If someone were to ask you to write a short book about Jesus, who he was and what he did, what would you write? If paper and ink were very expensive, so that you had to choose your words carefully, would you begin with a long list of Hebrew names? Probably not. And yet that is presicely what Matthew did when he wrote his gospel. In Matthew 1:1-17, he asks our attention first of all for a list of names. Why? Because it places Jesus Christ squarely in the history of Israel. His genealogy underscores that he is truly the Savior that Israel had been anticipating for so many generations.

God Makes a New Beginning 

In the genealogy there are some familiar names: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Judah; Boaz, Jesse, and David; Solomon, Jehoshaphath, Hezekiah, and Josiah. Some may recognize Zerubbabel, who was the leader of Israel when they returned from exile in Babylon. But notice the last twelve names are unfamiliar; in fact, they are not found elsewhere in the Bible. These people were not influential in Israel. They were not kings, nor prestigious leaders; rather, they were Jews subject to Roman oppressors, and their greatest claim to fame was likely as respected elders in the local synagogue.

Jesus’ family tree, which begins with a rich landowner, Abraham, and contains kings like David and Solomon, fizzes out in osbcurity. When the Christ, the Messiah, is born, he is a shining star in a dark sky, bright hope in a world of hopelessness. And so Matthew tells his fellow Jews that it is time; time for renewal and restoration; time to break out of the downward spiral, out of obscurity, out of despair. The Lord, once again, is doing a great work.

In a way, this message was not completely new for the people of God. After all, they were looking forward. Their hopes were directed to the coming of the Servant of God, the Messiah. He would redeem Israel; he would set them free; he would bring peace; he would renew all things. Matthew’s challenge is not so much to convince his readers that the Christ will come; but rather, to convince them that Jesus is this Anointed One of God. What reason is there to believe that the prophecies are fulfilled now? that they have come true in this man, in Jesus of Nazareth?

There are, of course, many things that prove Jesus is indeed the Messiah. But Matthew’s first argument is based on a pattern he finds in history. The genealogy of Jesus consists of three parts, of fourteen generations each, three periods in which God made a new beginning with his people, a new order.

First God joined himself to Abraham and his family. The patriarchs served the Lord, and settled in the promised land. But there was also much decay and in the time of the judges the Lord was almost forgotten.

But after fourteen generations, God brought renewal and a new order. He made David king over his people, and Jerusalem became a glorious center of worship. King after king ruled in the name of the Lord. Yet they too forgot their God, and so eventually came a time of judgment.

Again, fourteen generations later, the Lord brought a new order through captivity and rebuilding. Again, the glory faded quickly. Israel became subject to Greek and Roman rulers, and was in great need of spiritual revival.

And now fourteen more generations have passed. If God continues working as he did before, it is time once again. It is time for a new revival, a new powerful leader in the family tree of Abraham and David. Don’t be surprised, says Matthew, that the Messiah has come now. It fits perfectly with the pattern of God’s history with his people.

This is a new time of restoration. A new order has begun. Because a new name can be added to the genealogy, a name greater yet than the names of Abraham and David. His name is Jesus; and he redeems his people from all their sins.

The Savior Redeems a People Steeped in Sin

Alright, a pious Jew may say, you have made your point. This is the time of the Messiah. But are you sure it is this man, this Jesus? Does he even qualify? Jesus could claim to be a descendant of David. But he was born from a lowly family, in poor circumstances. Not only that, there were plenty of rumors surrounding his birth. It was a public secret that Joseph was not the father. Jesus was a gifted teacher; but he was also born on the wrong side of the sheets. Should the Messiah not have a purer family line?

But before even talking about the virgin birth, Matthew shows that God is not impressed by what people consider pure. The Lord works his salvation through the brokenness of human life, through people of low reputation, even through a poor young girl like Mary.

That, I believe, is the main reason why Matthew includes four women in his genealogy: to show that God often works with what people despise. Tamar, a pagan girl who became the ancestor of Jesus by pretending to be a prostitute and sleeping with her father-in-law. Rahab, a Canaanite woman of ill reputation, saved only because she showed unexpected loyalty to the Lord. Ruth, the Moabitess. Bathsheba, wife of a pagan husband Uriah, who was raped by king David in the darkest chapter of his life. God continued his plan of salvation through these mothers. Who, then, could reject Jesus because of his poor mother or the strange circumstances of his birth?

There is comfort here: the Lord worked salvation through a long line of sinners. The names of Tamar and Bathsheba are but the tip of the iceberg. Our God delights in taking what is poor and sinful, and turning it into something beautiful and good. Out of a broken family line came the Savior; out of our broken lives God builds a people that knows, loves and glorifies him.

Jesus is the Endpoint of God’s Covenants

The “hinges” in the genealogy are the names of Abraham and David. Jesus, says Matthew, is the “son of Abraham” and the “son of David” (1:1). This means more than being just a descendant of these men, Jesus Christ is the endpoint of God’s great work that he started with these two believers.

Long ago, God had chosen Abraham to be his friend, with whom he made a gracious covenant: “I will be your God, and you will be my people.” This relationship of blessing and worship continued from generation to generation. Often the Bible tells us that God remembered his covenant with Abraham, and that he rescued his people for the sake of Abraham. The greatest promise of this covenant was that Abraham’s offspring would become a blessing to all nations. This promise becomes true when Jesus is born. This descendant of Abraham extends the blessing throughout the world. Billions of people, from thousands of different ethnicities, are now blessed with Abraham’s blessing, through faith in Jesus Christ.

In the same way, God had chosen David to be his beloved king, “a man after his own heart.” The blessings promised to Abraham—of blessing, land, and offspring—were given to David and his family in a most intimate way: “I will be a Father to you, and you will be my son.” David’s family line had become the leaders of the descendants of Abraham. David’s throne would be glorious, established forever, and rule the whole world. This promise is fulfilled when Jesus is born. The great Son of David has come, and he is now sitting on the throne, the Son in intimate fellowship with the Father, and he rules over all.

