Old Testament Reading Guide
The Old Testament remains filled with a variety of genres, becoming an eclectic text as the work combines multiple genres, manuscripts, and authors. Genres like poetry, narrative, and prophecies become evident throughout the Old Testament. In order to improve the reading, however, other sources must be drawn upon. Extra-canonical texts are works outside of officially accepted writings; books that are not included in sacred texts.
The bible is a library of different books and anthology of at least forty various authors writing in three separate languages and spanning nearly eight centuries. Historical context becomes vital in defining what the time and culture of these authors were, including geographical, topographical, and political factors that are relevant to the author’s setting. Extracanonical texts ought to be read in conjunction with eclectic works such as the bible to retain a better understanding of why a certain kind of book was written in a particular genre. They make the reading and interpretation of the Old Testament much more complete by gleaning from various stories the similarities and differences, as well as influences, point of view, and matter of importance. Various genres within the Old Testament may be found and influence the text in different ways. Thus each genre must be read and analyzed in an appropriate manner.
Forty-three percent of the Bible is written in narrative, and most of the narrative may be found in the Old Testament. Narratives are stories and retain a purposeful and significant nature of retelling historical events intended to produce meaning and direction for those in the present. Their purpose proves to reveal the progress of God’s repeated history of redemption rather than simply illustrating principles. The stories are not allegories with hidden meanings, but documented history. For example, the story of Abraham securing a bride for Isaac in Genesis twenty-four is not an allegory about the Christ securing a bride (the church) through the Holy Spirit.
The account in Genesis is merely a history detailing the events surrounding Abraham and Isaac. There lie three levels of narration: (1) the meta-narrative that focuses on God’s universal plan worked out through the God’s creation and directed primarily on Israel (2) the story of God’s redeeming man for His sake; and (3) the hundreds of individual narratives that compound the other two. When reading through the stories in the Old Testament, a few things remain critical to look out for: (1) the narrator who is the omniscient director who decides what to include and omit and is responsible for the point of view; (2) the scenes which proved the predominant mode of narration in Hebrew; (3) the characters that often appeared in contrast of in parallel with each other. Typical modes of characterization occurred in the character’s words and actions rather than the narrator’s description of them. (4) Dialogue is often a significant clue both to the story plot and the character of the speaker. Contrastive dialogue usually functions as a way of characterization which also emphasizes crucial parts of the narrative within a summarizing speech. (5) The plot in Old Testament stories move faster than in many modern narratives, thus various devices employed by the narrator to slow the pace of the story are important to discern. (6) Narratives in the Bible were designed primarily for hearers and not readers. Therefore, some features of structure such as repetition and inclusion become necessary to not overlook.
In the story of Abraham, God continuously says “I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand which is upon the seashore.” Through the constant repetition, God reiterates the His promise and takes it upon Himself to uphold the stipulations in the covenant with Abraham. Interpreting narratives may not always be simple. The narratives typically do not directly teach a doctrine, but illustrate doctrines through memorable stories. Since they record the event that took place at a given time and place, not necessarily what should have or ought to have happened, the narratives do not have an individual identifiable moral application. How an individual acts does not always present a good example and at the end, no right or wrong action is revealed. Rather, it remains up to the reader to judge on the basis of God’s teachings elsewhere in scripture. All narratives are selective and incomplete. Not all the relevant details are always given. What does appear in the narrative is everything that the inspired author thought important for us to know. They are also not written to answer all of the reader’s theological questions. They have particular, specific, limited purposes and deal with certain issues, leaving others to be dealt with elsewhere in other ways.
Another one of the most prevalent genres in the Old Testament is prophecy. The prophets were covenant enforcement mediators ⎯ they identified Israel’s sin or God’s love for humanity and predicted a curse or blessing depending on the circumstance. However, the message within these prophecies was not derived from the prophets themselves, but from God. While reading these, the date, audience, and situation are vital components that make up this genre. When aware of the context of Hosea five for example, that the text was penned in 734 BC with the northern Israelites known as Ephraim as the audience in a time of war increases the reader’s ability to appreciate the oracle announcing the call to arms, description of attack, and ultimate defeat.
Through the knowledge of the date, audience, of time, the reader may comprehend the prophecy in a much clearer and contextual way. However, most of the words the prophets dictated were written down in a run-on fashion. Thus, it remains unclear where one oracle ends and another begins. To interpret prophecies successfully, there are key forms to take note of: lawsuits, woe, promises, enactment prophecies, messenger speeches, and prophets as poets. Many repetitive styles may also be seen in prophecies as in narratives with parallelism to emphasize certain proclamations. Old Testament prophecies are typically surrounded by unprecedented political, military, economic, and social upheavals, significant levels of religious unfaithfulness and disregard for the original mosaic covenant, and shifts in population and national boundaries along with the balance of power.
Prophecy in the Old Testament is written through prophets receiving messages directly from God. There exists a plethora of prophecies in such a narrow time span in Israelite history because during that time covenant enforcing was particularly needed. The prophets, as covenant enforcers, reminded people of the God’s law, detailing the blessings and curses that followed the keeping or the breaking of the covenant between Israelites and God. Not much of the prophetic text in the Bible concerns futuristic prophecy, but even when the prophets did, that future may prove to be in the past already. When reading prophecies, the reader must consider prophetic telescoping ⎯ when people speak about contemporary events in a future setting. These prophecies can retain multiple meanings that include an immediate, contemporary one as well as a future prophecy (sensus plenior). Prophecies are typically filled with symbols, yet the symbols are intended to reveal not conceal. Ergo, when analyzing prophecies, one must be careful to understand the context and the content of what is written, reminding oneself that prophecies reinforce the covenant of God, in order to understand and correctly interpret the text.
Through identifying the various genres in the Old Testament and strategically reading and conducting an exegesis of the text, the reader may clearly obtain the intended meaning of the work. With several ideas of what to search for, what to avoid, and how to analyze, it may be discovered that the history of the different people in different time periods is the subject of the text. The stories speak about God, detailing the God’s character, devotion, and commitment through historical narratives and poetry.
