A few weeks ago a family member of mine decided to start reading the Bible from the beginning. It had been far too long since her childhood Sunday school days, and she’d lost the overall sense of Scripture beyond “Jesus loves me.” I encouraged her to start at the beginning, in Genesis.
But I did so with a pinch of fear knowing I was setting her loose on an ancient text full of complex and unfamiliar words, allusions, cultural practices, theology, and genres. There are rules for interpretation, you know—and if you don’t know, then you’re setting yourself up for a wild ride down Contradiction Avenue, which leads to Misunderstanding Drive, which left unchecked will end up on Heresy Parkway.
Context
In an earlier post I discussed the importance of knowing which genre you are reading, particularly in the Old Testament. But the rule applies in the New as well. Genre is one of several elements that make up context, the wider circumstances surrounding a particular piece of content. Think of context as markers on a map, showing us which direction we are headed. Some of the major markers of context an astute reader of Scripture will note:
Genre: What type of literature are we reading—poetry, narrative, apocalyptic?
Language: Greek or Hebrew? Do we know or have the resources to discover what the original words meant at the time they were written?
Background: Biblical and historical—what’s going on in the broader world, both culturally, and historically, in which the pericope is set? How can that information shed light on practices and events in the biblical text?
Today we’ll focus on background.
Background Matters
The biblical authors themselves show us they value establishing context. Both Luke (1:5) and Matthew (2:1), for instance, set the birth of Christ in “the days of King Herod of Judea.” If we’re following the practice of using observation, interpretation, correlation, and application, then we should observe these statements and think, “When was Herod king of Judea?” We establish basic historical context.
An Observation Example
A favorite, yet feared, exercise in the Bible Study Methods class at Dallas Theological Seminary required students to note 100 observations on one verse, Acts 1:8. Usually we were lucky to get thirty, but the more Prof Hendricks would press, the more we realized we could ask questions regarding the circumstances of the text.
A short example:
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Acts 1:8.
But: This word implies something happened beforehand. What is being contrasted here? (i.e., look at the verses prior to v. 8)
You: Is this word singular or plural? We can only know this if we know Greek. Once we know the answer, what does it mean for what Jesus says? Who is included?
Will Receive: A passive action. Given by whom? When?
Power: What kind of power? Maybe we need some Greek to give us more insight.
Jerusalem: Where is this city? What does Scripture already tell us about it? Why there first? We’ll need some biblical context, maybe a map, too.
Samaria: Where is it? Is it a city, a region, a country…? We need a map.
You get the idea.
History and Culture
Old Testament
In the books of Kings and Chronicles, the authors run through summaries of the kings of Israel and Judah. They often include references to rulers and generals of other countries such as Assyria, Babylon, Persia, and Egypt. Cyrus, for instance, the king of Persia who released the Jews from captivity, is mentioned by name (Ezra 1:1–4). History tells us when he ruled, which gives us a point on the timeline for when the Jews returned. When information in Scripture is backed up by historical records, we gain insight and confidence in the biblical text.
Let’s go back a little further into the days of the Exodus when God established his covenant with Israel. A simple, “the Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it” kind of reading will lead to serious misinterpretations without some understanding of covenants. Questions a careful reader will ask: What exactly was God doing with Israel when he gave them the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20)? What is a covenant, anyway? How was this covenant unique or similar to other Ancient Near East (ANE) covenants? And how does the covenant of Moses relate to the New Covenant that Jesus instituted (Luke 22:20)?
We know that a covenant is a serious promise between two entities and get a very basic understanding of the relationship between God and Israel. But only when we know ANE culture will we understand what a vassal and suzerain are, and how they correspond to God and his people. Sandra Richter, among others, has spent her professional life researching artifacts, documents, language, and other records related to the peoples who lived during Old Testament times. By knowing them well, she can better understand Israel as portrayed in the Hebrew Scriptures. Historical and cultural context helps her extrapolate far more nuance and insight into the Bible than a typical church-goer. We need scholars like her to help us learn background information.
New Testament
The fledgling church existed within the Roman Empire. The more we know about the Romans, the better we will understand what happened to Jesus, what the writers of New Testament letters were referring to, and how the church managed to survive and thrive through the first century and beyond.