Matthew teaches us to see in Jesus the fulfilment of the great Old Testament covenants. Abraham’s line of blessing and David’s line of kingship meet in the Anointed One. The endpoint of the genealogy marks the fulfillment of the work that God began.

Jesus Ushers in a New Creation

A final observation about the beginning of Matthew. Note that Matthew imitates the language and style of Genesis. Genesis repeatedly says: “These are the generations [toledoth] of so and so,” beginning with the “generations of heaven and earth” and ending with the “generations of Jacob.” In particular, Genesis 5 is a genealogy starting with Adam, and it begins with the comment: “This is the book of the generations of Adam.”

It is no accident that Matthew uses the very same expression. His gospel tells a story just as important as that of Genesis. His genealogy is just as important as that of the first human being. While Genesis tells us about God’s work of creation through Adam and all that came after him, Matthew tells about God’s work of salvation beginning with Abraham. Adam was first in the list of people on earth; Abraham is first in the list of the people of the covenant.

It is no exaggeration to think of Matthew as a New Testament version of Genesis. He even uses the word genesis in 1:18: “The genesis (Gk. γένεσις; “birth”) of Jesus happened as follows…” Instead of Adam and Eve we have Joseph, Mary and Jesus. Instead of the patriarchs there will be disciples. And the gracious activity of Yahweh, creator and ruler of all, morphs into the teachings and healings of Jesus Christ the King.

Allow me some speculation. When Matthew 1:17 emphasizes that there are three times fourteen generations, he challenges us to do some math. Fourteen is two sevens—and three fourteens is six sevens. Is this an invitation to compare the six days of creation (in Genesis) to the six periods of seven generations (in Matthew)? After six days of preparation, God created mankind and rested gloriously from his work. But now, after six times seven generations of preparation, the Lord brought into the world his Anointed, to bring glorious rest and peace.

One thing is clear. The coming of Jesus Christ is no less glorious, no less significant, than the very work of creation itself. The gospel of Matthew outshines the old book of Genesis. In Jesus Christ we see a new creation, of gracious activity and kingdom teaching, and of a church, of people worldwide chosen unto eternal life, in the way of faith.

Matthew makes his point with a list of names. In our situation, this may not be our first choice as a tool for evangelism and gospel proclamation. But let us at least take this cue from Matthew: we must speak of Jesus Christ in the highest possible terms, as the fulfillment of all God’s promises, as the king of the whole world, as the beginning of a new creation.

This is the fifth and final installment in our series on reading the Bible as literature. We first considered what a literary approach looks like and provided a few examples. We then answered some possible objections regarding the inspiration and historicity of Scripture before proceeding positively to look at its benefits. In this article we will consider three examples from 1 Samuel in which a literary approach may fine-tune or even change our understanding of a particular story.

A literary approach, on the one hand, will often support our traditional understanding of Scripture and defend it against the various charges of critical scholars. But, on the other hand, it may occasionally change or correct our understanding of a given text. Now if we are serious about the Word of God being our highest authority and about the need for ongoing reformation, we should be open to this. Not in a gullible or fickle way—we should certainly not leave the traditional doctrine because one or two scholars present a novel idea—but we ought to weigh whatever arguments are brought from the text itself. The following three examples from 1 Samuel should, therefore, not be taken as proposals for a radical break with the past; rather, they are challenging observations and interesting suggestions, even food for thought, for those who love digging deeper into the biblical stories.

Example 1: 1 Samuel 10:7-8 (Saul’s delay)

After Samuel anoints Saul, he gives the new king instructions: “Go down before me to Gilgal, and I will be coming down…” However, it takes months, if not years, before this actually happens. Not surprisingly, many critical scholars explain this inconsistency by assuming that the book of Samuel was patched together from different sources. But if we read carefully, we can make sense of the delay; in fact, it appears to be a deliberate choice of the author or editor of the book. Note that in 10:7 Samuel said to Saul, “Do what your hand finds to do, for God is with you.” V. Philips Long[1] suggests that this is a specific instruction. Consider Saul’s mission in 10:1: “You will save [Israel] from the hand of their surrounding enemies”—that is, the Philistines (cp. 9:16). And consider the sign announced in 10:5: “You shall come to Gibeath-Elohim, where there is a garrison of the Philistines.” In light of these verses, “do what your hand finds to do” is really a call to attack the Philistine garrison. Had Saul done this, he would have established himself as the king of Israel immediately. But instead Saul goes back to his farm, and his halfhearted action makes it much harder for him to establish himself as a leader in Israel. This explains the delay in chapters 11-12. It also characterizes Saul as a failure from the very beginning, in keeping with the rest of 1 Samuel. Moreover, this understanding sheds an interesting light on 1 Sam. 13:3, where Jonathan, son of Saul, is introduced. Jonathan’s very first action is to defeat the Philistine garrison at Geba,[2] and this finally causes Saul to spring into action. Jonathan is the obedient king his father failed to be.

Example 2: 1 Samuel 15:29 (Does God have regrets?)

