Another element which contributes to the right interpretation of the Sacred Text is the knowledge of what may be called the historical background of a passage or book. This includes the various relations of time, place, persons addressed, and other circumstances which exercise an influence upon the material, intellectual, and moral surroundings of the writer. Accordingly, different parts of the Sacred Scriptures require different treatment and different preparation on the part of the reader. Thus to comprehend the full significance of the Book of Exodus we must study the geographical and ethnographical condition of Egypt. For a right understanding of the Book of Daniel we should first have to become acquainted with the history of Chaldea and Assyria, especially as lit up by the recent discoveries of monuments in the East. The Canticle of Canticles presupposes for its just interpretation a certain familiarity with the details of Solomon's life during the golden period of his reign. The Letters of St. Paul, in the New Testament, reveal their true bearing only after we have read the life of the Apostle as it is described in the Acts; and so on for other parts of the Sacred History.
Finally, a proper understanding and appreciation of the inspired books depend largely on our realization of the proximate scope and purpose, the character and quality, of the subject treated by the sacred writer. The Bible is a wondrous combination of historic, didactic, and prophetic elements. Each of these goes to support or emphasize the other, but each of them has its predominant functions in different parts of the grand structure. Hence we may not judge a prophecy as we judge the historical narrative which introduces and supports it; we may not interpret in its literal sense the metaphor which is simply to convey a moral lesson to the mind.
The subject-matter of the Bible obliges us, however, to apply not only the various cautions and methods of interpretation which are required for the understanding of the classics generally, but it exacts more. The Sacred Scriptures, as a grand work of art, have not only a human, but primarily a divine conception for their basis. Hence it does not suffice to have mastered the meaning of the words and the outline of the subject, or the individual genius and human ideal of the writer who acted merely as the instrument executing a higher inspiration. We must enter into the conception of the divine mind. If the principal and all-pervading motive of the great Scriptural composition is a religious one, it stands to reason that it can be comprehended only when judged from a religious point of view.