Before beginning with this subject, there is one general point I would like to stress. There are those who say, “You may interpret the Bible. I just read it, believe it, and obey it.” They treat interpretation as if it were a dirty word. What they ignore is not only the importance of properly interpreting the English Bible they are looking at, but also the great deal of interpretation that went into producing that Bible.
Autographs
Manuscripts with Variants
Standard Text – Textual Criticism
Versions – Translation
Meaning to the original audience – Hermeneutics
Current Application
Concerning the NT for example, we don't have any of the original handwritten documents by the actual NT authors. So we must rely on the thousands of handwritten copies we have found, and there a number of minor differences between those manuscripts. It is the job of textual critics to sort out these documents and come up with a standard Greek text, and there are a number of judgment calls to make. Then the translators have to figure out what the Greek means and how to render it into English. And both these steps involve a great deal of interpretation.
Let's begin with the most important
aspect of determining what the text meant to the original audience:
Context. The preeminence of this aspect of Bible interpretation has been expressed both positively -- "Context is king" and negatively -- "A text without a context is a pretext for a proof text.." Or as I like to put it, in real estate terms: "Location, Location, Location" since there are parallels one can point to:
Verse House
Immediate Context Street
Proximate Context Neighborhood
Book School District
Testament City
Genre State
Bible Country
There are many contexts to keep in mind: today we will start with the most immediate and work outward although that is not necessarily the way one would always approach a passage in practice. But, if you haven't properly understood the basic sentence structure of the verse itself, you are not likely to comprehend it any better by appealing to other passages that are more remotely located.
1. The Sentence
The very smallest elements to consider are, of course, the individual words in a sentence, and that will be the subject of another post. But it turns out that even words only make sense within the context of the sentences in which they occur. One example in English: ghost.
And Jesus, being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan.
You don't have the ghost of a chance.
He gave up the ghost.
I saw a ghost in the haunted house.
She was the ghost writer for that autobiography.
After the gold rush, it became a ghost town.
Grammatical Context
“For the Lord himself
with a word of command,
with an archangel's voice, and
with a trumpet of God
will descend from heaven...” I Thessalonians 4:16a
The Jehovah Witnesses argue, mainly based on this verse, that Michael and Jesus are one and the same person because Jesus is speaking with an archangel's voice and Michael is the only archangel. However, (1) it doesn't say who is speaking with an archangel's voice. The three “with” clauses just spell out simultaneous events occurring as Christ descends and (2) “an” vs. “the” archangel clearly indicates that there is more than one archangel, otherwise it would read “the” or “his” archangel's voice.
There is also Matthew 28:19-20 The more literal translations correctly indicate that baptizing and teaching are gerunds that modify “make disciples” to explain what it means. Or it can be paraphrased as two parallel thoughts connected with a semi-colon, or with a colon.
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them...and
teaching them. KJV, RSV, NAS, NIV
Go forth therefore and make all nations my disciples; (or:)
baptize men ...and teach them. NEB, Jerusalem Bible, TEV
But not as in one early edition of NIV which implies that you make disciples by baptizing them, and then you teach them as a separate step.
2. Immediate Context
Some act as if there is no context surrounding a verse. In the first place, remember that the Bible wasn't divided up into verses and chapters until the Middle Ages and some of these divisions were rather arbitrary. So we shouldn't necessarily expect that a single verse represents the smallest literary unit to consider, or even that each English sentence is the smallest unit. For example, Ephesians 1:3-14 is one single Greek sentence usually divided into about 6 separate sentences in English. I visited one Sunday school class when I lived in upstate New York. They would read and discuss one verse at a time and not allow discussion of any other verse in the chapter until listing all the possible interpretations of each verse under consideration. Of course, most of the interpretations could have been easily dismissed if they had only looked ahead to the rest of the passage.
Let's look at that long sentence in Ephesians I mentioned. It starts out: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.” Ephesians 1:3
We could go around the room and each give our individual opinions on what “every spiritual blessing” means, or just examine the rest of the sentence to see what Paul had in mind.
chosen to be holy and blameless (v. 4)
destined for adoption as his children (v. 5)
bestowed his glorious grace on us (v. 6)
redemption through his blood (v. 7a)
forgiveness of our trespasses (v. 7b)
made known to us the mystery of his will (v. 9)
obtained an inheritance (v. 11)
marked with the seal of the Holy Spirit (v. 13)
redemption as God's own people (v. 14)
Look especially for bridging words connecting adjacent verses.