Saul messed up thoroughly and asks Samuel for forgiveness and restoration. Samuel gives two answers. First, the kingdom is given to another (as readers we already know this from the previous chapter). Second, “the Glory of Israel […] is not a man, that he should have regret” (15:29). There is a well-known apparent conflict between this statement and verses 11 and 35, which state that God regretted making Saul king. Typically we explain this by distinguishing different kinds of regret. But does this do justice to the text? Jan Fokkelman suggests a different understanding: what Samuel said in 15:29 was not the word of the Lord, and is in fact wrong theology.[3] We must realize that the recorded speech of a character in a story is not always true. This does not undermine the truthfulness of the account, nor the infallibility of the Scriptures. The Bible often does this as it records for us the lies or half-truths that people speak, whether deliberately or unknowingly. This only goes to prove, as Paul says in Rom. 3:4, “Let God be true though every one were a liar.” Throughout the Biblical narrative we are encouraged to test every human word against the truth God has revealed. Now back to Samuel. Note that the Lord told Samuel that he regretted making Saul king (v. 11), but Samuel tells Saul that God has no regrets (v. 29). Normally a prophet will speak the words of God, but was Samuel faithful here? We know that Samuel was “angry” when he received the word of God. Was that because he was sad about Saul’s failure, or because he could not live with the idea of a God with regrets? As readers we ask these questions, but the narrator does not leave us in the dark. At the very end of the story he resolves the difficulty by affirming that the Lord did in fact regret making Saul king (v. 35). Samuel’s theology of a God-without-regrets may sound proper, but Samuel was wrong.

Example 3: 1 Samuel 17 (David and Goliath)

Another suggestion from Jan Fokkelman is that David hit Goliath not on his forehead, but between the segments of his armor at the knee joint.[4] The Hebrew word for “forehead” (mêtsah) is also used of the shin piece of body armor. It has that meaning in 1 Sam. 17:6. It is therefore not farfetched to suppose that the same word in 17:49 also refers to this piece of armor. The puzzling statement that the “stone sank into his mêtsah” now makes more sense: it lodges in the armor joint and locks it. Goliath fell forward, not because of an injury, but because his armor no longer allowed him to move. Goliath lies on the ground immobilized, not because he is dead (see v. 41), but because he cannot stand up! Why would this matter? Note that the weaponry and armor is a key motif of the entire chapter. Goliath’s armor is described in much detail in vv. 5-7. Saul tries to put his armor on David in vv. 38-39. Goliath and David both comment on the weapons of their opponents: “sticks” against “sword and spear and javelin” (vv. 43-47). David explicitly states that he intends to prove that “the Lord saves not with sword and spear.” What David proves is not that the Lord saves with slings and stones, but that with God’s help the very armor of the champion can be turned against him. David is victorious even though he wears no armor; Goliath’s downfall (literally!) is his reliance on his armor.

Conclusion

In this article I have presented some examples of reading the Bible as literature. I have shown that by taking its starting point in the text of Scripture, this method can help us to better appreciate the biblical text. It works out in detail what Reformed people have always wanted in principle: the use of Scripture to interpret Scripture.

Now a literary approach is no magic wand. We cannot always expect new, meaningful insights to arise from the text and, as with other methods of Bible study, it may leave us with more questions than answers. But it does invite us to delve deeply in the rich text of Scripture where we can prayerfully meditate on it day and night.

There is, however, one vital conviction that the literary method cannot bring to bear on the text on its own, namely, the conviction that all that is written speaks of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Even if no literary method can locate Christ in the text in the Old Testament, we recognize that he is there at work in the shadows. Let us then use all of the available tools at our disposal to bring out old and new treasures from Scripture, viewing it all in the light of the saving power and grace of the one mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ, the Word himself.

[1] This explanation comes from V. Philip Long, The Art of Biblical History, p. 216ff.

[2] Could “Geba” be an alternate spelling of “Gibea(th-Elohim)”? This is supported by 1 Sam. 13:15-16.

[3] Jan Fokkelman, Reading Biblical Narrative, p. 60.

[4] Ibid., p. 32.

This is our fourth article in a series on reading the Bible as literature. We first summarized and provided examples of a literary approach to the Bible. In our second and third articles we answered possible objections having to do with the inspiration and historicity of Scripture, respectively. We are now in a position to advance upon positive ground and consider the benefits of a literary approach. 

The Bible consists of well-written text. Even though it was penned nearly 2,000 to 3,000 years ago in a very different culture, the stories are “extremely able to reveal and explain themselves” to a reader willing to follow its lead.[1] The Bible delivers its message clearly, even if we just simply it read without more detailed analysis. However, believers have always been involved in detailed study of the Bible, based on the conviction that all of Scripture is useful for life. We dig for meaning, looking for old and new treasures. Our high expectation is that the word will be accompanied by the Holy Spirit, not separate from our understanding of the text, but precisely through our understanding of it. That is the motivation for Bible study, privately, in groups or in seminaries.

In the course of centuries the Bible has been approached in many ways. It has been read as a book of allegory, as a book of moral exemplars, as a book of mystic experiences, as a secret code. In Bible study we bring our analytical tools to the text, and different tools often lead to different interpretations. Which approach is best? In particular, how can we avoid reading our own expectations into the text?

John Calvin emphasized the “plain” or “grammatical” meaning of Scripture, and that is still the starting point for Reformed Bible study. We take a story as it is, unless the context tells us to do otherwise. We say that Scripture must interpret itself. At least in principle, the Reformed position is that the meaning of the Bible must be determined on the basis of its own text. But the question is, How? What are proper ways to establish the “plain” meaning of Scripture?

I believe that part of the answer is a literary approach to the Bible, because this method is deliberately based in the text. Reading the Bible as literature helps us to determine the message in the text based on its content and composition. The literary approach gives a more definite shape to the traditional Reformed approach. In a way it is nothing new: Augustine and Calvin, to name but two theologians of the past, also often explained the meaning of a text by appealing to its literary aspects. The main difference is that the modern literary approach is more deliberate and systematic about it.

In summary, reading the Bible as literature is a way to study Scripture on the basis of the text itself. This is not at odds with the traditional Reformed emphasis on the grammatical meaning. And in most cases, it will affirm our understanding of the text.

