A brief explaination of the context defence
Article author: Jay Zeke Malakai
Article editor: Jay Zeke Malakai
Introduction
When a skeptic points to a verse/passage in the Bible that they find disagreeable, Christian apologists often respond by explaining that the skeptic has taken the passage out of context. As with any book, there is a right and a wrong way to interpret the Bible. The context changes depending on various factors. In this article, Jay Zeke Malakai explains the dreaded context defence.
The first rule of Biblical interpretation is context. The second rule is context. The third rule is context. When reading any text, not just the Bible, it is possible to take words out of context and give them a meaning the original author did not intend for them to have.
While it is true that the Bible means what it says, that doesn't necessarily mean you can take any sentence out of any passage and make it mean exactly what it says. In fact, by taking any random verse, it is possible to make the Bible say anything, up to and including "there is no God". In the past, people have taken single verses from the Bible and built their entire philosophies on it, leading to the existence of a great many pseudo-Christian religions today.
To show you just how important context is, observe this example from my own life. I once said these exact words in a conversation: "I would never eat a baby, but I could feed one to an animal." Oh my gosh! Jay Malakai is a child killer! Well, not when you take my words in context. A typical skeptic response would be "what context could possibly justify feeding a baby to an animal?" Allow me to explain.
The context of this conversation is that I was actually in an animal care lesson at college. We were discussing our favorite foods. At the time, I still ate meat (I am now a vegetarian), however the thought of eating a baby animal always disgusted me. For example, I could never eat lamb chops, because I knew the animal was a baby when it was killed for its meat. However, given that we were in an animal care lesson, I had snakes and owls on my mind. In captivity, snakes and owls are fed dead food, such as rats, but they are also fed baby animals (dead) such as day old chicks and young mice/rats. While I could not eat baby animals myself, I would obviously ensure carnivores under my care were recieving the correct diet, even if that meant feeding them babies.
As you can see, the context surrounding my words drastically altered their percieved meaning. With the Bible, it is no different. The surrounding context often drastically alters the meaning of the verse in question. There are several different kinds of context.
The historical context
The historical context is all about what was going on in the time at which the verse was written. Was there a special event going on that might change the context? Does the verse/passage have an "expiration date", so to speak. Was it aimed at a specific person/group, or is it aimed at a more universal audience? The historical background often changes the meaning of a text, and when taken out of its own time, the text can be made to say something which is obviously false.
As an example, let's imagine we picked up a newspaper from 1945. In the paper, we might read something like "Adolf Hitler committed suicide yesterday." If you read that paper on May 1st 1945, the paper would have been absolutely correct. Hitler committed suicide April 30th 1945. However, reading that exact same newspaper just one day later would make the newspaper incorrect. This is because the historical context surrounding the sentence is that it was intended to be read one day after Hitler's death. It was not intended to be for all time.
The immediate context
The immediate context refers to other verses in the same passage, like the verse before or the verse after. The afore mentioned "feeding babies to animals" scenario is a good example of this. The surrounding sentences explain the main sentence, making them the determinent of the immediate context. This is why it is never a good idea to take one verse on its own.
The extended literary context
This is one of the most vital rules of scriptural interpretation: Interpreting scripture with other scripture. That is, we consider the book as a whole. In the case of Christian apologetics, this means that if the meaning of a verse is in dispute, we look at what the rest of the Bible has to say about an issue. What do other passages in the Bible say about the same topic? If, for example, we find a verse that seems to indicate there is no life after death, we would look at what the rest of the Bible says about the afterlife. Since the rest of the Bible indisputeably proves there is, in fact, a life after death, it can be assumed the verse means something else. The previous two rules of context should be used to determine the actual meaning.
Conclusion
All of these different kinds of context can drastically affect the meaning of a verse. Contrary to popular belief, the context defense does not make the Bible say things it doesn't say. Quite the opposite: It accurately restores the true meaning of the text, without having to change a single word. This is very important when discussing the Bible.