AN
INTRODUCTION TO THE VALUE OF NEW TESTAMENT BACKGROUNDS
AND
EPIGRAPHY IN HERMENEUTICS.
“Inscriptions in
many ways served the same purpose as the mass media do for modern culture and
society…inscriptions were widely used as a means of propagating news.”[1] Thus, just as one would more likely interpret
twenty-first century non-fiction more accurately in light of modern news
magazines and the internet, students of the New Testament come closer to
theological accuracy when exegesis is performed in accord with biblical
backgrounds. As Gordon D. Fee comments,
The very nature
of Scripture demands that the exegete have some skills in investigating the
historical-cultural background of NT texts.
The NT, after all, does not come in the form of timeless aphorisms;
every text was written in a given first-century time/space framework. Indeed the NT authors felt no need to explain
what were for them and their readers common cultural assumptions.[2]
Yet, Fee is not alone
amongst authors who believe that hermeneutics extends beyond even a prayerful
reading of the English text of Scripture.
C. K. Barrett has written, “the New Testament still speaks to us from
its distant world, and the more clearly we see how strange it was to the world
of the first century, yet spoke to that world with immediacy, power and
relevance, the more likely we are to see in our own world past its strangeness
to its truth.”[3] Further still, another writer states,
Unless we have a
knowledge of the writer’s background, supplied through historical-cultural and
contextual analysis, our tendency is to interpret his writings by asking, “What
does this mean to me?” rather than “What did this mean to the original
author?” Until we can answer the latter
question with some degree of certainty, we have no basis for claiming validity
for our interpretation.[4]
This is where
biblical backgrounds and epigraphy may play a significant role in the
hermeneutics process. As Stanley E.
Porter comments, “These documents offer a window into the ancient world by
providing direct and immediate access to those who lived, worked and wrote
during that time.”[5] The seriousness of biblical backgrounds and
epigraphy as ‘hermeneutics disciplines’ can be observed in the tone of one
prominent New Testament commentator: “No mechanical formula exists for
properly applying any text of Scripture.
The more we understand what a particular passage meant for its original
author and audience, the more likely we can understand its original application.”[6] Further still, commenting on the significance
of background data for understanding a text, one scholar proposes, “This is
easily the most crucial step for exegesis.”[7]
Perhaps the
difficulty of the discipline of hermeneutics necessitates studying background
and epigraphy as a part of the exegetical process.
The problems that
the modern exegete faces here are several.
First, we read our ideas and customs back into the first century. So one of the difficulties lies in learning
to become aware of what needs investigation.
The second problem lies in how one goes about the process of
investigation; and third, one must learn how to evaluate the significance of
what has been discovered.[8]
Stating the same idea in another way, Jackson writes, “The interpreter needs to
frame the text with the available rich background sources. Meaning is only then properly gleaned from a
proper consultation of the background in which the text is couched.”[9]
As we have seen, many authors concur that biblical
backgrounds and epigraphy should be central in the hermeneutics process. Yet, these disciplines seem to remain in the
periphery of the hermeneutics process for some.[10] So, since “there is much still to be
learned from ancient inscriptions…regarding the world of the NT,”[11] this paper will
argue that the study of background and Epigraphy are essential, not peripheral,
for proper interpretation of the New Testament.[12]
