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Welcome to BibleAsLit.com!
The Bible is an ancient document that is the composit of many authors over hundreds (even thousands) of years. The Bible itself is actually a collection of stories that have been group together in a Canon or "an approved collection." While the process of this "approved collection" is worthy of study in its own right, the purpose of this supplemental site is to help examine the techniques and methods for understanding the stories as they have been collected. To be sure, there are still areas that we will examine in relation to canonicity and the approved text that we are reading, but in general, these questions will be handled in the readings and supplemental materials of the course.
The Bible is composed of stories that possess incredible "Literary Art." When we use the term "Literary Art," we are descibing the color and life of the stories themselves. That we can use digital tools now-a-days to delve into the Biblical stories is a great aid. It is a grand new era to be workng with the Bible as Literature on a digital canvas.
Why read the Bible as literature? A short answer is that it is literature, some of our oldest and finest, and reading it as literature makes sense. This introductory information focuses on the forms of literature discovered in this amazing anthology, the
use of figurative language, critical tools common to literary and biblical study, and themes
embraced broadly in literature which are also found in these books.
Backgrounds
Scholars have long studied the history and backgrounds of the stories of the Bible. One such authority has summarized some basic ideas about the Bible and the stories below.
Here in a few paragraphs is the overarching story of the Torah (the first five books of the Bible, also called the Pentateuch [Torah is the Hebrew name and
the Pentateuch is the Greek name for the first five books of the Original Testament.]) Read these two paragraphs to see that these key stories have been circulating for a long time.
Still, the stories themselves take on a unique character that sets the stage for all the biblical writings that come after them.
"The Pentateuch narrative, after the first eleven chapters on primeval history, tells the story of Israel's ancestors, Abraham's migration from Ur of the Chaldees (Mesopotamia) through Canaan into Egypt, the Hebrew exodus from Egypt, their sojourn at Sinai and origins of moral law, their wanderings in the
wilderness (Numbers), and their entrance into Canaan. Deuteronomy develops this latter story and continues the development of moral, religious (Leviticus is largely concerned with religious ritual), and
secular law. Some have noted that Genesis ends with a coffin in Egypt while Deuteronomy ends with
Israel or the development of a people's identity.
Concerning the literature, most critics agree that an epic literature circulated orally among the people
as story, song, and proverb. This tradition is, it is held, later reinterpreted and eventually takes a
written form. Scholars have detected a southern (Judean) and northern (Ephramitic) influence,
these letters originally deriving from "J" for "Jahoveh" or better "Yahweh" and "E" for "Elohim." The other
two sources are "P" for Priestly and "D" for Deutoronomic. The Priestly writers contributed
through the Babylonian exile, and the Deuteronomic account covers Joshua through Second
Kings. We know that parts of Deuteronomy were discovered in written form in 612, or during the
reign of King Josiah. The student must think of the Bible in written form as being a rather late creation, its story dipping back
into the oral tradition and remote past, with the story of Israel's ancestors beginning in history about 1700 BCE
The books, form, and structure are complex literary creations."
What is important for our literary study is not whether one person wrote the Torah (or any other part of the Bible) or many writers developed it and had one final redactor (or editor).
What the literary approach says is that we have these texts that have stayed nearly unchanged over a milenium, these books (whether by one or many) are a unique literary collection that deserves literary study as we would do any great work of literature.
In doing this literary study, we find there are tools and techniques that can make our study beneficial and significant.
Take 15 minutes and discover the first and most important key in doing literary analysis: beginning with a "close reading" of the text of the ancient text.
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