immediately or innocently; rather, even the plain meaning we may regard as self-evident may have been shaped by centuries of appropriation and argument to which we are heirs. The third level, “The Text in Contemporary Discussion,” follows the history of interpretation into the present, drawing brief attention to a range of issues. Our aim here is not to deliver a single answer—“what the text means”—to the contemporary reader, but to highlight unique challenges and interpretive questions. We pay special