I think C.S. Lewis records a conversation in his journal that discusses an aspect of that very issue. They were talking about how far you could look at a text in isolation, and someone remarked that you had to know the language, after all, and that implied context -- did "breakfast" mean ham and eggs at eight, or a piece of bread and a handful of olives at dawn? Was wine the drink of the people, or only of aristocrats? Something along those lines.