The Bible in a Biblical Context

The Bible is one book. It is not an anthology of books.

The individual books within the Bible are put together in a coherent way, so that they compliment each other and develop "intratextual" themes.

When we read a letter from Paul to the Church at Rome, we need not pull this work out of the context of Scriptures and try to rebuild its historical context from archeology or extra-biblical history. The best way to understand this work is to feel it in the flow of Scripture. Scripture interprets Scripture.

When we read the Book of Psalms we need not pull individual psalms outside of their biblical context to rebuild the historical background of a "psalm of ascent," for instance. There is already a context and theme of ascension within the Bible which will help us understand the psalms of ascent:

Deuteronomy 30:11-14

11 “For this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. 12  It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ 13 Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ 14 But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.

(Also, do a word study for the Hebrew word for "go up" or "ascend")

If we attempt to rebuild the historical context of these Psalms we miss out on precisely what the biblical author had in mind; he was intending to connect these Psalms to the biblical theme of ascension, which is fulfilled in Christ.

I am not saying there is absolutely no use for historical, extra-biblical context. I am just saying that before we try to dig up info from a culture that has been dead for 2000 years - info that is constantly changing - and before we use this info to determine the meaning of the Scriptures, let's just know our Bibles better like the biblical authors themselves did.

As Brevard Childs argues, the Bible was set up for the "future actualization of subsequent generations." In other words, the Bible was composed and arranged precisely to take original texts out of their historical context and fit them within the flow of the biblical context so that folks down the line could understand it. So to try to force these texts back into their historical context would be to go against the minds and method of the biblical authors themselves.