…the question of what it means to read well requires more than just the deployment of exegetical methods, no matter how well attuned any such methods may be. The situation of the interpreter of the biblical text is also a key element, and this immediately raises the question of the purposes for which any reading of the Bible is carried out. In a key quotation at the beginning of his striking work “The Old Testament of the Old Testament, [Walter] Moberly suggests that ‘the crucial question, which is prior to the questions of method and sets the context for them, is that of purpose and goal. To put it simply, how we use the Bible depends on why we use the Bible. In practice, many of the disagreements about how are, in effect, disagreements about why, and failure to recognize this leads to endless confusion.’

-Richard Briggs and Joel Lohr in A Theological Introduction to the Pentateuch emphasis original.