What genre is this?
What genre is this?
Genre analysis is a bigger challenge in biblical interpretation than we often think
Recently I took a freelance job with a Bible publisher that involves tagging the biblical text for genre. (I think this is a really neat resource, and I look forward to sharing it with you when it finally releases next year, Lord willing.) When I took the job, both the publisher and I thought it was a simple and straightforward task. However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized just how complicated this job was going to be.
The original list the publisher gave me had some overlapping genres, such as wisdom and poetry. Which would we utilize to mark the book of Job, for example? It is both wisdom and poetry. The original list also had Gospels as a genre, but the Gospels could easily be marked for narrative, teaching, parables, etc.
Without meaning to, I created extra work for myself by asking questions like these, and the publisher sent me on a research project to propose a better way to categorize the biblical text by genre. Ultimately, I don’t know if they will take my suggestions for this project, but since I found the entire discussion fascinating, I thought I would share it with you.
The Problem with the Concept of Genre
Genre analysis is an essential element of careful biblical interpretation. Jason S. DeRouchie explains, “The biblical authors picked different genres in order to communicate their intended truths in the most effective way. They consciously submitted themselves to the rules of a given genre, and they expected their readers to do the same.”[1]
In recent decades, due in part to popular books such as How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, evangelical Christians have grown in their expectation and ability to practice genre analysis when studying the Bible.[2] Mistakes that formerly plagued popular evangelical interpretation have been largely corrected among evangelicals who practice careful biblical interpretation. Many people now understand that proverbs are not promises, and that Revelation is apocalyptic rather than historical narrative.
Despite this progress in evangelical interpretation, genre analysis remains challenging. Taking us back to the theoretical foundations of the concept of genre, Hindy Najman points out that there are two ways of thinking of genre. On the one hand, we may think of authors and texts being governed by genre-specific norms at the point of production. For example, someone producing a Greek drama must conform to the rules and limitations of the genre. On the other hand, we may view genre primarily as a classification system imposed by the reader. In this case, no eternal platonic form of apocalyptic, for example, exists. Rather, we the interpreters seek to group diverse texts into categorizations that make sense to us and help us in their interpretation.[3]
Related to the struggle for understanding the origin of genre is the recent rejection of genre in post-structuralist and reader-response approaches to texts. This rejection extends to the modern producers of art, music, and literature. The confines of genre have been rejected as prohibitive to the free expression of the artist and to the free interpretation of the recipient.[4] One important example of this is in the rejection of meter and rhyme as an expected aspect of poetry.
Despite these challenges, genre analysis remains essential for biblical interpretation. We can recognize that biblical authors consciously conformed themselves to specific patterns of communication and submitted themselves to the expectations and rules for those patterns, while also recognizing that they did not submit slavishly to an eternal platonic form of genre. In fact, it is often the biblical authors’ polemical breaking of ancient genre expectations that communicated the uniqueness of God’s revealed message to his people.[5]
Genre, therefore, must be seen as a flexible concept. Biblical authors were aware of literary conventions, and both conformed to and broke those conventions for their communicative purposes. To interpret biblical texts rightly, readers must seek to recover as much as possible an understanding of these ancient literary expectations while also understanding that every attempt at categorization will ultimately be imperfect. As John J. Collins concludes, “[I]t is still possible to identify definite structures, even if they have fuzzy edges.”[6]
Because of the fuzzy edges of any genre, taxonomy will always fail to give us scientific precision, and this, of course, explains the variety of biblical genres listed by various scholars. While most lists of biblical genres are similar, none are identical. Add to this the complication of sub-genres, and our attempt at taxonomy becomes even more complicated.
Forms, Sections, and Genres
Before offering my proposal for genre taxonomy, I want to point out two additional ways of categorizing the literature of the Bible that overlap with genre but ultimately that we should view as distinct from genre.
First is textual form. All human literary texts ultimately come to us in one of two forms: prose or poetry. While the rules of poetry differ from each language and culture, we can ultimately identify which texts possess the musical quality we call poetic. I contend that biblical poetry does not sufficiently identify a unique biblical genre because the form of poetry is used in multiple genres—historical narrative, prophetic oracle, song, etc. In the same way, we do not categorize prose as a genre. Rather it is a form that is used by multiple genres.
