1. Session 11
Literary Context

2. Focus is on inside the text
Context = what surrounds words and passage
Context determines meaning.

3. Circles of Context

4. Reasons to study literary context:
Shows the flow of thought
Provides a more accurate meaning of words
Shows how different sections of the Bible are related to each other

5. Challenges:
Keep the whole book in mind
Think about the larger themes

6. How to Study the Context:
Identify the limits of your passage: where it begins and ends
Look for major shifts in the topic of discussion.
Shifts in audience that is addressed.
Change in literary type or genre.

7. How to study (cont.) Change in key words and repeated themes.
Change in verbal characteristics (tense, person, and number).
Shift in time and place.
Transition words like “so,” “therefore,” “for”

8. Determine the purpose of the book as a whole
Book Survey:
Two ways to read:
Rapid word for word reading
Scanning/skimming
Read the entire book without stopping
Goal: to observe and not to interpret
Your ideas and impressions may change as you study more

9. What is the primary subject matter of the book?
Biographical: about a person
Historical: about events
Chronological: organized by time
Geographical: movements in and through places.
Ideological: contains and develops ideas

10. Give each chapter a title
Preferably one word, not more than three
Picture or descriptive words if possible
Words taken directly from the text; not a paraphrase
No duplication or similarity of titles
Words that tell you where you are in the book

11. Study the Structure: Divide book into 3-5 sections Label each section
Look for major shifts in topics
Think about how a unit might be structured
Go back to your chapter titles and update
Identify sub-units first and combine into larger groupings until you have only 3-5 main units.
Use different formats: outlines, charts, graphs, story plot highlights

12. Focus on chapter/section that comes before and after
Develop a simple three-point outline
previous section
study section
following section

13. Questions to ask: What is the purpose of the passage in its context?
How does your passage contribute to the flow of thought (the logic) around it?

14. What is the genre of the book in which your passage is found?
How does the literary genre influence the meaning?

15. With isolated verse, context is a minor consideration

16. Work from outside circles to inside circles then back out.

17. Intertextuality How one text quotes another
Most common: NT quotes the OT
Determine what passage is being quoted or referred to
Check the context and meaning of the original passage
Determine how the author is quoting the other passage

18. Big Ideas
Literary context studies how a passage fits into the passages around it.

19. The Circles of Context shows the passage, immediate context, book, books by the same author, the same testament, and the whole Bible.

20. Studying the context of a passage helps us understand the thoughts of the original author and keeps us from misinterpretation.

21. Doing a book survey and rereading the surrounding context is a good process to studying the context.

22. Intertextuality studies how one passage quotes another text.