Gareth Jones "Christian Theology: A Brief Introduction"

Gareth Jones discusses the relationship between History and Theology in his book Christian Theology: A Brief Introduction. He believes that "historical analysis is inherently selective". This is true, but post modern scholarship has taken this view and run with it, believing all historical reconstruction to be unnecessary. One could argue that post modern scholarship considers historical analysis dangerous to an extent. Post modern scholars argue that historical analysis is pointless because one can never know what was in the minds of the authors when they were writing, and often one can never get a true picture of the historical situation because history is ultimately the construction of the victor.

Scholarship should not concern itself with trying to prove or disprove, validate or falsify the claims made in the bible or any other text, but it is necessary to ascertain the context of the writing. If one does not ascertain the context of the situation, both historically and culturally, ones interpretations and conclusions may be clouded by misinterpretation based on one's own context. While it is obvious that one must acknowledge one's own context, because one can never be truly objective, it is dangerous to ignore the context of the writing as it can influence conclusions drawn to the same negative extent.