1) Human authors communicate from a particular historical situation.

The Bible carries universal and eternal significance because it communicates God’s truth, but it does so through the medium of human authors. If we want to study the Bible well, we need to recognize that the Bible’s human authors wrote in particular historical circumstances.

Consequently, we need to work to understand the authors’ historical contexts as best as possible. Since the Bible came into existence across many centuries, our ability to study the Bible well will be proportionate (in some ways) to our knowledge of the historical circumstances surrounding the Bible’s composition.

Our pursuit of the authors’ historical circumstances should lead us to study ancient Near Eastern culture and history’s great empires (i.e., the Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans) among other historical topics.

These factors and more provide the Bible’s historical background. The better we can grasp an authors’ historical situation, the better we can understand the Bible.

2) Human authors communicate from a particular social location.

In addition to studying the biblical authors’ historical situations, we need to consider their social locations. By social location, I’m referring to a person’s status in the larger society. Is he or she rich or poor? Are they educated or not? Do they operate from a position or power or weakness? The answers to these questions will help us appreciate their message better.

For example, 1st and 2nd Kings seem to have been written by someone with access to royal archives in ancient Israel. The books refer to these sources multiple times. This observation suggests the author(s) operated within a part of Israelite society that had some means. However, as the book’s conclusion suggests, 1st and 2nd Kings was written sometime during the Babylonian exile. Consequently, the author(s) operated from a severe disadvantage in the larger social context of the Babylonian empire.

The apostle Paul provides us with another example. He had the good fortune of being born a Roman citizen. This birthright afforded him legal rights he used to his benefit during his ministry. However, Paul was a Jew simultaneously. In the larger scheme of the Roman empire, he was a member of a religious minority. If we want to understand Paul’s letters, we will benefit from understanding how his different social locations influenced the way he understood the world.

So, what do these two observations mean for our journey to studying the Bible better?

Our task becomes clearer once we understand that the biblical authors’ historical circumstances and social location influence the way they communicated God’s message.

To study the Bible well, we must become students of history. The more we know about the historical circumstances surrounding the writing of the Bible, the deeper we will understand its message.

That's why I created a 3-week email course designed to help you build a strong foundation for Bible study.

It's called 21 Days to Better Bible Study.

You can check it out here.