Second is what we can best express as section. The biblical canon has always been divided into various sections on the basis of a combination of historical period, primary topics, and genre. These sections possess commonalities that the interpreter must pay careful attention to in interpretation, but these commonalities are often more related to the historical—especially salvation historical—positioning of the text rather than genre. For example, is Gospels a genre? I would contend that the Gospels are better categorized as a section of Scripture where multiple genres—historical narrative (specifically as the sub-genre of biography), speech, song, and parable—are utilized to tell the story of a specific era of salvation history.
With those additional ways of categorizing the literature of the Bible identified, I would propose the following taxonomy of genre, which I list in alphabetical order. While there may be some instances where these genre categorizations overlap in a particular text, I think they are generally distinct categories, many of which span both testaments:
Apocalyptic Vision. This unique prophetic genre typically consists of a vision in which the prophet is guided by a heavenly figure and truth is communicated to the prophet through a constellation of symbols. Examples of such apocalyptic visions can be found in Daniel, Ezekiel, and Revelation.
Covenant Law. The law given to Israel through Moses at Sinai can be found in Exodus–Deuteronomy. While the regulations found in these books are similar in some ways to other ancient law codes, they are uniquely given to Israel as covenant stipulations that dictate their relationship with God and result in either blessing or cursing.
Historical Narrative. Historical narrative seeks to record events from the past to relate how God has revealed himself within the history of his people through promises, revelations, genealogies, and actions. Historical narrative primarily takes the form of prose, but may at times utilize poetry. Much of Genesis–Esther consists of historical narrative, as well as the Gospels and Acts in the New Testament.
Letter. Biblical letters typically set forth an author’s argument in a way that seeks to influence the recipients’ faith and behavior. While the most obvious examples of letters are found in Romans–Jude, letters can also be found in Old Testament books, such as Nehemiah and Jeremiah.
Parable. Parables are typically used in the written records of oral communication where a teacher utilizes aspects of daily life to illustrate truth. While Jesus’ parables in the Gospels are our most common examples, parables can also be found in the Old Testament prophets.
Prophetic Oracle. The prophetic oracle is a direct communication from God through the mouth of the prophet and is often introduced by a phrase such as, “Thus says the Lord GOD of hosts” (Isa 22:15 ESV). Oracles usually take the form of poetry recited by the prophet. Most of the prophetic books, Isaiah–Malachi, utilize the genre of the prophetic oracle, but the genre can be found in other books as well.
Proverb. The proverb is a succinct and memorable saying which communicates a wise principle that is generally true in God’s world. The primary example is the collection of the book of Proverbs, although proverbs can occasionally be found elsewhere, such as in the teachings of Jesus and the letter of James.
Speech. Various speeches and sermons can be found recorded in sections of Scripture that are primarily historical narrative. The teachings of Jesus and the sermons in Acts both take these forms, but examples can also be found in Old Testament books such as 1 Kings and Ezra. Common to the genre of written speech is that the ancient author might record the substance of the speech accurately, often in summary form, even when not recording the speech verbatim.
Song. This poetic genre records words the author intended to be set to music. While most of the songs in the Bible can be found in Psalms, other songs can be found throughout the Bible in both historical and prophetic sections.
Wisdom Poetry. Wisdom poetry is unique from songs in that it was not necessarily written to be set to music. It is also unique from proverbs because it gives wisdom in an extended form that tells a story. Job is the primary example of wisdom poetry.
What do you think? Would you categorize things differently?
[1] Jason S. DeRouchie, How to Understand and Apply the Old Testament: Twelve Steps from Exegesis to Theology (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2017), 23.
[2] Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth (Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 2014). Also see the works of Leland Ryken, especially his Reading the Bible as Literature series from Lexham.
[3] Hindy Najman, “The Idea of Biblical Genre: From Discourse to Constellation,” in Prayer and Poetry in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature, Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah 98 (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 309.
[4] John J. Collins, “Changing Perceptions of Genre in Biblical Studies,” Rivista biblica italiana 69 (2021), 336.
[5] For an extension of this argument, see John D. Currid, Against the Gods: The Polemical Theology of the Old Testament (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2013).
[6] Collins, “Changing Perceptions,” 338.