Reading the Bible

It is remarkably difficult for some people to read the Bible in any other way than a straightforward narrative. They assume the old objectivist 'picture' view of language, whereby words picture objective realities, i.e., they accurately convey information about things, events, people.

From a literary standpoint, they fail to understand that language is more than an informational tool. Language is also an artistic event. It can be analyzed from the perspective of form and genre, not just from the perspective of content. When studied from the standpoint of artistic expression, words take on an inspirational, even rhetorical meaning. At times, one might even say that the literary purpose dominates, rendering the historical or informational value of texts negligible.