History and Hermeneutics
A Conversation on the Role of Historical Background Information in Biblical Interpretation
I was recently on the Credo Podcast with Sam Bierig to discuss the role of historical background information for reading & teaching the biblical text (web: part 1, part 2 | ApplePodcasts: part 1, part 2). Some of the key concepts that we discussed included:
The reason why this topic is important & why it is sometimes a fraught conversation to have (can you speak of history without being histrionic?)
What I call “historical background minimalism”
The idea that historical context is necessary but not sufficient for the task of interpreting biblical texts
The distinctions between Source & Witness (Childs), Text/Event (Sailhamer), and the Universe of Discourse/Cultural Encyclopedia (Eco)
The question of how to navigate this question when preparing to teach or preach w/ examples from Ruth, Judges, Kings, and Jonah
The rest is, well, history.