I’ve talked before about the importance of context for interpretation. The context of the Bible involves many things. Think about the many contexts for anything we write. Our past and present experiences naturally color the way we look at the world. What enters our minds in various forms of media becomes part of how we intellectually process the world. How we were taught to express ourselves informs how we communicate. We are a product of the intellectual climate and resources that we absorb. So were the biblical writers.
A lot of what we find in the Bible cannot be understood well (or even at all) unless we see what’s written through ancient eyes. We must be able to think like the ancient writer. Doing that requires sharing his worldview. Obviously, we can’t hope to completely accomplish that task. But we providentially live at a time where it’s more possible than ever to get inside the head of biblical writers with respect to their worldview.
The key to discovering the worldview of the biblical writers is to read material that reflects their time and culture. Archaeology has uncovered a large amount of the intellectual output of the cultures that were part of the biblical world. Numerous tablets and manuscripts have been translated into English. That makes it possible for us to think more like they did. We can not only read about what people from Egypt, Babylon, and Canaan wrote and thought, we can read that material ourselves.
There are some outstanding resources that help us navigate this terrain. The best starting points are two books, Ancient Texts for the Study of the Hebrew Bible and Ancient Texts for New Testament Studies. Both volumes are guides to the background literature produced by the civilizations of the ancient biblical world. The nine-volume Zondervan Illustrated Bible Background Commentary is also a premium reference tool.
Among the many resources these titles will direct you to are anthologies—collections of ancient texts in English translation. The most up-to-date scholarly set is the three-volume Context of Scripture. James Pritchard’s Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament is a one-volume anthology. Other volumes focus solely on one writer or collection, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, Josephus, or Philo. Access to the thinking of the ancient biblical world has never been more widely available.