Some make logical connections:
“You then, my child, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” II Timothy 2:1
“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner...” Matthew 20:1
“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Romans 8:1
Others make chronological connections:
“Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John...” Acts 4:13
“And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.” Mark 1:12
By the way, Mark uses the Greek word translated "immediately" 43 times in his gospel, way more than the other three gospels combined. So this is a tip-off that it may be a literary quirk of Mark and not necessarily indicate what we would call “immediate.” It may mean to Mark that this was the next important event in Christ's life. You would have to compare the passage with parallels in other gospels to be sure.
3. Proximate Context – Sometimes the best context or parallel to a passage is given elsewhere in the same book but not immediately adjacent to the passage in question.
Each book of the Bible can certainly be read profitably straight through from the first to the last. But most books of the Bible are also arranged in a manner that may seem strange to us with a number of digressions and duplications. So you should be on the lookout for cases where the author repeats teachings on the same subject elsewhere in the book. For example, in the Book of Hebrews the rare subject of apostasy is discussed in 6:4-8. But four chapters later, in 10:26-31, the author resumes talking about this subject. So both passages must be carefully compared to one another to thoroughly understand them. Another obvious example is found in I Corinthians where Paul discusses the issue of eating meat offered to idols in both chapter 8 and 10:14-33. Both passages should be discussed together, not separately.
“Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” This promise is found in Matthew 16:19b and 18:18, and 18:19-20: it is given to Peter in the first case, all the apostles in the second case, and extended to any group of believers in the third case. People have mistakenly applied it to an individual's prayer to St. Peter (Catholic) or to an individual using it to bind Satan (fundamentalist). The context of Matthew 18, by contrast, shows that it mainly refers to church discipline and group prayer.
Here is another example, this time from the OT, illustrating proximate context. There are some similar statements in the last half of Job 15:
“The wicked writhe in pain all their days...they are destined for the sword...distress and anguish terrify them...they will live in desolate cities in houses that no one should inhabit...they will not be rich.” (Job 15:20-35)
A simple-minded approach is to say, “It is in the Bible; therefore I believe it.” But let's look at the various contexts that need to be taken into account. There are quotation marks around the passages listed so we need to find out who is talking, what are his credentials, who he is talking to, and why. The answer to the first question is found at the beginning of that chapter – it is Eliphaz the Temanite.
You then need to trace the conversation back to chapter 12 to find out that Eliphaz is talking to Job as part of a debate. Eliphaz spells out the source for his ideas in 15:17-18. “I will show you; listen to me; what I have seen I will declare – what sages have told, and their ancestors have not hidden...”
He is basing his opinions on what he has seen and what wise men have said – not exactly direct revelations from God.
But the context within the book doesn't stop there. We need to move forward to see Job's direct reply to Eliphaz in 16:1-3: “I have heard many such things; miserable comforters are you all. Have windy words no limit? Or what provokes you that you keep on talking?” So we need to weigh the opinions of a righteous man like Job (We know he is righteous from the first chapter) against those of someone who may have a very incomplete picture of the truth like Eliphaz, keeping in mind that Job is almost as much in the dark as his friends at times. Of course, at the end of the book all doubts are resolved as to who has the most correct ideas when the ultimate Judge, God, says to Eliphaz, “My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends; for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.” Job 42:7
Notice that to catch all of these pertinent contexts for the passage in question, we have had to be acquainted with the whole book of Job from the first chapter to the last in order to pick them up. Which brings us to the next context.
4. Basic Facts Regarding the Whole Book: Questions to ask about it
WHO
Author
often unknown – Chronicles; Hebrews
The book may be named after main character, not necessarily the author – Samuel (died in I Samuel 25, leaving the rest of I Samuel and all of II Samuel)
earlier sources utilized – “Now the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, how he warred and how he reigned; are written in the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Israel.” I Kings 14:19 Several such written records are alluded to in Chronicles also.
“Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account for you...” Luke 1:1-3 Luke explains that he started out with written sources based on eye-witness testimony and then did further research himself.
Audience This is usually even more important to interpretation than knowing who the author was. You may need to read between the lines. For example, was I Peter written mainly to Jewish or Gentile Christians? The evidence seems to be mixed:
“to the exiles of the dispersion” (1:1)
“do not be conformed to the desires that you formerly had in ignorance” (1:14)
“you were ransomed from the futile ways of your ancestors” (1:18)
“you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people” (2:9a)
“him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” (2:9b)
“once you were no people, but now you are God's people” (2:10)
“conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles” (2:12a)
And then the last case, which doesn't seem to fit Jews or Gentiles.
