The Bible as Literature

In college, I took a class title "The Bible as Literature." I approached the class with skepticism, assuming that the course was going to be a revisionist reading of the Bible. I was proved happily wrong.

Using Leland Ryken's text, Words of Delight, the professor showed us how the literary nature of the Bible is part of its true revelation of the only true God.

In my reading today, I caught sight again of just how helpful this approach to Scripture is in order to receive revelation. I just read Genesis 20, the account of Abraham and Abimelech, where Abraham says that Sarah is his sister, Abimelech takes her as a wife, and then the LORD appears to Abimelech, closes the wombs of all his household and says, "[I]f you do not return her [Sarah], know that you shall surely die, you and all who are yours" (v7). The narrative is quite straightforward, but the way that the story is told is important for what the narrative is intended to teach, and to reveal.

When confronted by the LORD in a dream, Abimelech answers, "In the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands I have done this" (v5), which the LORD confirms in verse 6. When Abimelech confronts Abraham, saying, "[H]ow have I sinned against you, that you have brought on me and my kingdom a great sin?" (v9) Abraham replies, "I did it because I thought, There is no fear of God at all in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife" (v11).

The story teller (the Biblical author) is deliberately relating this event in such a way as to contrast the God-fearing pagan, Abimelech, and the man-fearing God-follower, Abraham, that we might see the folly of fearing people rather than God. The author highlights the irony of Abraham's statement, "I thought, There is no fear of God at all in this place," by demonstrating that Abimelech acted with far more fear of God than Abraham!

To say that we read the Bible as literature is not to say that the story it tells is not true; on the contrary, it is to say that the true story is told in such a way as to communicate truth clearly and on many levels - as any good piece of literature does.