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BrianB said:
Not just Science, but understanding Greco-Roman rhetoric techniques, the honor/shame dynamic in the Mediterranean, other texts written in Hebrew/Aramiac/Greek/cognates (to help us understand how the same words were used in the Bible), etc. There are differences in how we go about using these sources of information to help us understand the biblical texts, but they all do so.
There's a big difference between those things you mention here and modern science, but we'll leave that for later (like you, I'm strapped for time as well.)

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Some would be. Those in the original audiences and closer to the time the documents were written would have understood them. Moses' original audience would have understood them.

So the ancient Israelites had access to modern science, which helped them interpret Moses' writings? News to me!

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That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that we moderns are able to see things that aren't in a lot of the literature from the past that we have.

Like science which has been unknown in all of history to the last couple of centuries hence?

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Part of this is because we have more extra-Biblical information to help us. Part is due to the fact that we have more refined historical investigative methods. Other things as well I'm sure.

Did the Mosaic Jews understand that the structure of the covenants was just like the international treaties of the surrounding nations? Sure. Is this understanding missing from the bulk of the literature of the Church until recently? As far as I know. But now we know (thanks to Mendenhall, Kline, and Kitchen) that the covenants followed the formal structure of ANE international treaties/covenants.

Again, I'm surprised you can't see the difference between, say, the covanental structures and allowing modern science to affect how we interpret the scriptures.

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The right interpretation was there, and it didn't _require_ that we have the results of modern scientific investigation. It's just that now we have had more reason to re-examine our thinking on the interpretation of the text.

Oh, so now we don't need science to help us interpret Scripture- but simply a correct understanding of scripture? Then, out of real curiosity, how come we've been arguing that we can allow science to affect our interpretation of Scripture? I may be wrong, but it seems like you are changing your tune once you're in the corner.

I am most enjoying this exchange, and am more then able to understand your time constraints- like I said, they are shared!

(Latin phrase goes here.)