The Bible is not one book; it’s an entire library. And in that library, there are many different types of books: history, biography, poetry, music, philosophy, novel, letters—the list goes on. When reading the Bible, it’s very important to understand the type of material you are reading so you can interpret it properly. For our purposes, we’re going to divide the Bible into three types: narrative (stories), poetry, and discourse. This month I want to focus on narrative: how do we read Bible stories? Narrative is the biggest category of Biblical material: it makes up 43% of the Bible. The majority of Biblical stories are found in the Old Testament History books (Genesis through Esther) and the Gospels (Matthew-Acts). In my opinion, the key to properly interpreting Bible stories is: remember that Bible stories are history, not fables. They tell us what really happened, warts and all. If you keep this in mind, it will help you avoid two common pitfalls: 1. Do not assume that you are s
(or, A Fragment of Theology)