Example 1: Ruth 2 (Ruth meets Boaz). We customarily think of the story of Ruth as an example of God providing in the lives of his people. When we read that Ruth “happened to come” to Boaz’s field (2:3), we understand that God guided her there. But is that something we conclude from the text itself, or are we reading into it? The narrator of Ruth does not mention any actions of God directly; instead, he has the characters comment on the situation. Naomi speaks of “the Lord, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead!” (2:20) The fact that Ruth ended up with Boaz is an act of divine kindness—providence, indeed, but more than that: providence through which the Lord shows that he is gracious and faithful to his covenant people.

But a literary analysis of Ruth 2 shows more. The main character in the chapter is Boaz the redeemer. He is introduced in 2:1, before the story really takes off. We get to know him as a “worthy man,” and this raises our hopes. Up to this point the story of Ruth has been dismal, but now it is turning for the better. “In the time of the judges” (1:1), during a dark chapter of Israelite history, there is an Israelite who will do what is right. In fact, in the story, Boaz is a representative of the Lord himself. God’s kindness comes to Ruth through Boaz’s kindness. By seeking help from Boaz, Ruth has come to take refuge under the wings of the Lord, the God of Israel. And when Ruth expresses her thanks to Boaz in 2:13, her words could just as easily have been a prayer to the Lord. Is Ruth a story of providence? Certainly; and it is especially a story of finding refuge under the wings of the God of Israel, who provides kindness and blessedness and life.

Example 2: Luke 19:1-10 (Zacchaeus). The “wee little man” who climbed a tree to see Jesus is an endearing example of a sinner whose life is turned around by Jesus’ call; we can appreciate this without digging deeper. But further analysis makes the story so much more powerful. For instance, rich Zacchaeus stands in sharp contrast with the rich young ruler of Luke 18:18ff. The former expresses the joy of salvation in giving generously to the poor; the latter turns away sadly, because he cannot bring himself to do so. This contrast is not accidental, but carefully set up as Luke, guided by the Holy Spirit, arranged his material to communicate the gospel in a powerful way.

Much more can be said about the literary elements in the Zacchaeus narrative, but I will limit myself to one more. The final verse is the climax of the story, where Jesus sheds light on the entire event: “The Son of Man came to seek and save what is lost.” The same expression is found several times in Luke 15 with the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son. Comparing these parables to Zacchaeus’ calling, we see that the event in Jericho is a real-life drama or acting out of these parables, especially that of the prodigal son. Zacchaeus is the prodigal who comes home, and the heavenly joy over the return of one sinner is reflected in Zacchaeus’ joy. So we see little Zacchaeus, the younger son; the fattened calf prepared in his home; and the Jericho crowd grumbling, proving that the older son has not yet learned the lesson. There is no better illustration of Jesus’ words matching his deeds!

[1] Fokkelman, Reading Biblical Narrative (Louisville: 1999), p. 21.

This is our third article in a series on reading the Bible as literature. The first post summarized and provided examples of a literary approach to Scripture. The second addressed the validity of this method with respect to Scripture’s organic inspiration. In this article we want to consider the question, “Can a literary approach do justice to the truth and historicity of Scripture?”

Robert Alter characterizes the Biblical narrative as “prose fiction.”[1] For Bible-believing Christians this may sound heretical: by using the word “fiction,” does not the author effectively call the Bible a collection of made-up stories that may be nicely told but are not real? Reading further, we find that Alter’s commitment to the historical truth of Scripture’s stories is not the traditional Reformed view. This calls into question the whole enterprise. If reading the Bible literarily implicitly denies its historicity, we cannot trust it to bring us to a closer understanding of it.

But when these scholars use the term “fiction,” they do not mean that the story is made-up and detached from historical fact. Rather, it means that “literary shaping and artistry play no less significant a role in biblical historiography than in fiction.”[2] The persons and events of the story are truly historical, but the story is told in a literary fashion. The characters truly spoke, but the author chose what to report of their speech and how, based on literary principles, to report it. In other words, we can characterize the Biblical narrative as “fictional” with respect to its form, not its function or content. V. Philips Long suggests, “It would be far better, at least with respect to the perceptions of the average person, to substitute a term like artistry to describe the historian’s literary technique, and reserve the term fiction for the nonfactual genre of that name.”[3]

Meir Sternberg discusses this matter in much detail in chapter 1 of The Poetics of Biblical Narrative. He chides earlier biblical scholarship for not making this proper distinction. “Historiography and fiction are genres of writing, not bundles of fact or nonfact in verbal shape.”[4] Sternberg gives the example of the 1959 historical narrative by Garret Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada (1959), which recounts events of history in an artistic way, using literary techniques to select and shape the text.[5] Nothing prevents us from recognizing the same artistry at work in the biblical accounts, while insisting on their essential historicity.

In earlier decades, it was customary to lump the Hebrew Bible together with other Ancient Near East writings. Comparison with Babylonian and other writings convinced many scholars that the Bible was little more than a collection of myths. If the Bible belongs to the same “genre” as these other writings, which are clearly not historical in nature, then the Bible stories cannot to be understood as history.

Thankfully, most Bible scholars today recognize that this lumping-together is unwarranted. The Old Testament is a rather unique document among other literature from antiquity. For instance, it avoids the style of the epos, which is poetry celebrating the legendary heroes, such as the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh, the Babylonian Enuma Elish,[6] or the Greek Illiad and Odyssey. Moreover, one must be careful with the concept of “genre.” A genre is a collection of writings with formal similarities that indicate their purpose and function; for instance, the genre of fairy is marked by (among other things) the clause, “Once upon a time…” and is intended as a fictional story with a moral lesson. But the similarities between biblical stories and other Ancient Near East literature are too superficial to speak of the same genre. To conclude that biblical narratives served the same purpose as Babylonian legends is therefore unwarranted.

The modern literary approach to the Bible acknowledges the uniqueness of the Bible. Much of this uniqueness lies in its deliberate, self-conscious historical focus. Meir Sternberg discusses this in detail:

Of course the narrative is historiographic, inevitably so considering its teleology and incredibly so considering its time and environment. Everything points in this direction. … [T]his art of narrative has no parallel in ancient times. Alone among Orientals and Greeks, it addresses a people defined in terms of their past and commanded to keep its memory alive.

