Naked Bible 017: Taking the Bible’s Own Context Seriously

The Naked Bible Podcast

Dr. Michael S. Heiser

Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.8 • 4.7K Ratings

🗓️ 22 January 2015

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this second episode of the series on Bible study, Dr. Heiser discusses what interpreting the Bible "in context" really means -- taking the Bible's own primitive context seriously. Rather than filter the Bible through creeds dating from the 17th and 18th centuries, or even the period of early Christianity, the Bible's actual context is the one that produced the biblical books -- the era stretching from the 2nd millennium BC to the first century AD. All other contexts are foreign to the Bible, no matter how persuasive they are in denominational traditions. The student of the Bible must make all foreign contexts subservient to the Bible's own context. That means replacing our own worldview with that of the biblical writer living during this ancient time span in the ancient Near East and eastern Mediterranean. The way to do that is to immerse ourselves in the intellectual output of those cultures in which the biblical Israelite and later Hellenistic Jews lived when God moved them to write Scripture. The episode ends with suggestions about resources for familiarizing oneself with the literature of all these cultures. These guides are the first step, and set the stage for a discussion of where to find these texts in English translation, as well as informed discussion of that material for enriching Bible study. Guides to the Literature of the Biblical Context and Worldview: Old Testament (informed by the Literature of the Ancient Near East) John Walton, Ancient Israelite Literature in its Cultural Context Victor Matthews, Old Testament Parallels: Laws And Stories from the Ancient Near East Kenton Sparks, Ancient Texts for the Study of the Hebrew Bible: A Guide to the Background Literature New Testament (informed by the literature of Second Temple / "Intertestamental" Judaism) Larry Helyer, Exploring Jewish Literature of the Second Temple Period: A Guide for New Testament Students (Christian Classics Bible Studies) Craig Evans, Ancient Texts for New Testament Studies: A Guide to the Background Literature D. deSilva, Introducing the Apocrypha: Message, Context, and Significance

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	up
0:22.7	keyboard, tablet video,
0:24.2	Here was ninks to you in A.K. Bible Podcast.
0:27.2	Sports Podcast, www.NakedBibleBlog.com.
0:31.2	Welcome back to the Naked Bible Podcast.
0:35.2	Now in our last episode I began a series on Bible Study.
0:39.2	And that was really broadly defined.
0:42.2	What I want to do in this episode is sort of narrow that a little bit.
0:45.2	Give you a little better view of where I'm going to be going in this series,
0:49.2	at least for the next few episodes, the near future.
0:53.2	I've entitled this one taking the Bible's own context seriously.
0:58.2	And that's worded deliberately.
1:01.2	Own context is going to be important.
1:04.2	It's going to be the focus of what I'm going to say in this episode.
1:07.2	Now anybody who's listening to me here, who has been engaged in anything you'd really call Bible Study,
1:14.2	something beyond just mere Bible reading, has probably heard the piece of advice that goes something like this.
1:21.2	You must interpret the Bible in context to properly understand it, to properly interpret it,
1:30.2	to know what it's saying accurately.
1:33.2	Now that's of course true, but the problem with it is what does it mean?
1:38.2	The reality is that there are a lot of different contexts that we could talk about.
1:43.2	If you're looking at a given verse, there's an immediate context of the immediately preceding verses
1:49.2	and the verses that immediately follow, or maybe the immediately preceding and following paragraphs,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Dr. Michael S. Heiser, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Dr. Michael S. Heiser and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.