Quote: “Contexts are not single, nor are they found ‘lying about’ as it were; we have to construct them from other texts, which also have to be interpreted.”
Comment: This stood out to me because I usually think of context as something that is just there and helps us understand a text better. Martindale is basically saying that even the context we use to understand something has to be interpreted too. I think this is interesting because it means that even something we use to make an interpretation more accurate can still be influenced by our own perspective. It makes me think that maybe there isn't really a completely neutral way to understand a text, because we're always deciding which parts of its context matter and how they should be connected.
Question: If the context we use to understand a text also has to be interpreted, how do we know when we've gone far enough with interpreting context? Is there a point where adding more context actually makes our understanding less clear?