The very identity of Israel as a nation is bound up with the historical reality of its narrative. Her faith consists of remembrance of past history and hope in future events.

It is this cultural imperative that accounts for … “the greatest surprise” in the whole story of history writing. It explains how there suddenly emerged a people “more obsessed with history than any other nation that has ever existed” [7]

In other words, the Bible stands out as unique among ancient literature precisely because it makes a clear claim of being historical. The message for the ancient Israelite and today’s Christian alike is that our identity lies in unique historical events of the past, rather than in the philosophical ideas expressed in myths.

Thus literary criticism acknowledges the historical truth claim of the biblical narrative. This makes it useful for the Bible-believing Christian, whose faith embraces the Bible as historical truth. However, it must be admitted, for a Bible scholar to acknowledge the truth claim of the narrative does not imply that he believes in its truth value.[8] Scholars like Alter and Fokkelman are strong in their defense of the historical truth claim of the Bible, but are not personally committed to its historical truth value. This is a reason for caution: we can generally trust their work in the text, but when they draw theological conclusions our paths go in different directions.

Example: Esther 1:1-3, etc. The story of Esther, for all its novel-like qualities, clearly wants to be read as history. The events are explicitly anchored to a specific time and place during the rule of a well-known king. Likewise, the book ends with a reference to a historiographic document, the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Media and Persia. For the Israelite reader, it really matters that these events happened: why else would he or she celebrate Purim? The literary reader can respond in two different ways. On the one hand, the unbeliever may reject the truth claim of the story, and perhaps feel superior to the author of the text who thought that this legend actually happened. On the other hand, the believer not only recognizes the truth claim, but gives his assent to it: with the Israelites of 2000 years ago, we receive this narrative as a factual description of the great work the Lord has done for us.

In our next article we’ll consider the benefits of a literary approach to Scripture.

[1] Robert Alter, op. cit., chapter 2: “Sacred History and the Beginnings of Prose Fiction”.

[2] V. Philips Long, The Art of Biblical History (Grand Rapids: 1994), p. 61.

[3] V. Philips Long, op. cit., p. 63.

[4] Meir Sternberg, op. cit., p. 26.

[5] ibid., p. 28.

[6] Robert Alter, op. cit. p. 32ff compares the creation story of Enuma Elish with Gen. 1-2, and concludes that “the monotheistic writer works with very different theological assumptions but also with a radically different sense of literary form.”

[7] Meir Sternberg, op. cit., pp. 30f.

[8] For this useful distinction, see e.g. V. Philip Long, The Art of Biblical History, pp. 176f.

Last week we began a series on reading the Bible as literature. In our first article we summarized and gave some examples of a literary approach to Scripture. In this installment we’ll address some possible concerns with this method, especially as it relates to the inspiration and historical reliability of the Bible.

Can God’s word be subject to literary analysis?

The Bible is the divinely inspired word of God. Some Christians conclude from this that the Bible as a text is so unique and otherworldly that it cannot possibly be analyzed using secular techniques. Words directly from God are incomparable to human words, and should therefore be treated differently. This position would rule out any literary analysis of the Bible.

However, this is not the traditional Reformed view of Scripture, and it is, in fact, untenable. Anyone who reads Scripture uses his “secular” reading skills—the grammar of Bible sentences is no different from regular grammar and translators apply the same principles to the Bible as to other texts. Yes, God has spoken through the Scriptures, but he has spoken human language, and may we say, human literature.

The traditional Reformed view of organic inspiration emphasizes that God’s communication in Scripture happens through the instrumentality of people, including Old Testament poets and narrators, who are carried along by the Holy Spirit to write, without circumventing their personalities, experiences, circumstances, styles, rhetorical abilities, grammatical skills, etc. Thus what is composed is a thoroughly human text, yet one that is nevertheless a fully divine text. Because of this we can freely apply analytical methods to the text of Scripture, as long as we understand that through this very human text, it is ultimately God himself who brings a message to the world and to his church.

Is the Bible literature?

Even so, for some people it sounds strange to label the Bible as “literature.” One skeptic was C. S. Lewis, who complained: “You can read it as literature only by a tour de force. You are cutting the wood against the grain, using the tool for a purpose it was not intended to serve. It demands incessantly to be taken on its own terms: it will not continue to give literary delight very long except to those who go to it for something quite different.”[1] In other words, the Bible is not meant to be read as literature, and for this reason a literary approach is an improper tool to get at its meaning.

Certainly there are “literary” theories that are rather unhelpful—they are too abstract, too tentative, too elitist, too reductionistic; they make things complicated and seem to overlook the obvious, simple meaning. “There is something artificial in the idea of the Bible as ‘literature.’ Or rather, it can be artificial and contrary to the perception of both most believers and most unbelievers.”[2] But not all literary approaches are like this, and most Bible scholars who take a literary approach have no intention of covering the plain meaning of Scripture in a cloud of esoteric theory. On the contrary, some of the leading researchers endeavor to explain their methods to a broader audience.[3] Meir Sternberg, author of an impressive book on literary analysis of Scripture, states: “Even the listing of so-called devices and configurations—a fashionable practice, this, among aspirants to ‘literary criticism’—is no substitute for the proper business of reading.”[4]

There can hardly be any objection to a “literary” approach if it means the proper business of reading—careful, detail-oriented reading of the text and its surrounding context, aware of the complex communicative situation of the human and divine author, original and current historical situation, and so on. Even C. S. Lewis finds no fault with that: “But there is a saner sense in which the Bible, since it is after all literature, cannot properly be read except as literature.”[5]

The Bible is literature because it communicates using an artfully composed form (see our first article). It is not a list of bare facts, but a collection of stories, poems, letters, and so on. Elegant arrangements of stories, beautiful parallelisms of poetic lines, and other such devices prove that the human authors (and through them, the Holy Spirit himself) found it important to communicate in an artful manner. It is not only possible, then, but even mandatory that we recognize the care and beauty of the composition, and endeavor to find out what light it sheds on the message of Scripture.

