Some people will make you think that in order to understand the biblical text you have to be guided or filled by the “Holy Spirit” (from here on HS). Putting aside the fact that no one knows what the heck that even means (I’ve never met a single person who can properly defend that position without getting into some really wacky metaphysical talk), this statement raises a ton of questions: How do you know you are being guided by the HS? Could you be relying on your own understanding while thinking incorrectly that you’re being guided by the HS? Is it possible to demonstrate to those on the outside that you are being guided by the HS and that your considerations about the biblical text should be taken seriously? Could you be fooling yourself? These are all important questions that anyone who holds this position must address at some point if they want to be taken seriously by others. But let’s talk about something else today. I want to focus on the fact that the biblical text is a historical document, and regardless of what one believes about it being divinely inspired or not, or it being some type of cryptic message that only those “filled with the Spirit” can properly understand, it is subject to historical considerations just like any other text from antiquity. You can’t say on the one hand that the biblical text is a historical document because it reveals to us God’s actions throughout history in his dealings with the people of Israel, or because it reveals to us historical facts about the person and life of Jesus of Nazareth, and then turn around and say that in order to understand it you must be “filled with the Holy Spirit”. If it’s a historical document (it is, although this is a separate question from whether it is a historically accurate document) then in order to best understand it one does not need to be filled with the “Holy Spirit” but one does need to be filled with accurate historical knowledge about the context in which the various parts of the text were developed. In order to understand why God despite being thought of as an all-loving God would order Israelite soldiers to commit genocide and kill every man, woman, and child that were in Canaan one needs to understand the social and political context of the Ancient Near East. So next time someone tells you that in order to understand the biblical text you need to be filled or guided by the HS remind them that in order to understand a volume of books that were written in specific times and historical contexts by specific people with specific agendas, one actually needs to have a proper handle on the historical context that produced these works of ancient literature.
