Although the broadcast was introduced as a drama, it was conducted as a series of news bulletins without commercial interruption. Some who tuned in late to the broadcast reportedly thought an actual invasion from Mars was taking place! This event is an excellent example of how crucial it is to know what genre we are reading, or in this case listening, to.
Examples of genre include, novels, letters, poems, songs, or, as in the case above, radio broadcasts. Within the broad category of genre, there are subgenres. For example, a letter could be a love letter, a business letter, or a legal document of some kind.
Novels can be fictional or nonfictional. Further subdivisions may include biographies, love stories, fairy tales, or some other kind of literature. The examples I have given to this point are all examples from modern Western culture. Because we know our culture and the language, identifying genre happens naturally. Of course, there are still occassions when we can be fooled, as in the dramatic radio version of H.
Wells War of the Worlds mentioned above. The misunderstanding which resulted demonstrates how important a correct identification of genre is. The correct identification of genre is even more challenging when we are dealing with a literature written in a different language, in a time long ago, whose culture was very different from our own. Before talking about Biblical genres, however, I want to give one more example which shows how our understanding of genre determines the meaning of a word.
Since genre is so important in determining meaning, this fact can not be overlooked when interpreting Scripture. Along this line, one of the mistakes commonly made in biblical word studies is to use a concordance or lexicon and look up every meaning of a word and then apply all of those meanings to a particular passage. The chart on the left gives some broad general categories of biblical genres. The Bible includes genres that we are familiar with such as narrative or poetry, and genres that are more challenging to understand such as apocalyptic or prophecy.
A large portion of the Bible is narrative, but the narratives of Scripture consist of many different subgenres. For example, the Gospels, which many today would classify as historical biographies, also contain such subgenres as parables, wisdom sayings, prayers, and genealogies. The letters of Paul also utilize a mixture of genres such as hymns, prayers, diatribes, poetry, etc. Similarly, the Old Testament poetic literature is very diverse.
The Book of Psalms consists of psalms of praise and thanksgiving, petition, lament, and imprecation, just to name a few. The prophetic books use various genres to effectively communicate their message including, the prophetic lawsuit, lament, funeral dirge, parable, or song.
How can we tell what genre or subgenre is being used? Sometimes this is pretty straight forward, for example, the Book of Proverbs consists of…well…proverbs. Other times, it is more challenging. At times the literature tells us what the genre is. For example, the Book of Proverbs begins with a description of its contents Prov. It is important to remember that form is essential to the identification of genre.
All genres take a particular form. This is how we can identify narrative from, say, poetry. Or, to give a more specific example, this is how we would identify a love letter from a business letter.
Everything from telephone books, to tweets on Twitter has a recognizable form. But if he has not sufficient means to recover it, then what he sold shall remain in the hand of the buyer until the year of jubilee. In the jubilee it shall be released, and he shall return to his property. The narrative books or portions of the Bible give us a history or a story meant to capture the experience of the people of God.
In the Old Testament, they span 1, years of Israel's history; in the New they tell the story of Jesus' life, death and resurrection, and the birth of the Church. Aim: To document communal stories and histories for official record and to faithfully pass them on to future generations, and to show God at work in the lives of his people. What they tell us about God: He's involved in human lives and human stories and works in and through human experience.
To bear in mind: Some of the stories are shocking and you'd avoid telling them in Sunday school. In many cases, the narrator doesn't explicitly express an opinion about them — but there's usually a clear implicit message. As with many stories, we're forced to draw our own conclusions from what we've read.
And he struck them from Aroer to the neighbourhood of Minnith, twenty cities, and as far as Abel-keramim, with a great blow. So the Ammonites were subdued before the people of Israel. Then Jephthah came to his home at Mizpah. And behold, his daughter came out to meet him with tambourines and with dances. She was his only child; besides her he had neither son nor daughter. You have brought me very low, and you have become the cause of great trouble to me. For I have opened my mouth to the Lord, and I cannot take back my vow.
Ranging from the pithy sayings of Proverbs to the cyclical laments of Job, wisdom literature is concerned with making sense of life and how to live well.
It includes advice for navigating conflict, how to achieve a sense of perspective, and the painful cry of the heart as the realities of loss set in. Biblical books in this genre: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Job. Some people include Song of Songs, and some of the psalms. What they tell us about God: He's comfortable with all our different moods and musings at life. There's an order and a pattern to life that helps us live wisely but when we're not sure why or when it all falls apart, he doesn't shy away from our suffering.
To bear in mind: The three books of Wisdom literature each work together to make a whole. Proverbs deals with generalisations and Job deals with what happens when it doesn't all work out. Meanwhile Ecclesiastes captures the search for meaning: what does all this 'wisdom' and good living count for anyway?
Together they reflect the reality of life in its brilliant, tragic and mundane fullness. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. Without understanding this fact, it would be completely easy to misinterpret Scripture. Narrative is the genre that follows a storyline with characters and plot.
Pertaining to the Bible, it is history, and it is a retelling of a story. In narratives, we are first looking at God as the main character within the context of the whole Bible, and then His relationship to His people. This understanding will help us not be tempted to draw allegories and symbolism where none was meant.
For the Israelites, it was a legal set of commands that God gave them to be set apart and to give them values, always within the context of a relationship with Him. For example, seeing the deeper value of purity is what is important when reading laws about what to eat or not eat or how to wash and stay pure.
Poetry in any century depicts the images needed to convey emotion and personal thought. To interpret poetry in the Bible well, look for structure and patterns within lines or groups of lines.
Find symbolism in the imagery, and see poetry as the human need to express ourselves. Weigh theology lightly, only within the framework of the rest of the Bible, because many times, poetic words are simply a cry of our heart, spoken or sung in angst or passion for that moment.
Prophecy in the Bible is about God telling something to His people through human speakers. Though many think prophecy is only about predicting something happening in the distant future, only a small percentage of prophecies in the Bible is about that.
Most prophecies are to a particular audience for a particular time. It is usually about the present or the immediate future. For example, Jonah was a prophet bringing a message from God to Nineveh.
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