History and Hermeneutics: A Conversation on the Role of Historical Background Information in Biblical Interpretation

I was recently on the Credo Podcast with Sam Bierig to discuss the role of historical background information for reading & teaching the biblical text (web: part 1, part 2 | ApplePodcasts: part 1, part 2). Some of the key concepts that we discussed included:

• The reason why this topic is important & why it is sometimes a fraught conversation to have (can you speak of history without being histrionic?)
  
  
• What I call “historical background minimalism”
  
  
• The idea that historical context is necessary but not sufficient for the task of interpreting biblical texts
  
  
• The distinctions between Source & Witness (Childs), Text/Event (Sailhamer), and the Universe of Discourse/Cultural Encyclopedia (Eco)
  
  
• The question of how to navigate this question when preparing to teach or preach w/ examples from Ruth, Judges, Kings, and Jonah

The rest is, well, history.