Is “literary criticism” a valid approach to Scripture?

A literary approach to Bible reading is often called “literary criticism,” which can be divided into the narrower fields of “narrative criticism,” “poetic criticism,” and “rhetorical criticism.” For many Bible-believing Christians the word “criticism” raises suspicion. It suggests, first of all, a negative approach to God’s revelation; who are we, and who are scholars, to criticize the Bible? Second, the word “criticism” is often associated with the liberal theologians whose agendas for the last 200 years have been to deconstruct the traditional Christian faith.

Undeniably, there have been many Bible scholars whose view of Scripture was seriously deficient or downright unbelieving. The methods they developed—such as “historical criticism” or “redaction criticism”—are often at odds with the Reformed conviction that Scripture is divinely inspired, reliable, sufficient, authoritative, and true. These critical approaches indeed criticize the Christian faith, not just in details, but at its very core belief that God acted in history according to the Scriptures and that Christ came and died and rose again in agreement with the Scriptures.

The greatest problem with “critical” approaches to the Bible is that they cannot be neutral. Any scientific investigation begins with a set of presuppositions and criteria. The reason why the “historical criticism” of liberal theology rejected the Bible as untrue lies in the assumptions they made: for instance, that if the Bible describes the kind of event we normally do not encounter (miracles), it must be false. Traditional Christians reject historical criticism and its conclusions precisely because they are based on a fundamental posture of unbelief.

But the word “criticism” does not necessarily imply a negative or unbelieving approach. Rather, it is “the art of evaluating or analyzing works of art or literature” or “the scientific investigation of literary documents in regard to such matters as origin, text, composition, and history.”[6] The only essentially negative aspect in a “critical” study of the Bible is that we do not take for granted what other people think it means. In principle, Protestants should applaud this principle!

The obvious question now is whether “literary criticism” avoids the pitfalls of earlier critical scholarship. One way to determine this is by considering its principles. Mark Allen Powell lists the following differences between literary and historical criticism: [7]

1. Literary criticism focuses on the finished form of the text.
2. Literary criticism emphasizes the unity of the text as a whole.
3. Literary criticism views the text as an end in itself.
4. Literary criticism is based on communication models of speech-act theory. (Basically, this means that the text is viewed in the context of an author who sends a message to the reader, in a deliberate attempt to inform him and/or accomplish other effects.)

These principles are very different from those of the historical-critical approach, which treated Scripture as a fragmentary record of garbled historical data, and tried to discover historical facts almost in spite of the text. Literary criticism honors the unity of the text, without trying to guess at its history, and tries to ascertain the communicative intention of the author. This is compatible with the Reformed view of Scripture.

While this literary approach to Scripture is not hostile to traditional Christian faith, it does not require it, either. Some scholars who engage in this discipline have a rather weak view of Scripture and its authority. This does not render their conclusions useless; but they will always be incomplete. No “critical” scientific method can do justice to the supernatural essence and effects of Scripture: that God is its author, that it offers Jesus Christ, that it is the instrument of the Holy Spirit. Just as with all other theological and scientific research, we must understand it in the broader context of the God who reveals himself.

In our next article we will explore in more detail the relationship between a literary reading and a historical understanding of Scripture.

[1] Quoted in Moisés Silva, Has the Church Misread the Bible? (1987).

[2] K. Stendahl quoted in Tremper Longman III, Literary Approaches to Biblical Interpretation (1987), Introduction.

[3] Two outstanding examples are Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative; and Jan Fokkelman, Reading Biblical Narrative. By way of disclaimer, I do not fully endorse their view of Scripture.

[4] Meir Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative (Bloomington: 1987), p. 2.

[5] C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms (Glasgow: 1961), p. 10.

[6] Merriam-Webster dictionary of criticism, meanings 2 and 3.

[7] Mark Allen Powell, What is Narrative Criticism (Minneapolis: 1990), pp. 7f.

Introduction

At the beginning of every school year, my Literature teacher would give each student an index card to write down the works of literature we read that year. The first entry was always: “The Bible.” This was not only to encourage us to read the Bible, but also to remind us that the Bible was, in fact, a work of literature.

In the last few decades, many biblical scholars have begun to deliberately read the Bible as literature. This approach has many names, and there are various aspects to it. Thus we hear about “literary criticism,” “rhetorical criticism,” and “narrative criticism,” to name just a few. This relatively new trend is the topic of this article series. First, I will give a summary and some examples of a literary approach to Scripture. Next, I will address possible concerns about this method, especially as it relates to the inspiration and historical reliability of the Bible. Finally, I will discuss some of the benefits of a literary approach for Reformed believers today.

Paying Attention to the Way Stories are Told

By “literature” we usually mean more than just a (written) text. Literature is text deliberately composed in an artful manner. When we read the Bible as literature, we do not just consider the information it contains, but study the artful way in which it is written. This is similar to what high school and college students learn to do in their Literature classes. They study a book by Charles Dickens not only for the facts and information presented in it, but to appreciate the artful way in which the story is told.

An important pioneer in the literary approach to Scripture is Robert Alter. In his book The Art of Biblical Narrative he writes, “What role does literary art play in the shaping of biblical narrative? A crucial one, I shall argue, finely modulated from moment to moment, determining in most cases the minute choice of words and reported details, the pace of narration, the small movements of dialogue, and a whole network of ramified interconnections in the text.”[1] In other words, the way in which the Bible tells its stories, with all its details, is deliberately artful. If this is true, then it is worth uncovering this art by reading and analyzing the text carefully, just as one would read and analyze a play by Shakespeare or a novel by Hemmingway.

