Situated Torah

To say that the Torah is situated in the ancient world is another way of recognizing that its communication and conversations are embedded in the ancient world. Consequently, every aspect of it must be interpreted within that ancient context; extrapolation outside of that context is hazardous. That does not mean that we cannot extrapolate, only that it has to be done very carefully with full knowledge of what we are dealing with (genre) and how extrapolation can take place effectively (methodology and hermeneutics). One cannot seek to extrapolate it on the assumption that it is legislation or a moral system. It is neither a question, then, about the unchanging law of an unchanging God nor a presumption that morality is relative. If the Torah is neither a law code nor a moral system (more discussion in proposition twenty-one), then its lessons cannot be learned from following those pathways.—Walton and Walton, The Lost World of the Torah, 100