Factbook and topic guide: Context section for Biblical persons and places

MJ. Smith

In trying to understand a passage as the original audience would have understood it, two pieces are missing: The first is the cultural context for which we have resources but very little tying it back to people, places, or passage. The second is even more neglected - the knowledge about the person, place, thing or event that was floating around in cultural context. It is like reading a brief paragraph on George Washington without knowledge of the cherry tree, wooden teeth, crossing the Delavare . . . Please add a section to both Factbook and the Guide which will link us to books similar to Ginzbergs' Legends of the Jews i.e. folklore, to rabbinic literature, and to apocrypha/pseudepigrapha/gnostic references.