Sitz Im Leben - Contextualization

Contextualization

At its simplest, it describes what occasions certain passages in the Bible were written for, and is often called the "genres" of the Bible. Simple examples of Sitz im Leben include the classification of material into letters, poems of lament, parables, psalms, and songs. However, Sitz im Leben can also involve many other considerations; who the speaker of a passage was, his role in life, the nature of his audience, and so on. Taken out of its original context, the original meaning of a passage is often lost. So for example, a psalm may have its Sitz in the ritual of the temple cult, or as an artistic votive offering, or in the sense of injustice arising from a power structure in Jerusalem society, or lament in defeat. A major aim of hermeneutics (contextualizing interpretation) is to uncover such things.