Monthly Archives: March 2025

The Literary Context of Scripture

deuteronomy/deuteronomism, interpretation, Isaiah, Job, particularism, Pauline epistles

This fifth installment in my response to a former student will discuss the second context that good biblical interpretation must take into account.  In addition to the cultural context that produced scripture, a given passage of scripture must be understood in terms of is literary context beginning with its immediate surroundings and extending to the entirety of Scripture. The failure to do so will certainly result in misinterpretation or the absolutization of a given text over against other texts in Scripture and contrary to the tenor of Scripture as a whole. Often this sort of privileging one text over others betrays inconsistency, incoherence, and bias on the part of the interpreter. In other words, observance of the literary context of scripture requires criteria applicable across Scripture that take seriously all Scripture as authoritative without rigidity.

A few examples should demonstrate the importance of this principle. The first installment of this series has already discussed the case of Job’s friends, whose speeches addressed to Job sound orthodox and pious, except that in the context of the whole book of Job, they stand under God’s negative evaluation expressed at the end of the book (Job 42:5). Yes, often we have to read to the end if we want to understand the message of a biblical book.  Memory verses can mislead.

The case of Ezra’s decree that Jewish men in post-exilic Judah must divorce their foreign wives and disown any (entirely innocent!) children that resulted from the union illustrates the need for setting a given text in the context of the whole Bible. Two issues intertwine here: divorce and particularism. Upon returning to Yehud (Judah) with the mandate of the Persian King Artaxerxes to regulate religious affairs there (Ezr 7:25-26), Ezra, whose priestly pedigree traced all the way back to Aaron (7:1-5) discovered that some among the populace had “not separated themselves from the people of the lands with their abomination,” but had intermarried with “Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, Ammonites, Moabites, Egyptians, and Amorites” (9:1-2, RSV). The discovery prompted Ezra to offer a lengthy prayer of confession (9:3-15), in which he alluded to Deut 7:1-5. The Deuteronomy text prohibits Israelites from intermarrying with a list of peoples closely aligned with the list in Ezr 9:1-2 suggesting that the motivating factor for Ezra was adherence to Deuteronomy.

Several factors argue against claiming Ezra’s decision as a precedent with respect to divorce, and certainly not to mass divorce. There is reason to question whether Ezra’s efforts to honor Deut 7:1-5 may not have violated Deut 24:1.  To be sure, Deuteronomy permits a man to divorce his wife “if … she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her….” In the rabbinical debate over the precise connotations of “indecency,” the school of Shammai and the school of Hillel held contrasting positions. Shammai argued that “A man may not divorce his wife unless he has found her guilty of sexual misconduct…,” while Hillel maintained that “(He may dismiss her) even if she has merely spoiled his meal….” (Sifre, Piska 269). Nothing in the Ezra case suggests that the wives divorced were guilty of sexual misconduct. Nothing suggests that the husbands involved wanted to divorce their wives for any reason, including their cooking! Of course, Christian readers of Ezra 9-10 will also want to include the New Testament as context. Probably in reference to Deuteronomy 24, Jesus prohibits a man from divorcing his wife “except on grounds of unchastity” (Matt 5:32; 19:9, RSV). Luke’s version omits the exception (16:18).  Paul warns against being “unequally yoked” (2 Cor 6:14-18), but he does not require divorce, which would contradict the teachings of Jesus.

Similarly, the particularism evident in Ezra’s abhorrence of intermarriage with non-Jews presents its own difficulties.  First, by Ezra’s day many of the peoples listed in Deuteronomy 7 and Ezra 9 no longer survived as identifiable people groups. Second, Deuteronomy expresses an interest in protecting religious purity, not ethnic identity. Third, the book of Ezra does not record that God issued a directive to Ezra that he should require 84 men (10:18-43) to turn their backs on their wives and children. Instead, Ezra himself drew an inference from scripture that may not have been entirely apt. Fourth, and most importantly, Ezra relied on a single text instead of the broader testimony of Scripture. Joshua 9 records the incorporation of the Gibeonites into the covenant people.  Tamar and Rahab were Canaanites, Ruth was a Moabite, and Bathsheba was a Hittite, yet all were in the direct lineage of David, and thus of Jesus (Matt 1:3, 5, 6). Further, Ezra failed to take into account the promise stated in Isa 56:3: “Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say, ‘The Lord will surely separate me from his people.’”

Isaiah 56 figures prominently in another example of the need to put scripture in the context of scripture. Deuteronomy 23:1 explicitly prohibits eunuchs from entering “the assembly of the Lord.” Yet, in a later time, Isa 56:4-5 promises, not only foreigners (see above), but also faithful eunuchs the contrary: “For thus says the Lord: ‘To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name which shall not be cut off.’” Again, Christian interpreters of will want to put these texts in context with the New Testament.  Acts 8:26-40 records the account of Philip’s encounter with an Ethiopian eunuch – thus, both a foreigner and a eunuch – on the Jerusalem-Gaza road, whom ironically Philip found reading from the book of Isaiah. In response to the eunuch’s question, Philip explained “the good news of Jesus” and the eunuch asked immediately to be baptized. So, Philip baptized him (vv 36-38). Careful readers of the Bible do not absolutize single texts. The words of the Bible can become the Word of God when we pay wise attention to their context in “the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27).

