Program / Course 17: Defending Scripture / Lesson 1.4
What you will learn
- Explain why reading a passage in its context is the first step in judging any claim about it.
- Identify the major genres of the Bible and say what each is trying to do.
- Distinguish literal, figurative and literary readings without treating them as opposites.
- Apply a short checklist of context questions to a passage.
The big idea
Every text is a particular kind of writing, from a particular time, for particular readers. Reading the Bible well begins with asking what kind of writing a passage is, who wrote it, to whom and why. A poem, a law code, a genealogy, a letter and a parable all say true things in different ways, and mixing them up produces confusion. Context does not make hard passages disappear, but it often changes what the question is, and it is the fairest starting point for both a skeptic and a believer.
Key terms
- Context
- The setting of a passage: the surrounding verses, the book it belongs to, the time and place of writing, and the situation of the first readers.
- Genre
- A recognizable kind of writing with its own conventions, such as narrative, law, poetry, wisdom, prophecy, gospel, letter and apocalyptic.
- Exegesis
- Drawing out of a text what it meant in its setting. The opposite error, reading one’s own ideas into the text, is called eisegesis.
- Hyperbole
- Deliberate exaggeration for effect, as when Jesus speaks of a camel passing through the eye of a needle.
- Apocalyptic
- A style of writing, found in Daniel and Revelation, that uses vivid symbols and visions to speak about God’s action in history.
- Ancient Near East
- The region and the period of the early civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Syria and Canaan, the world in which the Old Testament was written.
- Hermeneutics
- The study of the principles of interpretation.
Background
Most people already read in context without thinking about it. If a friend texts, “I’m dying here,” no one calls an ambulance. A weather report, a recipe, a joke and a legal contract each ask to be read differently. The Bible is a library of books of many kinds, written over roughly a thousand years or more in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, and it asks the same skill of its readers.
Context does not decide the question of truth. Reading a passage as poetry does not tell you whether the poem is inspired or whether its claims are true. What context does is tell you what claim is being made, so that the claim, and not a misreading of it, can be tested. This applies equally to those who defend the Bible and those who attack it. Both can read badly, and both can read well.
Step-by-step explanation
Step 1: Ask what kind of writing it is
Narrative tells events, but ancient narrative is selective and shaped by the author’s purpose. Law gives rules for a particular society. Poetry, like the Psalms, uses parallelism and images. Wisdom literature, such as Proverbs, gives general observations about how life usually goes, not guarantees. Prophecy delivers God’s message to a people, often in the form of warning, and only sometimes predicts the future. Gospels are accounts of Jesus’ life shaped to proclaim him. Letters answer questions in particular communities. Apocalyptic uses symbols.
A common mistake is to read a proverb as a promise. Proverbs 22:6 says to train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Many parents have taken this as a guarantee and been crushed when a child strayed. Most interpreters read it as a general observation of the kind that wisdom literature makes, not as a law of nature.
Step 2: Ask about the author and first readers
Who wrote this and when? Who were they writing to? What problem were they addressing? Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians answers a list of questions and reports (1 Corinthians 1:11, 7:1). Reading it as a general manual, and ignoring that Corinth is the setting, makes some passages puzzling. Some questions about authorship and date are debated, such as the date of Daniel or the authorship of some of Paul’s letters. A student should state what is known, what is argued, and what is assumed.
Knowledge of the ancient world also matters. Ancient histories were not written to modern standards of footnotes and chronology. They often arranged events by theme, used round numbers and reported speeches in the author’s words. These are habits of ancient writing, not necessarily errors, though critics ask whether the explanation is sometimes used too easily.
Step 3: Ask about the surrounding text
A verse is part of a paragraph, a chapter and a book. Chapter and verse numbers are late additions, medieval for the chapters and sixteenth century for the verses. Quoting one verse can mislead. Philippians 4:13 says, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” Read in its context, Paul is speaking of being content in poverty or plenty (Philippians 4:11-12), not of success in any project.
The same discipline applies to critics. A skeptic who quotes one command from Leviticus without noting the kind of law it is, or the way the New Testament treats it, is also reading out of context. Fairness requires that context be asked of every quotation.
Step 4: Literal, figurative and literary
People often say they take the Bible literally, and others say it should be read symbolically. This sets up a false pair. Almost everyone reads some parts literally and others figuratively, and the real question is where each applies. The phrase literal sense in older theology meant the sense the author intended, which could be a metaphor. The church fathers and medieval writers also spoke of further senses, such as the allegorical and moral, which Origen and Augustine discuss.
Protestants of the Reformation period emphasized the plain or literal sense and were wary of allegory. Catholic and Orthodox writers keep a place for the spiritual senses, which they treat as grounded in the literal one. The question is how far the text itself invites such reading, as Paul does with Hagar and Sarah in Galatians 4:24.
Step 5: A short checklist
Before drawing any conclusion, ask: What genre is it? Who wrote it, and to whom? What is the immediate context? What is the broader context in the book and in Scripture? What did the words mean then, and are there other ways to translate them? What does the author seem to want the reader to take from it? What do the major traditions say? Where does the answer remain uncertain? Write the answers down. The habit is more useful than any single result.
- Which genre of the Bible are you most comfortable reading, and which is hardest for you?
- Can you think of a verse that is often quoted without its context? What changes when the context is added?
- Why is it a mistake to treat a proverb as a promise?
- Is there a difference between reading a text figuratively and reading it as unreliable?
- What are the dangers of reading a passage with no knowledge of the ancient setting?
- Where would you draw the line between interpreting a text in context and explaining a problem away?
