Over the years, my methodology of reconstructing the missing context of the Bible has evolved. I combine this method with the historical-critical method and a variation of the historical-grammatical method. I outline below my latest thoughts on how to do a reconstructive-reading. You may be tempted to think it’s simple because of its brevity, but it is capable of developing an extremely complex web of information that I am continually trying to find ways to best communicate to others.
Reconstructing The Missing Context
The Biblical authors were interacting with existing narratives, arguments and situations. To reconstruct what those were, one has to isolate or infer it from the Biblical text. Occasionally, there are other historical documents and archeological evidence to aid us in our reconstruction. Most of my work to date had centered around reconstructing the existing narratives (e.g. oral traditions) that the Biblical authors manipulated as propaganda. I’ve named this process “reconstructive-reading”.
Ambidextrous Text
Some of the text in the Bible was lifted from an existing narrative. In the past, I’ve referred to the lifted text as “echoes”. The Biblical author would take words or phrases from an existing narrative and change the context around them in order to change their meaning. This ambidextrous text is difficult to identify and prove, since it fits in both the existing narrative and the Biblical narrative. The process of identifying such text is similar to doing source/redaction criticism, but with oral traditions, the Biblical author had much more flexibility to manipulate the narrative and could more easily rearrange elements from an oral tradition, thus making it harder to identify. Sometimes, the Biblical author wrote the opposite of what the existing narrative said. By mirroring these statements, we can learn more about that underlying narrative. This process is commonly known as mirror-reading.
Glitches
Some of the ambidextrous text is not very ambidextrous. Biblical authors would sometimes have difficulty fitting elements from the existing narrative into the Biblical narrative. Awkwardness, redundancies, contradictions, inconsistencies, unnecessary details, unusual words and grammar are all types of glitches in the text. These glitches can be exploited to reconstruct the missing context. Solving glitches is one of the strongest arguments that can be made in a reconstructive-reading. If a reconstructive-reading can explain a glitch, or better yet, a series of glitches, it is great evidence for that reconstructive-reading.
Propaganda Techniques
Most of the Bible is propaganda and, as such, utilizes various propaganda techniques, which I’ve listed many in my post called “Biblical Propaganda 101”. If any of these techniques can be identified in the Biblical text, that text is automatically suspect and likely contains manipulated elements from another narrative.
Coherence & Cohesiveness
If we identify elements from any underlying narrative, these elements should be able to be strung together to form a coherent and cohesive narrative. I refer to these strings as causal chains, since, typically, events in the narrative cause other events in the narrative to happen. The bigger the chain, the better. Some parts of the chain may be inferred using the known effects or causes (or both), thus making it more speculative. Certain keywords such as “for”, “because” and “therefore” often indicate when the Biblical author was trying to change the cause of something that was in the underlying narrative.
Causal chains can also be formed around the perspective of the Biblical author as a propagandist. Certain changes made in the Biblical narrative would sometimes cause the author to have to make other changes related to the first change. For example:
The Biblical author changed the relationship of Jacob and Laban from hostile to cordial. This caused the Biblical author to have to change why Jacob took Laban’s daughters, sheep and idols.
The Biblical author changed the relationship of Ruth and Boaz from slave/master to wife/husband. This caused the Biblical author to have to change why Ruth was with Boaz’s slaves and worked in Boaz’s fields.
The Biblical author changed the nationality of Gideon from Midianite to Israelite. This caused the Biblical author to have to change why Gideon attacked Israelite cities, was in the Midianite camp, and had Midianite royal paraphernalia.
Answering Unanswered Questions
Sometimes the Biblical author would either overlook or avoid addressing certain aspects of the underlying narrative. The original reader may have been able to fill the gaps because they were familiar with the underlying narrative, but for the reader today, this prompts questions such as “How did Cain know his offering wasn’t accepted?” (it didn’t rain) or “What exactly was the mark of Cain?” (it was a slave tatoo). If a reconstructed-reading can answer these types of questions, then it lends support to that reading.
Previous Propaganda
If propaganda has been already been identified in other parts of the Bible, such as “Yahweh is the God of Israel” or “Yahweh is a powerful fertility god”, then other parts of the Bible written around the same time may contain the same propaganda and can thus be more easily identified and supported.
Qualitative Aspects
Solving some glitches provides stronger evidence than solving other glitches, and not all causal chains are as convincing as others. There is a spectrum of speculation that one must keep in mind for the various parts of a reconstructive-reading, but ideally, there will be enough strong evidence and a convincing cumulative argument to hold its own.