The Bible is a literary work. For that reason, in order to comprehend what it says, we must seek to understand how it says what it says.
A literary approach to the Bible is preoccupied with form, and that is for a very good reason. In any written discourse, meaning is communicated through form. The concept of “form” should be construed very broadly in this context: it includes anything that touches upon how a writer has expressed his content. Everything that gets communicated does so through form, beginning with language itself.
While this is true for all forms of writing, it is especially crucial for literature. Literature has its own forms and techniques, and these tend to be more complex and subtle and indirect than those of ordinary discourse. Stories, for example, communicate their meaning through character, setting, and action. the result is that before we can understand what a story says we must first interact with the form, that is, the characters, settings, and events. Poetry conveys its meanings through figurative language and concrete images. It is therefore impossible to determine what a poem says without first encountering the form (metaphor, simile, image, etc.).
The literary critic’s preoccupation with the how of biblical writing is not frivolous. It is evidence of an artistic delight in verbal beauty and craftsmanship, but it is also part of an attempt to understand what the Bible says. In a literary text it is impossible to separate what is said from how it is said, content from form.
—Leland Ryken, How to Read the Bible as Literature (Zondervan, 1984), 28–29.
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Posted in: Bibliology · How to Read the Bible as Literature · Leland Ryken
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1 Comments:
#1 || 09·02·05··06:29 || donsands
So true. We are studying the book of Proverbs, and our teacher has shown us the first 7 verses form a chiasm. Also in the Psalms there are many chiasms.
With the right preacher and teacher the Scriptures can be so much more rich, intense, and gratifying, and less shallow.
The Church in this generation has been dumbed down. And that's a sad thing indeed.
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