Diving Deep into Scripture: Understanding the Literature

 

In the last post, we looked at how to understand a text of Scripture better by considering the history and context of the passage. Now we turn to a second consideration: the literature or genre of the text.

As I explained earlier, to rightly interpret a passage of Scripture (or any text, for that matter), we have to understand what its doing. In philosophy, this is known as "Speech-Act Theory". At a common-sense level, we all understand that, when we speak, we intend that speech to do something. We intend to admonish, correct, instruct, motivate, and so on. How we speak depends very heavily on what we want the consequence of that speech to be. If we are admonishing or correcting someone, we may speak in firm absolutes so that we can make clear where the line is and where they've crossed it. If we are instructing someone, we may speak with fewer adjectives and adverbs, hoping a concise language will get across the clear instruction. If we want to motivate someone, we may speak poetically, with helpful analogies and lofty (maybe even unobtainable goals).

Consider two examples as contrasts between two different types of speech. When my children were first old enough to stay at home by themselves, I would admonish them with something like this, "No playing with fire of any kind, and no throwing things." My instructions were short, and as broad and clear as I could make them because I wanted them to get the point and never even get close to pushing the boundaries of what I meant. I wanted to strike fear. On the other hand, when I played football, I was usually tapped with giving the pre-game speech because I had a knack for giving the right motivation. As Marshal Cogburn from "True Grit" would say, I would "swell the banks of the English language" with my calls for aggression against the other team. Now, did I literally mean that my teammates should go out and physically remove the heads of their opponents? No, of course not. But the analogy of "getting out there and knocking some heads off" was completely understood by all.

So, you see that, in order to rightly understand what a text means, we need to understand the way the text is intended to act upon the reader. In literary terms, this is known as "genre." So, let's consider three steps in identifying the genre of a text.

Step #1: So... what's a genre?

In Scripture, there are, generally, six types of genres: narrative, poetry, prophecy, law, parable, and epistle. Obviously, whole books of the Bible fall into certain genres, but we have to be careful in assuming that, because we know what genre the whole book is, that we can move on. Genesis is a narrative text, but within that narrative we have poetry, prophecy, and law. Paul's letter to the Galatians is an epistle, but Paul famously uses a parable of Sarah and Hagar within that epistle. So, to identify genres within a text, it helps to understand what each of these genres look like.

• Narrative - provides facts about events of history. Typically narratives cover names, places, actions taken, dates, quantities, weights, and other facts about an event. The purest examples of narrative in Scripture are 1 & 2 Kings and 1 & 2 Chronicles.
• Poetry - uses metaphor, irony, and symmetry. The Old Testament writers valued wisdom, and they often communicated that wisdom in the form of poetry. So, you will find that the books of Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs are full of poetry and wisdom.
• Prophecy - has a forward looking aspect, but is often related in a poetic style. Prophecy is most easily identified by who is speaking. Specifically, God is the direct speaker in most prophecy ("thus says the Lord"). The Prophetic books of the Old Testament, starting with Isaiah, are examples of this genre.
• Law - declares legal and/or moral requirements, typically in direct, specific language ("Thou Shall Not..."). The book of Leviticus is almost entirely of this genre.
• Parable - a story with a deeper meaning, typically having one or more points of connection with a spiritual truth. The Gospels abound with parables, as this was Jesus's favorite method of teaching. Some scholars argue that the entire book of Song of Songs is a parable.
• Epistle - A letter of instruction from a leader in the church. Epistles are often full of commands and exhortation. The New Testament letters, starting with the book of Romans and going thru Jude, are all Epistles.

Step #2: The Actions of the Text

Now that we know the genre of a passage, we can dig deeper by identifying the actions of the text. This technique is similar to what we did with the nouns in the last post. Here, we can look at the verbs of the text. In our example text from Genesis 1:26-31, using Olive Tree software, we immediately find the verb "make", which is the Hebrew word, asa. Asa means "to form or fashion." That should call to your mind the detailed creation story of chapter 2, where God forms man out of the dust of the earth. So, there is something going on here that is different about man's creation. God is getting his hands dirty in it. This has special significance.

We can also search for other places that the same verb is used. I pay special attention to verbs that are repeated in a text, and especially those that are used repeatedly in the same book. For example, the word asa is used around 135 times in the book of Genesis. Consider these notable uses. In Genesis 3:13, God asks Eve "What is this you have done [asa]?" God is literally asking Eve what she has made in her act of sin. In Gen. 11:4, the people of Babel say, "Let us make [asa] a name for ourselves." And, in Genesis 12:2, God tells Abram that he will "make [asa] him into a great nation."

Step #3: Painting with Words

As I've already emphasized, words do things, and we must understand what the words are doing before we can rightly interpret meaning. Nowhere is this more important than in our understanding of illustrative language - words and phrases that are meant to paint a picture or illustrate a point. These are generally understood by two literary devices: similes and metaphors. Similes are a form of speech which are meant to draw a couple of points of connection between two concepts. Often, a person will use a simile to compare something that is simple or common to something that is not so simple. Similes are often designated by "like" or "as". In Luke 18, Jesus tells the parable of the unjust judge. In the parable, a woman repeatedly pleads with an unjust judge until he becomes frustrated and grants her request. Jesus's reason for telling this parable is not to draw a connection between the judge and God, but between the woman and his disciples. He was teaching that we should be persistent in our prayers, and God, who is just, and nothing like the judge of the parable, will "grant our request speedily."

The second literary device that is used to illustrate is a metaphor. Metaphors are a story or analogy that has numerous points of connection between a simple, earthly concept and a heavenly one. John 10 is a passage that is full of metaphor. There, Jesus says that he is the good Shepherd. Now, we know that Jesus never held the profession of shepherd, so he is obviously not making a literal statement here. But, he draws numerous connections between the ways a shepherd cares for his sheep and the ways Jesus cares for his people. We are meant to draw deeply from this metaphor, even though we understand that the analogy is not literal.

When studying a text, I like to mark out these word pictures. Then, I try to think of other places that these same analogies are used. For example, the idea of Jesus as shepherd brings to mind Psalm 23:1 - "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want." There are so many places we can go to enrich the meaning of Jesus's metaphor, and that adds beautiful depth to our interpretation of the passage.