Scholarship and Scripture

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Inresponding to Catholic spooftexting, Protestants like me emphasize thegrammatico-historical method. But this raises a question: what aboutProtestants who lived and died before biblical archaeology shed so much newlight on Biblical languages, customs, and historical allusions?
To begin with, Scripture hasa macro meaning as well as a micro meaning. The micro meaning consists ofindividual words and sentences. But over and above that are larger units ofmeaning, viz., the flow of argument or narrative arc. You can often get thegist of a story even if certain culturally coded references elude you.
Likewise, much of Scripturewas written to be heard, and the spoken word is more redundant than the writtenword. So even if you miss certain things, repetition often compensates for theloss.
But there’s another point tobe made. In commenting on a book like Daniel, Calvin or Matthew Henry lack thespecific knowledge that someone like Terence Mitchell would bring to bear. Insome respects their interpretation will be less precise, less detailed, than ascholar with a better knowledge of the period.
Yet that can be offset byanother consideration. Daniel deals with themes like tyrannical government,official idolatry, and religious persecution. And these are things which menlike Calvin and Matthew Henry experienced firsthand. In certain respects, theirhistorical situation was analogous to the situation of Daniel. They understoodwhat it was like to be a persecuted religious minority. Calvin understood whatit was like to be an exile. They personally knew what it felt like to remainfaithful in the face of a hostile regime. To some degree, their experiencerecapitulates the experience of a man like Daniel.
In that regard they canidentify with aspects of Daniel better than a scholar who has a more accurateknowledge of the period. Up to a point, they are living out the message of thebook. Their situation is comparable. So their situation automaticallycontextualizes the interpretation. These are tradeoffs.