A story can be told in many different ways, and it is instructive to think about the choices the author made. How does he describe the events, the characters, the setting?[2] In Biblical narrative, we often learn about the characters by what they think, say and do. If the author chooses to introduce them a different way, we should pay extra attention. Many scholars have noted that the Bible tells stories in a terse, compact and effective manner. When we therefore find detailed descriptions, we should pay extra attention. Here are some examples to illustrate.

Example 1: 1 Samuel 25 (Nabal and Abigail). This story shows how two people react very differently to David, the anointed of the Lord. At the very beginning we are told that Nabal is wealthy enough to help David, but is also ill-mannered; but his wife Abigail is smart and beautiful. This contrast raises expectations about the rest of the story: we know that something must go wrong in that marriage! The description of Abigail also suggests that she would have been a good match for David, whom we already know as clever and good-looking. Abigail would make a great queen; too bad she is already married… As the story unfolds, each of these two characters make one speech. Nabal mocks David and calls him a runaway slave. Abigail honors David and calls herself “his servant.” The sharp contrast between Nabal and Abigail is heightened by the way in which the story is told.

Example 2: Judges 17-18 (Micah and the Danites). This narrative begins with a minor crisis in the house of someone called Micah. Then the story grows, until it ends with the migration of an entire Israelite tribe. What is the heart of the story? What keeps it together? It turns out that the narrative follows the silver, which initially was lost (17:2) and ends up as a religious statue in the new Danite colony (18:31). At the end, the Danite sanctuary has become a competitor with the true worship center. The story ends with this conclusion: “So they set up Micah’s carved image that he made, as long as the house of God was at Shiloh.” The entire story is about idolatry, beginning small and ending big. The problem of idolatry is underlined in a subtle, ironical way: the name of the Lord is used four times in these chapters, each time by one of the characters, in defense of an idolatrous activity. Thus the story is told in a way that brings out the wickedness of idolatry and underlines the religious decay in Israel.[3]

Example 3: Judges 19 (The Levite and his girlfriend). In this story, a man comes to retrieve his girlfriend (“concubine”) who broke up with him a few months earlier. He wants to leave after three days, but the girl’s father keeps pushing for a longer stay. It takes only three verses to introduce the situation, but the father’s insistence is told in six verses. As readers we are made to feel the annoyance of the extended stay. When the Levite finally says “No” to his girlfriend’s father, we feel relief—finally the story moves on. But it all ends in disaster, in part because the man and his girlfriend left too late in the day.

Recognizing Repetition and Patterns

The biblical style of storytelling is different from that of modern novels. To gain more appreciation for the biblical text we must become aware of the way it is shaped. Often a paragraph or chapter or even an entire book is structured in a deliberate, artistic way. This can serve a number of goals: to focus our attention on something, to highlight certain themes or to bring out contrasts. The most common literary devices in the Old Testament are repetition of words, parallel stories and chiastic patterns (A B C B A).

Example 4: Genesis 37-38 (Joseph; Judah and Tamar).[4] The story of Judah and Tamar seems to interrupt the Joseph narrative. Undoubtedly the main reason is to tell us more about Judah. At first he is one of the brothers who sold Joseph into exile, but later he is willing to sacrifice himself on behalf of Benjamin. What brought about this turn of character? Genesis 38 tells us as it records how Judah learned his lesson about righteousness. But there’s more. The author underscores the unity of the stories by word repetition. In 37:32 the brothers show Joseph’s robe to Jacob and ask, “Please identify whether it is your son’s robe or not.” In 38:25 Tamar asks Judah in parallel fashion, “Please identify whose these are, the signet and the cord and the staff.” The two stories are literarily connected: Judah, the deceiver, has been deceived. In fact, the theme continues in Genesis 42:7-8 when the same Hebrew verb (“identify” or “recognize”) is used. In that chapter not only Judah, but also the other brothers face the fact that they are unjust (42:21).

Example 5: Judges 14-16 (Samson).[5] In Judges 14, a woman pressures (Heb. sûq) Samson into telling his secret. This gets him into trouble, but the Spirit empowering Samson turns the situation into a great blow against the Philistines. In the next chapter, we find Samson bound with ropes and delivered to the Philistines; again, the Spirit gives him strength to escape. Remarkably, these narrative elements are repeated in chapter 16: Delilah pressures (Heb. sûq) Samson into telling his secret, and once again he is bound and delivered. This time there is no power of the Spirit to rescue Samson. The parallel structure of these chapters invites us to compare Samson’s activities in Timnah/Lehi and in Gaza, and look for the differences.

Example 6: 2 Kings 2 (Elijah and Elisha). In this chapter Elisha is appointed successor of Elijah. The two prophets are on their way to the Jordan and make quick stops in Bethel and Jericho before arriving. Elijah strikes the river with his cloak and the water parts. On the opposite bank Elijah is taken away. Elisha swaps out his own clothes for Elijah’s cloak. From this point onward, Elisha traces back the same route: a miraculous crossing of the Jordan, a visit to Jericho and a visit to Bethel. The obvious symmetry emphasizes that Elisha is the legitimate successor of Elijah. Once we are aware of this symmetry, we find it extends beyond the chapter. For instance, both Elisha and Elijah are instrumental in the raising of a dead child (1 Kings 17; 2 Kings 4).

