In 2001, I moved with my family to Mauritania, a country located in the Sahara desert, where the culture is modernizing so fast you can get whiplash just watching it, but at the same time many things have remained unchanged for centuries, even millenia. And as I got to know people (I was the first foreigner, the first American, the first Christian most of them had ever met), and even more so as I visited the small villages in the interior of the country, I found myself reading these ancient narratives in the Bible in new ways.
The book Misreading Scripture With Western Eyes coupled with my expat experience has completely changed the way I read the Bible. Read my post at 5 Minutes for Mom for the whole story.