The Writers of Narratives were Literary Artists
The genre of historic narrative is literarily different from an encyclopedia and illustrates the need to know what is unique to narratives. Jay Adams describes the difference: “But the purpose of an encyclopedia is to provide information, whereas the purpose of the Bible is to change life. . . . In the Bible we face facts, but far more than facts: on the pages of Scripture we face God Himself! We see Him in action, hear Him address us in our sins and need, and, as we read, listen to His call, not merely to learn, but to repent, believe, and love, as well as think. . . . In short, in the Bible you find truth applied” (Jay Adams. Truth Applied: Application in Preaching. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990, 35).
There has been a paradigm shift from interpreting Scripture historically to literarily as Richard Pratt observed: “Literary analysis is the current trend in Biblical hermeneutics.” (Richard L. Pratt, Jr. He Gave us Stories: The Bible Student’s Guide to Interpreting Old Testament Narratives. Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1993, 97).
Joe Linares writes that one of the earliest influences in this paradigm shift was Robert Alter’s The Art of Biblical Narrative. Linares quotes Paul R. House’s evaluation of Alter: More than any other work, Robert Alter’s The Art of Biblical Narrative (1981) advanced Old Testament literary criticism during the 1980′s. Alter primarily followed American formalism, which focuses on examining the main elements of plot, structure, character, and themes in narratives. This approach made literary criticism more accessible to students and teachers unaccustoned to the discipline. Unlike structuralism, the use of formalism requires no extensive specialized vocabularyof philosophical background (Joe Linares. Proclaiming God’s Stories: How to Preach Old Testament Historical Narrative. Greenville: Bob Jones University Press, 2009, 21).
Understanding the literary genres of Scripture is necessary for the preacher to properly interpret the Word of God as Sandy and Giese note. “The Old Testament is written in a wide variety of literary genres, each demanding its own rules of interpretation” (D. Brent Sandy and Ronald L. Giese, Jr. Cracking Old Testament Codes. Nashville: Broadman and Holman Publishers, 1995, 36). For example, the rules for interpreting Hebrew Poetry are similar but different than narratives.
For most of the Psalms, immediate context is not important. Psalm 32, one of David’s Psalms of confession, is the sequel to David’s original confession to his sin with Bathsheba in Psalm 51. Not only does Psalm 32 not immediately follow Psalm 51, but it is eighteen chapters before it. In the narratives, however, context is vitally necessary to interpretation and the advancement of the plot. The “man” Goliath unconsciously asked for in 1 Samuel 17:10, in order to fight, was “the man after God’s own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14) earlier announced by Samuel to replace rejected King Saul.
In Hebrew Poetry, parallelism is found in every verse and is much tighter than in narrative. For example, in Proverbs 16:18, the comparative parallelism is tight in one verse: “Pride goes before destruction and an haughty spirit before a fall.” Although parallelism is sometimes found in narrative in the form of chiasmus or inverted parallelism (1 Samuel 28-31) and inclusio, it is much looser:
1 Samuel 28-31 is a literary or preaching unit (This four chapter narrative is arranged chiastically)
A Saul’s final night 28:3-25
B David’s dismissal by the Philistines 29:1-11
B’ David’s destruction of the Amalekites 30:1-31
A’ Saul’s final day 31:1-13
Figurative language dominates Hebrew Poetry which is not the case in narrative.
Proverbs is a genre of general principles and not ironclad promises as Proverbs 22:6 illustrates. Howard shows how “poetry makes frequent use of such devices as alphabetic acrostics, alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia, paranomasia, chiasms, and more” (David Howard, Jr. An Introduction to the Old Testament Historical Books. Chicago: Moody, 1993, 26).
Narratives have other unique literary conventions such as plot, characterizations, scenes, dialogue, and narrators. We will examine these unique characterisitics in future posts. Being aware of the hermeneutical shift from the historical to the literary emphasis will help the preacher to interpret and preach narratives to persuade his listeners to be doers of God’s Word.
