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The Bible as Literature. Literary Forms in the Bible. Mythic lit Legends Short stories Drama Poetry Allegory parable. Subject of all books:. Man’s relationship with God Old Testament: vengeful god New Testament: merciful god. Mythic literature.
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Literary Forms in the Bible • Mythic lit • Legends • Short stories • Drama • Poetry • Allegory • parable
Subject of all books: • Man’s relationship with God • Old Testament: vengeful god • New Testament: merciful god
Mythic literature • Mythic lit exposes a truth beyond history • Truth rests on whether events make visible knowledge on a deeper level
First five books: Law • In Hebrew: the Torah • In Greek: the Pentateuch
Genesis: the creation and fall of mankind • Mankind and world created by a Supreme Being • Mankind is less than perfect and it’s our own darn fault! • What happens in the world concerns God but man is a free agent
Exodus, etc. • Exodus through Deuteronomy: • Our tribal ancestors and the Patriarchs • Attributed to Moses, but actually there were probably many authors • Part of oral tradition • “theophany” - a “showing forth” of God; revealing the power and “otherness” of God
Histories: Legends/Legendary figures • Historicized fiction: these accounts use history but before the Bible was recorded, the oral tradition “shaped” these accounts, like legend. • Fictionalized history: takes liberties with historical fact in order to express and preserve a culture
Writings • Esther through Song of Songs: short stories; drama; poetry • Wisdom literature: Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes; Song of Songs, Psalms
The Psalms: • Poems and songs which praise God and commemorate events in the history of Israel • 70 out of 150 credited to David • Express the range of human emotion: joy, love, compassion, perplexity, sacrifice, anger, sadness… you name it, the Psalms express it. Some of them are really good at vengeance!
Themes in the Psalms: • Penance and contrition • Elegy • Lamentation • Praise • Awe • Despair
Poetic techniques used in the Psalms • Iteration (listing) • Personification • Hyperbole • Simile • Parallelism • metaphor
Parallelism: 3 types • Synonymous parallelism: A parallel segment repeats an idea found in the previous segment. With this technique a kind of paraphrase is involved; line two restates the same thought found in line one, by using equivalent expressions. • “Wash me from my iniquity/and cleanse me from my sin”
Antithetic parallelism • Antithetic parallelism: By means of this poetic construction, the thought of the first line is made clearer by contrast - by the opposition expressed in the second line. Examples of antithetic parallelism may be found in Psalm 1:6: "The LORD knows the way of the righteous, / But the way of the ungodly shall perish";
Climactic Parallelism • Climactic: the thought in the first line builds to the climax over several verses The first idea is slowly built up and developed. A good example of this is: Psalm 29:1,2 Give unto the LORD, O ye mighty, give unto the LORD glory and strength. Give unto the LORD the glory due unto his name.
Terms to know: • Covenant – promise, contract, invioable • Revelation – inspiration, “breath of God” • Canon – accepted books • Parable – a simple story meant to illustrate religious or moral principles. • Apocrypha – books not included in Protestant bibles, but included in Catholic bibles.