“You have already spent enough time in doing what the Gentiles like to do, living in licentiousness, etc. They are surprised that you no longer join them in the same excesses of dissipation (4:3-4)
Previous generation of commentators felt it was addressed to Jewish Christians, but the consensus today is that it was a mainly written to a Gentile audience. The deciding factors for this change of opinion are (1) the term “Gentile” is used by other NT writers to refer to non-believers, not just ethnic Gentiles, and (2) there is the fairly clear implication in Paul's writings that terms once applied to Jews only are now applied to God's new people – all believers, Jew or Gentile.
It may not seem to be very important to pin down the original audience in this case, but some Preterist commentators start out with the given that I Peter is addressed to Jewish Christians. Then they couple that assumption with the statement in II Peter 3:1 where Peter says this is the second letter he is writing to them. So they further assume that the first letter must be what we call I Peter, even there is no indication that both were written to the same audience, and Peter may have written numerous letters to different audiences. With that background, they then state that all the warnings in II Peter about the destruction of Heaven and Earth are written in apocalyptic language which can't be taken literally. It really refers to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD since Peter's Jewish audience at the time would have understood the phrase “Heaven and Earth” to mean Israel, the Old Covenant or perhaps the Temple. (I have read all three explanations in their literature, none of them very convincing.) Notice that this whole chain of reasoning breaks if their original assumption regarding the audience of the book is incorrect.
WHEN: This is often related to WHO the author is. It can be important, as in the previous example of II Peter. For example, if we knew for sure that the book was written after 70 AD, then the predictions couldn't possibly refer to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans.
Examples of Daniel and Revelation:
Most of the prophecies in Daniel match extremely closely the historical events during the Seleucid Empire after Alexander the Great's death, especially concerning the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes starting in 215 BC up to the Maccabean Rebellion around 167 BC. If the book was really written by Daniel himself during the Exile, then it is an amazing example of fulfilled prophecy. Most of it was so literally fulfilled, in fact, that liberal scholars are convinced it had to be written by someone else after the events had taken place.
The interpretation of Revelation will also vary drastically according to when it was written. Any description of future events can't refer to destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD if the book was written after that date. On the other hand, if most of it was written as early as 30 AD by John the Baptist and supplemented by later Christian writings (proposed by one scholar), that will definitely skew how we view it. And then there are those who feel it was written in the 2nd century AD, not by the Apostle John at all, in an entirely different historical context. The usual evangelical perspective is to place the book somewhere around 90 AD. Each school of thought bases its conclusions on hints they find within the text as to what the current historical events at the time of writing were.
John the Baptist around 30 AD with later Christian supplements
Apostle John before 70 AD
Apostle John around 90 AD
John the Elder around 110 AD
The Johannine School during the 2nd century AD
WHEN (cont.) The teachings of the OT prophets can best be understood if we know not only who they were writing to (Israel or Judah), but also the time period – monarchy, divided kingdom, Assyrian conquest, Babylonian exile, etc. What was happening in history at the time? Any good study Bible will have a short introduction to each book giving the historical setting. The cultural setting at the particular time and place is also very important in understanding the text.
Take the issue of slavery. Billboards with the image of a captured African man wearing a spiked collar and chain have been put up by atheist groups with a Bible verse apparently teaching that Christians endorse slavery. Bu just one consideration out of many is that conditions of most slaves in the early Roman Empire or OT slavery in Israel were totally different from those in America before Emancipation.
A recent commentary on Philemon by Barth and Blanke spends 100 of its 500 pages just to describe the cultural context, since it is so important to understanding the background of this short letter. Slavery in NT times was much closer to the situation of indentured servants in colonial America, and slaves sometimes held very responsible positions acting as scribes or doctors and could often buy their freedom. And in the OT there were rules to protect slaves, in contrast to almost all other cultures of the time.
Here is one verse in Philemon that has been interpreted in various ways. “If he (Onesimus) has wronged you in any way, or owes you anything, charge that to my account.” Philemon 18 I was always taught that Onesimus must have robbed his master of some money in order to skip town. This could be true, but the laws concerning slaves at that time in the Roman Empire state that if someone harbored a runaway slave, they might be required to reimburse the owner for hours of lost work. That may be what Paul was offering to do.
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