Example 7: Jesus’ Signs in the Gospel of John. In contrast to the other three gospels, the gospel of John records only a few of Jesus’ miracles. Also, John does not speak of “miracles” but of “signs” (Gr. sêmeion). The first two of these signs are clearly labels: “This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana, and manifested his glory” (John 2:11). And, “This was now the second sign Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee” (John 4:54). For the reader this is an invitation to pay attention;[6] we keep track of the signs and wonder why John chose to tell us these particular signs, while he could have chosen from many more (see John 20:30). Scholars generally recognize seven or eight signs in the gospel of John:

1. Water to wine in Kana (John 2)
2. Healing of the centurion’s son (John 4)
3. Healing at the pool (John 5)
4. Feeding of the 5000 (John 6)
5. Walking on water (John 6)
6. Healing of the man born blind (John 9)
7. Raising of Lazarus (John 11)
8. Net full of fish (John 21)

It has also been suggested that these signs form a chiastic pattern. Signs 1 and 8 are about an abundance of food; signs 2 and 7 are confrontations with death; signs 3 and 6 with long-term illness. Others have seen a connection between the signs and Jesus’ seven “I am” statements in the Gospel of John. While some of this may seem far-fetched, it is clear that these signs play an important, thematic role throughout John’s gospel.

To be continued…

[1] Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative, 2^nd edition (New York: 2011), p. 1.

[2] “Every story encompasses three elements: event, characters, and setting. Somebody does something to someone, somewhere, at some time. The ‘something’ that is done is an event, the ‘somebody’ and ‘someone’ are characters, and the ‘somewhere’ and ‘sometime’ are setting.” Mark Allan Powell, What is Narrative Criticism (Minneapolis: 1990), p. 35.

[3] Where did Micah’s mother get 1100 pieces of silver, anyway? It is intriguing that the only other place where 1100 pieces of silver are mentioned in the Bible is in the previous chapter, Judges 16:5. Was Micah the son of Delilah and Samson? If so, then the idolatrous sanctuary of the Danites was actually made with Philistine blood money, used to entrap Samson who worked as a judge among the Danites! To what extent does the narrator of Judges invite us, the readers, to fill in the gaps?

[4] Alter, op. cit., p. 9-10.

[5] For more details, see Dale Ralph Davis, Judges (Focus on the Bible Commentary Series: 2000), pp. 183ff.

[6] “We are thus invited to continue and carry out this important enumeration to the completion of the eighth.” W.E. Bullinger, The Companion Bible, p. 193.

Hezekiah is one of the handful of “good” kings that ruled over Judah. The book of Kings speaks of him in superlative terms: “He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, according to all that his father David had done. … He trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel, so that there was none like him among all the kings of Judah after him, nor among those who were before him” (2 Kings 18:3-5). The short biography of Hezekiah in 2 Kings 18 and 19 pictures him as a godly warrior, fighting the battle of the Lord.

But then the book of Kings has two additional stories about Hezekiah in chapter 20. They speak especially to the significance of this great king of Judah as a shadow of the coming Messiah. He is both a positive type, prefiguring the glory of Jesus Christ; and a negative foil, bringing out the need for a greater Son of David.

Hezekiah’s Illness and Recovery (2 Kings 20:1-11)

In the first story, Hezekiah is seriously ill and about to die. This illness is not merely a personal crisis in the life of the king. Much more is at stake. First of all, as the Davidic king, Hezekiah functions as the mediator between the Lord and his people. His physical ailment expresses the disease of God’s people; they are spiritually sick beyond reasonable hope. The king’s illness and imminent death also signify the divine judgment. Because of her continued unfaithfulness, Judah deserves to be wiped out. The approaching Assyrian army and the ill king in Jerusalem are two channels through which the Lord metes out judgment.

But second, Hezekiah’s illness threatens to end the dynasty of David. There is some debate about the chronology, but it appears that Hezekiah was without an heir at this time. (His son Manasseh began to reign when he was 12 years old, and this supposedly happened 15 years after Hezekiah’s illness. Thus, Manasseh was not yet born.) If Hezekiah were to die, the Davidic line would be broken off, and the glorious covenant God had made with David in 2 Samuel 7 would fail.

Hezekiah’s prayer and Isaiah’s message of restoration are, therefore, gospel, good news for all of Judah. Note the double reference to the Davidic covenant, and the accompanying promise of the deliverance of the city (2 Kings 18:5-6). In this light we must also understand the sign of the receding shadow (v. 8-11): the shadow of God’s judgment is pulled back from his people; the approaching night of captivity is taken away, at least for now.

Reading this story as Christians, we cannot escape the similarities between Hezekiah and Jesus Christ. In Jesus’ suffering, he took upon himself the spiritual disease of his people. As the greater Son of David, he was crushed and put to grief by the Lord himself (Is. 53:10). This time the shadow of judgment was not retracted, but a thick darkness came over Calvary at midday. In Hezekiah’s time, the Assyrians were turned away from the gate of Jerusalem; but Roman soldiers were allowed to drag Jesus outside of the holy city and murder him there.

And when Isaiah promises Hezekiah that he will be able to worship again after three days, we are reminded of Jesus’ resurrection after three days, when he is restored and glorified to full fellowship with his Father.

Hezekiah and the Babylonian Envoys (2 Kings 20:12-21)

But 2 Kings 20 does not stop there. The second story recounts the grievous fall of Hezekiah. His miraculous recovery made him famous, and Hezekiah was tempted by earthly, political pride and arrogance. God’s gracious forbearance had turned the Assyrians away; but when Hezekiah welcomes other pagans, the Babylonians, into the consecrated city and treasuries, they become the new instruments of divine judgment.

Hezekiah, though the anointed of the Lord, was a fallible man. For all his zeal, he could not turn the hearts of Judah toward the Lord. With all his piety, he could not escape falling into sin. He was unable to raise his son to continue his project of spiritual reform; on the contrary, Manasseh would turn out to be the most wicked king of Judah yet, making the exile of God’s people irrevocable.

Hezekiah could be no more than a shadow of a complete Redeemer. In 2 Kings 20 we see God’s grace displayed in the nation of Judah, and a type of the King who was to come. But the narrative is also quick to underscore the need for a better reality, a final Son of David.