The Different Kinds of Writing in the Bible
So for all those who have a problem with trying to make sense of what the Bible says, how are we to approach it. A literal understanding of the text won't do, because that leaves most of us in denial about some of it, and those who tend to a very conservative approach or are fundamentalists invent wordy arguments about how this doesn't apply any more, so letting themselves off the hook.
There are a number of ways of resolving this problem and which give the Biblical text full respect. I am not going to rank them in order of importance or significance: the ordering is merely because I have to start somewhere.
Perhaps we should start with my first post which indicated a different way of understanding the first chapters of Genesis. If we understand this as a piece of theological writing rather than an attempt at writing history, we get ourselves out of the endless controversy which surrounds these passages. This approach bears fruit with many other passages too, some of which have a very obvious literary genre, like the Psalms, which are poetry and sacred song. I should say that within the collection of Psalms there are many different kinds of Psalms, written for different kinds of occasion. Then there are proverbs and other wise sayings which have been collected together and there are stories told to convey a message, and the sayings and doings of prophetic figures from Israel's past. There is also the law code which was put together to regulate both worship and behaviour within Israeli society. It goes without saying that regulations and practice which pertain to the Temple worship have no currency for today. They may have a theological significance however. We'll leave that thought there for the moment.
Then there is what purports to be history. If anything is to be taken at face value surely this must be? The historical writing however is not all that it seems. All history is written up from a particular point of view. That point of view is shaped by a number of different things, including your theology, your culture, your politics, your status and place in society. All these things shape the way you write and the way you record history. This means that accuracy sometimes has to give way to the promotion of a point of view, or a message which is of particular importance to the writer. They will then use the platform of writing history to give their message a plug. And this leads me to mention some of the other things that have to be considered when we read the text before us. We have to ask questions like, what is the theological viewpoint of the writer? what is the message he is trying to get across here? might he be putting a spin on events in order to make a particular point? what is the writer's understanding of the way the world of nature works, and of the way in which God interacts with it and us? What were the social and political customs of the time? What about gender and class? What does he accept as normal and right and would we? Is there an appropriate expression in our language which does justice to the original?
So you see, the text needs to be questioned, and this applies to both the Old Testament and the New. The New Testament has 4 biographies of Jesus life, all written from different points of view at different times, put together from material collected by the authors. So given that the accounts differ from one another, we need to ask what have the authors left out, and why have they included what they have? That the 4 accounts cannot be perfectly reconciled is not a problem once you start to reflect on the different approaches and different material available to the writers. John and Mark make no mention at all of the birth stories for instance, either because they did not know of them or because they did not consider them important for the story they wanted to tell.
We also encounter a new literary genre in the New Testament, new that is to the writing we find in the Old. The bulk of the New Testament is made up of letters or written in the form of a letter at any rate. Luke's historical account of the development of the early church is the only clearly historical writing in the New Testament, although the accounts of Jesus' life (the Gospels) also have historical material in them.
So, in reading the Bible, figure out what kind of material you are reading, then try and form an understanding of the time and place in which it was written. This may help you to understand why this text was written in this particular way. We will take a look at this in practice in the next instalment.
There are a number of ways of resolving this problem and which give the Biblical text full respect. I am not going to rank them in order of importance or significance: the ordering is merely because I have to start somewhere.
Perhaps we should start with my first post which indicated a different way of understanding the first chapters of Genesis. If we understand this as a piece of theological writing rather than an attempt at writing history, we get ourselves out of the endless controversy which surrounds these passages. This approach bears fruit with many other passages too, some of which have a very obvious literary genre, like the Psalms, which are poetry and sacred song. I should say that within the collection of Psalms there are many different kinds of Psalms, written for different kinds of occasion. Then there are proverbs and other wise sayings which have been collected together and there are stories told to convey a message, and the sayings and doings of prophetic figures from Israel's past. There is also the law code which was put together to regulate both worship and behaviour within Israeli society. It goes without saying that regulations and practice which pertain to the Temple worship have no currency for today. They may have a theological significance however. We'll leave that thought there for the moment.
Then there is what purports to be history. If anything is to be taken at face value surely this must be? The historical writing however is not all that it seems. All history is written up from a particular point of view. That point of view is shaped by a number of different things, including your theology, your culture, your politics, your status and place in society. All these things shape the way you write and the way you record history. This means that accuracy sometimes has to give way to the promotion of a point of view, or a message which is of particular importance to the writer. They will then use the platform of writing history to give their message a plug. And this leads me to mention some of the other things that have to be considered when we read the text before us. We have to ask questions like, what is the theological viewpoint of the writer? what is the message he is trying to get across here? might he be putting a spin on events in order to make a particular point? what is the writer's understanding of the way the world of nature works, and of the way in which God interacts with it and us? What were the social and political customs of the time? What about gender and class? What does he accept as normal and right and would we? Is there an appropriate expression in our language which does justice to the original?
So you see, the text needs to be questioned, and this applies to both the Old Testament and the New. The New Testament has 4 biographies of Jesus life, all written from different points of view at different times, put together from material collected by the authors. So given that the accounts differ from one another, we need to ask what have the authors left out, and why have they included what they have? That the 4 accounts cannot be perfectly reconciled is not a problem once you start to reflect on the different approaches and different material available to the writers. John and Mark make no mention at all of the birth stories for instance, either because they did not know of them or because they did not consider them important for the story they wanted to tell.
We also encounter a new literary genre in the New Testament, new that is to the writing we find in the Old. The bulk of the New Testament is made up of letters or written in the form of a letter at any rate. Luke's historical account of the development of the early church is the only clearly historical writing in the New Testament, although the accounts of Jesus' life (the Gospels) also have historical material in them.
So, in reading the Bible, figure out what kind of material you are reading, then try and form an understanding of the time and place in which it was written. This may help you to understand why this text was written in this particular way. We will take a look at this in practice in the next instalment.
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