Synopsis of the ESV Literary Study Bible
The Bible is not totally a unique book. In general, its literary form functions in the same way that these forms function beyond the Bible. A story is a story whether in the Bible or beyond it. A metaphor is a metaphor. Nonetheless it is possible to make generalisation about characteristic literary features of the Bible, with no implication that these features do not exit elsewhere. Below are four literary features of the Bible described in the ESV literary study Bible.
- A unifying storyline
Although the overall genre of the Bible is the anthology of individual books and passages, the Bible possesses the unity far beyond that of other literary anthologies. The technical term for a unifying superstructure such as we find in the Bible is metanarrative (big or overarching story).
In the Bible, the metanarrative is the story of salvation history. It is comprised of the events by which God worked out his plan to redeem humanity and the creation after they fell from original innocence. This story of salvation history is Christocentric. It focuses ultimately on the substitutionary sacrifice and atonement of Christ on the cross and his resurrection from death.
The unifying storyline of the Bible is a u-shaped story. It moves from the creation of a perfect world. Through the fall of that world into sin. Then it shifts to falling human history as it slowly and painfully makes its way towards consummation. Lastly, it arrives at the final destruction of evil and the eternal triumph of good.
- The presence of a central character
All stories have a central character or protagonist, and in the overarching story of the Bible, God is the protagonist. He is the unifying presence from the beginning of the Bible to the end. All creatures interact with this central and ultimate being. All events are related to him. The story of human history unfolds within the broader story of what God does. The result is a sense of ultimacy that comes through as we read the pages of the Bible.
- Religious orientation
The subject of literature is human experience. This is true of the Bible too. But a distinctive feature of the Bible is that it overwhelmingly presents human experience in a religious and moral light. Events that other writers might treat in a purely human and natural light – a sunrise, a battle, a birth, a journey – are presented by the authors of the Bible within a moral or spiritual framework. Part of this moral and spiritual framework is the assumption of the biblical authors that a great conflict between good and evil is going on in our world. And further, people are continually confronted with the need to choose between good and evil. People choose between working for God’s kingdom and going against God.
- Variety of genre and styles
Every literary anthology of the Bible’s magnitude displays a range of literary forms, but the Bible’s range may well top them all. We need to be alert to this. The religious uses to which we put the Bible can easily lull us into assuming that the Bible is all one type of writing.
The list of individual forms, if we include such specific motifs as the homecoming story or trickster or love poem, keeps expanding. The variety that we find in the Bible stems partly from the large categories that converge. Examples are: history, theology, and literature, prose and poetry, realism and fantasy, past and future, God and people.
