Lesson 1 | What is Bracketing?
Context is king, herald, cup bearer and knight
Context cannot be expressed in percentages
Not just context, but structural context
Consider the following verse.
For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life. —Leviticus 17:11
At first glance, this verse appears to teach that blood sacrifices are the means by which God grants atonement for our sins. However, someone might appeal to the context of the proceeding and following verses to argue otherwise—namely that atonement for sins is not in view here, but rather a dietary law regarding the eating of blood.
If any one of the house of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn among them eats any blood, I will set my face against that person who eats blood and will cut him off from among his people. For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life. Therefore I have said to the people of Israel, No person among you shall eat blood, neither shall any stranger who sojourns among you eat blood. —Leviticus 17:10-12
In fact, rabbinical Judaism often argues this very thing (that these verses only deal with a dietary law). See, rabbinical Judaism teaches that prayers in the synagogue have replaced sacrifices for the atonement of sins. But this would be a problem if indeed God required blood to make atonement. So does he?
Honestly, it would be hard to disagree with Judaism's conclusion if context was merely topical, since clearly verses 10 and 12 are issuing a food law forbidding the eating of blood. But that is not how context works! Note the “for” at the beginning of verse 11 and “therefore” at the beginning of verse 12. These are not throw away words. They indicate to us that verse 11 is intentionally inserted in order to be the basis for why the food law is given. It is because of the supreme importance of blood sacrifices in atonement (as described at length in the previous 43 verses in Leviticus!) that God is issuing this law. But we must note the structure of the context to know this with certainty.
Multiple levels of logic
Finally, note that logical reasoning in the Bible is not merely between two individual verses. As we will go on to talk about at length throughout this course, logical arguments and structural flow build. First, propositions relate to one another, and then multi-proposition sentences combine, and so on. If this sounds complicated, that is because it is. But no worries; we will take it a step at a time. At this point, it is just important to be aware of the concept.
