On page 55 and 56 of On Christian Teaching, St. Augustine talks about the importance of a knowledge of history, and that it is needed to fully understand the Bible. He brings up the two examples of Christ's age, and the accusation by the Platonic scholars. He says that their ignorance to history had people thinking that Christ was 46 years old, and that he had taken his ideas from Plato. He says that anyone who thinks this does not have the correct context, and stresses the importance of knowing what they would be talking about back then.
This point is extremely important when it comes to the Psalms. So important, in fact, that we made sure to use it when we studied the Psalms. We made sure that we knew what was going on when the Psalms were written, so as to know why specific Psalms were being written. And while now we can pretty much just choose an interpretation and fit it to a Psalm, when they were written there was something in mind that they were commenting on. And while our interpretations now may be a lot more eloquent and nice, without knowing the original meaning, you lose a core idea within the psalm.
Now, if you would excuse me, I have some Sages to awaken.
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