1. =Importance.= In order rightly to understand the Bible we must not
only study it as a book of history, as a book of morals or ethics, as a
book of doctrine, and as a book of devotion; we must also examine it as
_literature_, and ascertain the different types of forms of literature
shown in its pages. The literary study of the Bible is often of the
highest importance. For example, the incident narrated in Josh. 10.
12-14, printed as prose in most of our Bibles, is shown as poetry in the
Revised Version; and we all know that poetry is to be interpreted upon
principles different from prose.
II. =Difficulties.= In the study of the Bible as literature two
difficulties arise and must be overcome:
1. _The division into chapters and verses_, and the printing of the
Bible throughout in the form of prose, forms an obstacle to the student
of the Bible as literature. Suppose that every history of England, the
poetry of Milton, the dramas of Shakespeare, and the romances of Scott
were printed in the form of our Bibles--broken up into short
paragraphs--what a hindrance that would prove to the understanding and
the enjoyment of these works! Except in the Revised Version of England
and America, that is the condition in which we read our Bibles. Only in
the Revised Version can the Bible be read as literature.
2. Another obstacle is in the fact that in the Bible all the different
_forms of literature are mingled together_. The prose has poetry here
and there; history, personal narrative, drama, and lyric are all united
in the same writings. We have Scott's prose and his poetry separate,
Matthew Arnold's poems and his essays in separate volumes; but in the
Old Testament all these forms of literature are found together, and
generally more than one form in the same book. There are few books in
the Old Testament that are either all prose or all poetry.
III. =Classification.= We may arrange the different kinds of literature
found in the Old Testament under six classes, as follows:
1. The larger portion of the Old Testament belongs to the department of
_History_. In its books we trace the early history of the world and the
history through two thousand years of the Is'ra-el-ite people. This
history may be classified as:
1.) _Primitive_ history, in the book of Gen'e-sis.
2.) _Constitutional_ history, or the record of laws and institutions, in
Ex'o-dus, Le-vit'i-cus, Num'bers.
3.) _National_ history, or historical events, in Josh'u-a, Judg'es,
Sam'u-el, Kings, and Ez'ra. Although in some of these books are many
narratives more biographical than historical, yet nearly all these
stories have a bearing upon the national history.
4.) _Ecclesiastical_ history, in the books of Chron'i-cles, which tell
the story of the kingdom of Ju'dah from a priestly point of view.
2. Next to the history comes _Personal Narrative_ as a literary form in
the Bible; such stories as those of Jo'seph, Ba'laam, Ruth, Da'vid,
E-li'jah, E-li'sha, Jo'nah, and Es'ther; not historical, as the story of
the nations, but personal, as the record of individuals. These
narratives belong to the class called by scholars "prose epics," an epic
being a work of narration, generally in poetry, as the epics of Homer,
Dante, and Milton. The epics in the Bible are poetic in their thought,
but prose in their form.