I think you are on the right track. This is what Prof. Kalomiros alluded to in his (in)famous "River of Fire," which the western Chirstians see as gross distoriton of their beliefs. But, then, the only way one can see the forest from the treets is to have an outside view.
In terms of human justice, the concept of original sin and payback make perfect sense, but not in the Greek mind. And the Greek term for God's justice falls short of the Hebrew term. Our biblical terms used to convey God's justice actually distroy the Hebrew term used, which means God's "means of accomplishing our salvation" mercy, forgiveness, love.
So, clearly, when we read one and the same text, even if the translation is "true," we do not experience the words in the same way, because they mean something specific in each culture, and therefore cannot possibly understand the minds of the scribes who wrote the Bible.
That is pretty scarry, and that is the reason Christ left His Church to His priesthood and did not give everyone a copy of the Bible and said "just read it; even a child can understand it; everything you need to know is in it, indexted and alphabetized," and then just left it up to everyone to do as he or she can, as the Protestants would have us believe.
If the faith was going to be unifoversal, it had to be supracultural, supratraditional, supralinguistic. The Church was tasked with saving not just the documents but the interpretation of those documents in context and in the culture from which they came.
That's interesting. I realize that the early Western way was in compliance with the Scriptures, esp. the Hebrew view, but I think that the Greek view has more value and is more likely in line with the New Testament understanding of "redemption". From my studies of Catholicism after Vatican 2, I notice we are moving away from that view as the primary explanation, which was solidified by St. Anselm's theory of atonement. I have received a book in the mail just a week ago that shows the Scripture verses that shows "your" point of view on the atonement. So we (West) are moving in this direction on redemption, although I don't think we will rid ourselves completely of the older view. Perhaps it will (should) become secondary.
Thanks for your insights,
Joe