A catch-all designation embracing a wide range of contemporary approaches to the study of the biblical text but sharing a common interest in seeking to understand the text as literature as opposed to the dominant interest in the biblical text as historical document.
There was a time in the history of the Christian Church, some half a century ago, when literary criticism was also often called "higher criticism" and seen as a "demon's discipline" out to question the authority of Scriptures. This was, perhaps, quite understandable, given that the focus of early literary criticism (or at least one form of it) was to suggest that the Pentateuch, e.g., could not have been written by Moses and were "in fact" composed from various sources deriving from different circles of theological understanding. Known as "the documentary hypothesis," e.g., it was suggested that the books of the Pentateuch were composed from four different documentary sources known as J, E. D, and P, which derived from differing periods, sometimes long after the time of Moses. Happily that time is now past, and the evangelical churces are beginning to see that these conclusions represent an excessive impositions of the commentators' presuppositions in their interpretation of the biblical data.
Whatever else we may think of the Bible, it remains an inescapable fact that the books of the Bible are great literature; they are written works which, of course, is what literature is. Literature takes various forms or genre, and it is vital for a proper understanding of what we read to recognize their genre. We would be in a pretty sorry state if we mistake a legal document for the newspaper, or a comic book for a title deed. The book of Revelation is very different in genre from the book of Genesis and cannot be understood in the same way. Or Proverbs from John's Gospel. Parables from Leviticus.
Beyond this, scholars now also recognize that most of the books of the Bible are carefully and artfully crafted, their authors taking great pains to structure or arrange the various parts of their contents in different ways to highlight particular thoughts or theme. We can now recognize plots, foils, and counter foils, etc, in biblical narratives. Chiasm helps us to appreciate the beauty of the plethora of repetitions which puts so many off reading the Old Testament (see Repetitions in the Old Testament L for examples). As a result of these discoveries, our appreciation of the various authors of the Bible, and their works, have been greatly and richly enhanced particularly in the last three decades. Literary criticism, employed—as with all gifts—with discipline and humility, is God's great gift to His church.
©ALBERITH
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