Examples
A parable
Jesus tells of a rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31). Most interpreters read it as a parable with a point about wealth and hearing the prophets, not as a map of the afterlife. Some older writers read it as a real account. The genre determines what lesson is drawn.
Hyperbole
Jesus says that if your right eye offends you, pluck it out (Matthew 5:29). Almost all Christians read this as forceful speech about taking sin seriously. No major tradition teaches self-mutilation. The example shows that a figurative reading is not a way of avoiding the text but of hearing it.
A law in its setting
The law of retaliation, eye for eye (Exodus 21:24), appears among case laws that limit punishment. Many scholars argue that it set a limit on revenge in a society that otherwise had none, and Jesus later addresses it directly (Matthew 5:38-39). A reader who stops at the single line misses the structure of the law.
Different perspectives
Catholic
Dei Verbum instructs interpreters to attend to the literary forms and the intention of the human authors, and then to read Scripture in light of the unity of the whole, the living Tradition of the church and the analogy of faith. Historical study is welcomed, and the church adds that it must serve the reading of the book as the word of God.
Orthodox
Orthodox interpreters value the Fathers, who often read the Old Testament as pointing to Christ, and use historical study as a servant. The Orthodox emphasis falls on reading the Bible in the life of the church, especially in the liturgy, where the text is proclaimed and prayed.
Protestant
The Reformers stressed the plain or grammatical and historical sense, the clarity of Scripture in what is necessary for salvation, and Scripture interpreting Scripture. Fee and Stuart, whom the course recommends, represent a modern evangelical approach that begins with genre.
Jewish
Jewish interpretation has a long tradition of attention to the plain meaning (peshat), alongside homiletical, allegorical and mystical readings. Jewish readers often point out that Christian readings of the Hebrew Scriptures take them out of their own context.
Scholarly
Historical-critical scholars aim to describe what a text meant in its original setting, using tools such as comparison with other ancient writings. Believers and non-believers use these tools, and they often disagree about what follows from the results.
Why it matters
Most of the famous objections to the Bible depend on a reading of a text that its first readers would not have recognized, and many defenses depend on an assumption that is not argued. Learning to ask about genre and context is the most useful single skill in the course. It protects you from being misled by confident voices on either side, and it prepares you for the topics that follow, from contradictions to violence to science.
Common misunderstandings
Misunderstanding: Reading in context is just a way to explain away difficult texts.
Correction: It can be misused that way. But context is also what exposes careless defenses and careless attacks. The test is whether the same standards are applied to every reading, including those one likes.
Misunderstanding: Reading literally means ignoring figures of speech.
Correction: In the older sense of the term, the literal sense is the sense the author intended, which may be figurative. Anyone who reads Jesus’ sayings about plucking out an eye as a plain command is not reading literally in that sense, but badly.
Misunderstanding: Historical study of the Bible is hostile to faith.
Correction: Some practitioners have been hostile, and some have been devout. The tools themselves are neutral, and churches in all three traditions encourage their use, though they differ on how far the results can govern interpretation.
Misunderstanding: Allegorical reading was invented to avoid the text.
Correction: The early church used it because the New Testament itself reads the Old that way (Galatians 4:24, 1 Corinthians 10:1-6). Debate concerns how far it should go and how it is controlled by the literal sense.
Knowledge check
What is genre, and why does it matter for interpretation?
Genre is the kind of writing a text is, such as narrative, law, poetry, wisdom, prophecy, gospel, letter or apocalyptic. It matters because each kind makes its claims in its own way, with its own conventions. A proverb states a general truth, a law states a rule for a society, and a parable teaches by a story. Reading all as the same kind leads to mistakes.
Why is quoting a single verse risky?
A verse belongs to a paragraph, chapter and book, and its meaning often depends on them. Philippians 4:13 is often used as a promise of success but, read with the verses before it, concerns being content in want or plenty. Chapter and verse divisions are also later than the original writings. This risk applies equally to defenders and critics.
What did literal sense mean in older theology?
It meant the sense the human author intended, which could be a metaphor, a parable or a plain report. It was contrasted with the further spiritual senses, such as the allegorical, moral and anagogical. Modern usage often equates literal with strictly factual, which can confuse the discussion. Always ask which meaning a writer intends.
Name three questions from the context checklist.
The checklist asks: What genre is the passage? Who wrote it and to whom? What is the immediate context, and what is the broader context in the book and in Scripture? Other useful questions are how the words are translated, what the author seems to intend, what the traditions say, and what remains uncertain. Any three of these is a fair answer.
Think it through
- When did you last change your mind about a verse because you read its context? What did it change?
- Which genre do you think is most often misread in popular religious talk? Why?
- How might the same standards of context be applied by a believer and a skeptic to the same passage?
Independent assignment
A context checklist in practice
In your own notebook, choose a passage of 5 to 15 verses that you have heard quoted without its context (for example Philippians 4:13, Jeremiah 29:11 or Proverbs 22:6). Read the whole chapter. Write 300 to 400 words applying the checklist from Step 5: genre, author and readers, immediate context, wider context, and what remains uncertain. End by saying what changed in your understanding. Do not send this to anyone or post it anywhere.
Further study
- Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth Read the chapters on the different kinds of biblical writing and practice naming the genre.
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Hermeneutics Read for the philosophical background on interpretation.
- Origen, On First Principles (De Principiis) Read selectively on the several senses of Scripture.
- Augustine of Hippo, The City of God Read selectively for Augustine’s attention to how the text should be read.
- Philippians 4:13 Read with the verses before it to see the context.
- Proverbs 22:6 A proverb read as a general observation.
- Galatians 4:24 Paul uses allegory in reading the Old Testament.