Old Testament Jacob story was influential in shaping Jesus' outlook on his mission.
In the midst of all this output, Bailey navigated a career around the civil war in Lebanon (1975–2000), published 150 articles in Arabic and English, recorded 100 video lectures, and evolved into one of the most sought-after speakers in Europe and the United States. He has been a celebrated visitor among ecclesiastical leaders in Damascus, Cairo, Jerusalem, Rome, and Canterbury. Evangelicals are just now discovering him.
Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels is Bailey's most recent call to Western Christians who need to time-travel to the Middle East. On page after page, he identifies themes and reflexes assumed in the gospels that slip right past us. For example, how do we imagine the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem? What were the magi in their own world? And how do we take stories like the call of Peter, Jesus in the Nazareth synagogue (Luke 4), and the blind man Zacchaeus and press them through a cultural-contextual sieve in order to bring to light gems that have gone missing? Some of his most creative work is in his seven chapters on Jesus and women. Here stories like the Parable of the Woman and the Judge (Luke 18) are given interpretations that should contribute to every commentary writer. And fourteen more parables are made alive again, each in its original context.
To be sure, Bailey has his critics. Once you claim that there is meaning beneath the text hidden away in cultural assumptions, you have challenged the guild of New Testament scholars, for whom the lexicon and the grammar are the priestly keys of exegesis. Simply follow Bailey's longstanding debate on the Parable of the Friend at Midnight, who gets what he wants thanks to his persistence (Luke 11:1-13). Bailey turns the parable about prayer on its head, returns the reader to a sensible understanding of the difficult story, recovers the gospel within the parable—but has yet to win most technical exegetes. (Consider Klyne Snodgrass' massive new study, Stories of Intent: A Comprehensive Guide to the Parables, where Bailey's view is dismissed casually.)
Second, when teachers try to reconstruct the cultural context of the gospels, they often use sources that are unreliable and fail to discern the differences between the modern Middle East and the world of antiquity. Or the difference between ancient Judaism and its modern forms. In a word, they fail to master the skills Malina and Bailey call for. I remember a few years back debating Bruce Chilton, professor of New Testament at Bard College. We were on one of Chicago's very old, established Sunday talk shows for religion. Bruce had just published his controversial Rabbi Jesus: An Intimate Biography. He had made a few outlandish cultural claims about Jesus, and during a commercial break I asked him how he knew these things. He admitted: a tour guide had told him some of them. Bruce is a serious Rabbinics scholar, and this isn't the norm for him. Nevertheless, the voice of the tour guide found a place in his book.
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