Cracking Old Testament Codes: A Guide to Interpreting Literary Genres of the Old Testament
Digital Logos Edition
Overview
A guide to the various kinds of literature in the Old Testament-narrative, history, law, oracles, and more-and how to interpret them. Contributors include Eugene Merrill, Walt Kaiser, and Tremper Longman, III.
- Seeks to help Christians understand their Bibles better, in particular the context and the literary forms of the Old Testament
- Attempts to make available to students, pastors, and a more general audience the results of the work of scholars on the text of Scripture
- Provides clear principles of interpretation for Bible readers, teachers and preachers
Top Highlights
“The categories of genres necessary to function effectively in the text of the Old Testament are ten. Prose is best seen as three different genres: narrative, history, and law. Prophecy, which typically is a combination of prose and poetry, is best seen as three different genres: oracles of salvation, announcements of judgment, and apocalyptic. Poetry is best divided into psalms of lament and psalms of praise. And wisdom is divided into proverbial and non-proverbial wisdom.” (Page 19)
“This middle level of context, that of literary forms, should be considered the most important stage in the interpretive process.” (Page 7)
“Two points can be related from this illustration to the genres of the Bible. First, though vocabulary and grammar can play important parts in genre, neither is a defining mark of genres in the Bible.” (Page 10)
“In addition to the legs of historical, grammatical, and theological interpretation, the fourth leg is interpretation according to the literary forms in which the text was written.” (Page 4)
“In terms of literary structures, a lament psalm must have a request or petition that follows a description; a narrative must have a plot.” (Page 11)
- Title: Cracking Old Testament Codes: A Guide to Interpreting Literary Genres of the Old Testament
- Authors: Ronald L. Giese, D. Brent Sandy
- Publisher: B&H
- Print Publication Date: 1995
- Logos Release Date: 2016
- Era: era:Contemporary
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Bible as literature; Bible. O.T. › Criticism, form; Bible. O.T. › Criticism, interpretation, etc
- ISBNs: 9781430076353, 9781433670695, 1433670690, 1430076356
- Resource ID: LLS:9781433670695
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-03-06T20:43:34Z