We want to apply the Bible’s teachings to our lives accurately. Just as our study methods help us decipher which Levitical laws should be carried into the New Testament, so they help us sift through cultural references down to the universal principles.
Ephesians 5 famously discusses marriage and family order. When we, in the 21st century, use a flat method of observation and interpretation, we come up with awful applications. Many a patriarchal society has taught that women submit and men lead, in society at large as well as the home, because of Ephesians 5:22–33. If read “plainly” it’s easy to see how that could happen. But context offers us a deeper reading of the text.
Biblical context: verses 22–33 happen within a letter and are sandwiched between instructions on how to live ruled by the Spirit and how to treat slaves. We must handle the husband/wife, parent/child, master/slave teachings as a unit. Why? Because they are offered as a unit, and because they parallel the household codes that dominated Roman society in the first century. Paul was, in fact, using the commonly-known household codes that originated with Aristotle and flipping the script on them.
Aristotle, in his Politics:
Of household management we have seen that there are three parts–one is the rule of a master over slaves, which has been discussed already, another of a father, and the third of a husband. A husband and father, we saw, rules over wife and children, both free, but the rule differs, the rule over his children being a royal, over his wife a constitutional rule. For although there may be exceptions to the order of nature, the male is by nature fitter for command than the female, just as the elder and full-grown is superior to the younger and more immature…
the freeman rules over the slave after another manner from that in which the male rules over the female, or the man over the child; although the parts of the soul are present in an of them, they are present in different degrees. For the slave has no deliberative faculty at all; the woman has, but it is without authority, and the child has, but it is immature…
the courage of a man is shown in commanding, of a woman in obeying. And this holds of all other virtues, as will be more clearly seen if we look at them in detail, for those who say generally that virtue consists in a good disposition of the soul, or in doing rightly, or the like, only deceive themselves. Far better than such definitions is their mode of speaking, who, like Gorgias, enumerate the virtues. All classes must be deemed to have their special attributes; as the poet says of women,
Silence is a woman’s glory, but this is not equally the glory of man. (from Politics, Book 1, XIII)
Contrast Aristotle with Paul, and you’ll see several differences:
Paul addresses wives directly. Aristotle addresses men only.
Paul directs the husband to love his wife sacrificially, to care for her as for his own body, and to not exasperate his children. Nowhere does Paul affirm rulership over either. Everything a man does, according to Paul, is to be done under the power of the Spirit which shows up as love and service.
But if we read chapter 5 without benefit of knowing the cultural context to which he was responding, we will see only “wives submit” and assume that “husband, love your wives” really means “husbands lead your wives.”Paul addresses children directly, admonishing them to honor their parents, then warns fathers not to frustrate children but to bring them up in the Lord.
The more we know about the original audience, the better we understand biblical authors’ intent. And such understanding only comes when we delve into the backgrounds and get to know their contexts better.
Skeptical?
It’s been said that we should just read the Bible. It will tell us everything we need to know about living faithful lives (sola scripture). I agree that it is fairly easy to find and understand God’s will that we believe and follow Jesus as Savior, Son of God, which results in eternal life with him. John 3:16 is a declarative sentence.
Yet, while the Bible was written for us, it was not written to or about us. It was written over 1,500 years in three languages most people around the world do not speak or read, hence our need for scholars who learn those languages and help us decipher meanings that English translations struggle to communicate. It includes words, names, places, and references foreign to us, hence our need for archaeologists, historians, maps, and linguists to produce reference material for our benefit.
All of these are background material, and every scholar and pastor uses them one way or another. There’s a reason most people go to seminary before they are qualified to teach, write, or pontificate about the Bible’s complexities.
Let’s be thankful for the data we have on biblical times and places. Without them, our journey through Scripture would take us through barricades and off the cliff.
Resources
My very abbreviated list of reference books dedicated to backgrounds:
Zondervan’s Illustrated Bible Dictionary
Study Bibles:
The IVP Cultural Backgrounds Bible
Commentaries that focus on backgrounds:
The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament
Which would you add? What books or reference materials have proved their value to you in your study of the Bible?