How to Baptize the Bible So That It’s Not a Dangerous Book, Part 4
Contextualization
Lecture 3: Contextualization (Summary)
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Every thought we think, every move we make, every risk we take in a free society is influenced by the multiple, co-equal contexts in which we live.
EXCURSUS. I know, I know, I know; if you’re in my generation or a little older or younger, I know that when I said what I just said, you began to tap your toes and think about the hit song from 1983 performed by a British punk group with an unfortunate name, The Police. And I say unfortunate in this day and time in which we are attempting to function because the song is about someone being watched. Police, being watched…. Scary.
The person watching is not a stalker. Rather she or he is enamored with or possibly in love with the person being watched. The song could probably never be popular again except in the office complexes of Pam Bondi, Pete Hegseth, Kash Patel, and Kristi Norm. But back in the day it was fun and energizing.
Every breath you take
And every move you make
Every bond you break
Every step you take
I'll be watching you
You’re welcome. You’re welcome. The in-lecture entertainment costs you not one peso over your basic tuition.
Now, one more time with rhythm.
Every thought we think
Every move we make
Every risk we take
A speaker or writer in a free society is influenced by the multiple, co-equal contexts that influence the shape and content of the message shared. .
(By the way, if you want to report me to the dean for wasting your time and tuition, I will understand. You can find her most Saturday nights out dancing with me at the SX Club downtown. We laugh and dance and sip communion wine, and go over with each other the high points of our sermons prepared for the next morning.)
Speaking of context, back to how interpretation becomes possible. Let’s ponder this first in the present. The communication piece we want to understand has been shared by one of our contemporaries. We want to make sure we understand the message unless it is come from Donald Trump or one of his cabinet members. There’s a special literary category used to describe everything communicated by Trump and his sheep; the category is called lies. As to other forms, the major contextual influences:
The point of history at which the message was initially shared. Can be the present,
The socioeconomic status that affects the relative wealth or poverty by which the speakers or writers flourish or struggle to get by,
The religious or spirituality community with which the speaker or writer identifies if any,
The gender of the writer or speaker,
The political provisions or limitations provided to/kept from the speaker or writer,
The literary context. Use as much “surrounding” writing as possible. Avoid the usually-careless practice of cherry picking biblical materials. Prefer a sentence over a word. Prefer a paragraph over a sentence. Prefer a chapter over a paragraph. Prefer a full book over a chapter. (The original scrolls had complete books or two or three complete books—all three Isaiahs, for example, recorded on one scroll, and in time many folks forgot about the 3 and thought there was only one Isaiah.) There were zero chapter and verse indications or punctuation. These were added later for the sake of ease of use, and we are grateful that we are no longer at the stage where when trying to find a passage in a scroll, we aren’t having to rely on our Rabbi to keep coaching, “A little more, just a little more; roll that scroll open still a little more. Great! Now about halfway down there.”
Even geographical context, the environment—the natural habitat—can affect the messenger and her or his message.
Let me give you an example. Ellen Churchill Semple was a geographer and a pioneer female in the discipline of geography, notably cultural geography. She was the first female president of the American Association of Geographers. One of her interests was the influence of deserts on monotheism including the actual births of the three great monotheistic religions.
Semple, pictured above, was the first woman given formal faculty status at Clark University.
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She wrote this:
A shepherd dwells in the
waterless tracts of the desert, where he roams with his flocks from pasture to pasture and oasis to oasis, where life knows much hardship, but [he] escapes the grind of drudgery watching…grazing herds…. [He has] leisure for contemplation. His ideas take on a certain gigantic simplicity; religion becomes monotheism. God becomes one, unrivalled like the sand of the desert and the grass of the steppe, stretching on and on without break or change.
The more we can understand various contexts, the greater chance we have at getting to the core of what the original speaker or writer of what became scripture wanted to get across.
It’s a good place to say, at least the first time, that no work included in Hebrew scripture or Christian scripture was written by anyone or any group thinking that what was being produced would eventually be considered scripture.
Further, there were many more works, thought to be scripture or possibly scripture, recommended for consideration by those who determined the final cut.
What I am about to say here will be on the upcoming exam in the form of an essay question. I trust you will give it the pre-test thought it deserves before sharing your perspective with me by whom I mean, my teaching fellow, Benny Dick Toose, who will be grading your exams. So, here’s the essential interpretive reality I want you to know about now and that you’ll be reflecting on, on the test: no part of scripture was written for us and our conporaries; every piece that we embrace as scripture requiring interpretation is borrowed from original hearers and/or readers.
Coming up in the next lecture, some interpretive exercises and a discussion of bibliolatry. Soon thereafter we will schedule that first exam of the term.
Thank you for being such an attentive and engaging community of sister-/brother- seekers and learners. I send you on your way today with this blessing from Lenore Three Stars, who—among other roles—is in her own words an Indigenous Badass Grandma.
Creator uses love to heal and restore, and we can choose to cooperate with that plan. We were created in Shalom and to Shalom we shall return—to a profoundly good creation.
