Reading the Bible as Literature PDF Download

Author: Jeanie C. Crain
Publisher: Polity
ISBN: 0745635083
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 225

View

Book Description
This book provides the ideal entry-point to the process of reading, understanding, and assessing what many recognize to be the important and powerful literature of the Bible. The book introduces the tools of literary analysis, including: language and style, the formal structures of genre, character study, and thematic analysis.

Author: Leland Ryken
Publisher: Zondervan Academic
ISBN: 0310536332
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 209

View

Book Description
Why the Good Book Is a Great Read If you want to rightly understand the Bible, you must begin by recognizing what it is: a composite of literary styles. It is meant to be read, not just interpreted. The Bible’s truths are embedded like jewels in the rich strata of story and poetry, metaphor and proverb, parable and letter, satire and symbolism. Paying attention to the literary form of a passage will help you understand the meaning and truth of that passage. How to Read the Bible as Literature takes you through the various literary forms used by the biblical authors. This book will help you read the Bible with renewed appreciation and excitement and gain a more profound grasp of its truths. Designed for maximum clarity and usefulness, How to Read the Bible as Literature includes * sidebar captions to enhance organization * wide margins ideal for note taking * suggestions for further reading * appendix: "The Allegorical Nature of the Parables" * indexes of persons and subjects

Author: Richard Elliott Friedman
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061952753
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 424

View

Book Description
Renowned biblical sleuth and scholar Richard Elliot Friedman reveals the first work of prose literature in the world-a 3000-year-old epic hidden within the books of the Hebrew Bible. Written by a single, masterful author but obscured by ancient editors and lost for millennia, this brilliant epic of love, deception, war, and redemption is a compelling account of humankind's complex relationship with God. Friedman boldly restores this prose masterpiece-the very heart of the Bible-to the extraordinary form in which it was originally written.

Author: Matthew Mullins
Publisher: Baker Books
ISBN: 1493421956
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 236

View

Book Description
Many Christians view the Bible as an instruction manual. While the Bible does provide instruction, it can also captivate, comfort, delight, shock, and inspire. In short, it elicits emotion--just like poetry. By learning to read and love poetry, says literature professor Matthew Mullins, readers can increase their understanding of the biblical text and learn to love God's Word more. Each chapter includes exercises and questions designed to help readers put the book's principles and practices into action.

Author: Robert Alter
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674875319
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 700

View

Book Description
Rediscover the incomparable literary richness and strength of a book that all of us live with an many of us live by. An international team of renowned scholars, assembled by two leading literary critics, offers a book-by-book guide through the Old and New Testaments as well as general essays on the Bible as a whole, providing an enticing reintroduction to a work that has shaped our language and thought for thousands of years.

Author: Bruce Manning Metzger
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN:
Category : Bibles
Languages : en
Pages : 2164

View

Book Description
Edited by Bruce Manning Metzger and Roland E. Murphy Detailed, updated annotations Extensive essays and book introductions Outlines Textual notes Footnotes Larger pages with wide margins 36 pages of full-color maps with Index Essay by Metzger on how to use Annotated Bible Imprintable Smyth-sewn 7 x 9 3/8 % Font size: 10

Author: Norman W. Jones
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131753901X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 180

View

Book Description
The Bible and Literature: The Basics provides an interpretive framework for understanding the significance of biblical allusions in literature—even for readers who have little prior knowledge of the Bible. In doing so, it surveys the Bible’s influence on a broad range of English, American, and other Anglophone literatures from a variety of historical periods. It also: offers a "greatest hits" tour of the Bible focuses as much on 20th- and 21st-century literatures as on earlier periods addresses the Bible’s relevance to contemporary issues in literary criticism such as poststructuralist, postcolonial, feminist, queer, and narrative theories includes discussion questions for each chapter and annotated suggestions for further reading This book explains why readers need a basic knowledge of the Bible in order to understand and appreciate key aspects of Anglophone literary traditions.

Author: William J. Bouwsma
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780199762972
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 324

View

Book Description
Historians have credited--or blamed--Calvinism for many developments in the modern world, including capitalism, modern science, secularization, democracy, individualism, and unitarianism. These same historians, however, have largely ignored John Calvin the man. When people consider him at all, they tend to view him as little more than the joyless tyrant of Geneva who created an abstract theology as forbidding as himself. This volume, written by the eminent historian William J. Bouwsma, who has devoted his career to exploring the larger patterns of early modern European history, seeks to redress these common misconceptions of Calvin by placing him back in the proper historical context of his time. Eloquently depicting Calvin's life as a French exile, a humanist in the tradition of Erasmus, and a man unusually sensitive to the complexities and contradictions of later Renaissance culture, Bouwsma reveals a surprisingly human, plausible, ecumenical, and often sympathetic Calvin. John Calvin offers a brilliant reassessment not only of Calvin but also of the Reformation and its relationship to the movements of the Renaissance.

Author: Willis Barnstone
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 039306493X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 1505

View

Book Description
From acclaimed scholar Willis Barnstone, The Restored New Testament—newly translated from the Greek and informed by Semitic sources. For the first time since the King James Version in 1611, Willis Barnstone has given us an amazing literary and historical version of the New Testament. Barnstone preserves the original song of the Bible, rendering a large part in poetry and the epic Revelation in incantatory blank verse. This monumental translation is the first to restore the original Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew names (Markos for Mark, Yeshua for Jesus), thereby revealing the Greco-Jewish identity of biblical people and places. Citing historical and biblical scholarship, he changes the sequence of texts and adds three seminal Gnostic gospels. Each book has elegant introductions and is thoroughly annotated. With its superlative writing and lyrical wisdom, The Restored New Testament is a magnificent biblical translation for our age.

Author: John Barton
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143111205
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 642

View

Book Description
A literary history of our most influential book of all time, by an Oxford scholar and Anglican priest In our culture, the Bible is monolithic: It is a collection of books that has been unchanged and unchallenged since the earliest days of the Christian church. The idea of the Bible as "Holy Scripture," a non-negotiable authority straight from God, has prevailed in Western society for some time. And while it provides a firm foundation for centuries of Christian teaching, it denies the depth, variety, and richness of this fascinating text. In A History of the Bible, John Barton argues that the Bible is not a prescription to a complete, fixed religious system, but rather a product of a long and intriguing process, which has inspired Judaism and Christianity, but still does not describe the whole of either religion. Barton shows how the Bible is indeed an important source of religious insight for Jews and Christians alike, yet argues that it must be read in its historical context--from its beginnings in myth and folklore to its many interpretations throughout the centuries. It is a book full of narratives, laws, proverbs, prophecies, poems, and letters, each with their own character and origin stories. Barton explains how and by whom these disparate pieces were written, how they were canonized (and which ones weren't), and how they were assembled, disseminated, and interpreted around the world--and, importantly, to what effect. Ultimately, A History of the Bible argues that a thorough understanding of the history and context of its writing encourages religious communities to move away from the Bible's literal wording--which is impossible to determine--and focus instead on the broader meanings of scripture.