The Cultural Context of Scripture

creation, family, Genesis, imago Dei, interpretation, revelation, women, ,

This, the fourth installment in my response to a former student, turns attention to the second axiom that can provide a guardrail against reading into Scripture our own preferences, namely careful attention to the three contexts against which any biblical passage should be read: the cultural context it reflects, the literary context in which it is situated, and the cultural context of its reader. Scripture is culturally and historically rooted. The individuals who composed the various sections of the Bible quite naturally reflected the worldviews, the cultural practices, the societal norms, the crises, etc. of the times in which they lived. Interpreters of scripture should not automatically assume that these cultural and historical contexts, in themselves, convey any information concerning the will or character of God. Often such cultural artefacts trouble contemporary readers of the scripture. If, however, we recognize them as such, we can forgive the ancients for being ancients. (One day our descendants will look back on us with horror, or, if we’re lucky, pity.) Examples abound.

  • The author of Genesis 1 shared with the Egyptians, the Assyrians, and the Babylonians (remember that Abraham came originally from Ur in Mesopotamia) a cosmology that envisioned a solid dome suspended above the earth, separating the space beneath it from the waters above (Gen 1:6-8).  The Hebrew word translated “firmament” in the KJV (raqiya`) comes from the world of the metal-smith and means “a thing hammered into a shape.” The ancients had no concepts of the vast expanse of space, of the difference between stars, planets, and moons, or of a solar system. The Bible does not want to tell us to replace what we know today with ancient ideas.  Instead, with the author of Genesis 1, we can assert that the existent universe (regardless of its shape) is God’s good creation.
  • The ancient Israelites lived in the midst of cultures that practiced polygamy. It was a given, so the Israelites practiced polygamy. God did not endorse the practice. God did not inspire or require them to do so. Neither, however, as far as the Bible records, did God prohibit the practice until, arguably, the New Testament era. Consequently, we should regard biblical polygamy as a cultural artefact, not a vital component of the scriptural witness.
  • For the ancient Israelite, the death of a man before he could father children posed a compound threat. He would be without memory, his heritage would revert to another line of the family, and his wife would be without means of support. They found a solution, so-called levirate marriage, in which a younger brother of the deceased married the widow and the first child conceived in that marriage was considered the child of the deceased in a legal fiction. Even those who claim to interpret the Bible “literally” recognize the culture-bound nature of this practice and the texts that call for it (Deut 25:5-10).
  • Patriarchy functions as a substrate in both Testaments because it characterized the cultures of the world in which Israel and later the Church came into existence. As early as Genesis, however, the Bible undercuts the idea that gender hierarchy conforms to God’s will. God created humankind in God’s image; both male and female reflect God’s likeness (Gen 1:26-27).  According to the account of the creation of Eve from Adam’s rib, God did so because God recognized that Adam was alone.  God decided to make Adam a nigdo (Gen 2:18, 20), a unique Hebrew word comprising a preposition that means “opposite, over against” with a pronoun that means “him/his” and that functions grammatically here as a noun.  Although many translations render it “helper,” which hints at a secondary or subservient role, it ‘literally’ means “his opposite” or “his counterpart.” In fact, the Genesis 2 account explains that, because of the way God created Eve, a man leaves his parental home and “cleaves” to his wife – not the other way around. A range of other texts about prominent women in the Hebrew Bible contribute to a critique of the notion that gender hierarchy represents God’s intention:  Deborah, Jael, Huldah, etc.
  • Examples of culture-boundedness appear in the New Testament, too, and one of the clearest examples also reflects a patriarchal substrate. The author of 1 Tim 2:8-12 wrote:

I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling; also that women should adorn themselves modestly and sensibly in seemly apparel, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly attire but by good deeds, as befits women who profess religion. Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent. (RSV)

Perhaps the first thing one should note in this text involves the fact that, as discussed in the first installment of this blog series concerning 1 Cor 7:25-26, the author reports his own position and practice:  “I desire,” “I permit.” He makes no claim to be proclaiming a divine mandate.  Second, as mentioned in the immediately preceding installment, the text notably expresses as much concern for women’s appearance as it does for their silence. The description of a well-dressed and well-coiffed woman speaking before a group of men calls to mind the hetairai or “courtesans” known in the Hellenistic Mediterranean world. Paul elsewhere expressed concern that Hellenistic converts who came from unsavory backgrounds (“And such were some of you,” 1 Cor 6:11, RSV) take care to distance themselves from their pasts. In our culture, expensive clothing, fashionable hairstyles, pearl necklaces, and rhetorical skill do not encode “courtesan,” although we might agree with Paul that Christians who wish to represent a holy God to the world may wisely give some attention to appearances.  Third, as I will discuss at greater length in the next installment, 1 Tim 2:8-12 should also be read in the literary context of the entirety of scripture, including Paul’s statement concerning the equality in Christ of Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female (Gen 3:28).

While, in many cases, we should not and cannot replicate the assumptions and practices that constitute the background for many biblical texts, the fact that ancient culture shines through biblical texts does not negate their capacity to become Word of God for us. They are not, or need not be, merely historical artefacts.  Instead, interpreting scripture well requires us to undertake ‘cultural translation,’ as it were. If we transpose the thrust of a given passage into a comparable contemporary context, we will find that an insight into God’s will and character or a principle for human conduct sounds across the ages.