Making Sense of the Bible: Literary Type as an Approach to Understanding

by Marshall D. Johnson

No book in the Western world has evoked more diverse interpretations than the Bible. One reason for this multiplicity of interpretation is the vast historical gap lying between the writing of the Scriptures and our own time. Can ordinary persons today really make sense of this body of ancient literature?

In Making Sense of the Bible Marshall Johnson gives readers the tools needed to better understand Scripture by teaching them to recognize and handle the diverse kinds of literature that make up the Bible. Focusing on the eight major literary forms in the Bible -- wisdom literature, liturgical materials, quasi-historical material, prophetic writings, collections of laws and precepts, apocalyptic literature, letters, and Gospels -- Johnson describes each form's central features and gives readers a sense of what to expect from each literary form and how to approach it. In addition, helpful appendixes discuss the forms of ancient Hebrew poetry, highlight the major literary types in biblical books, and provide suggestions for further reading.

For inquisitive laypeople or students in search of the original meaning of the Bible, this book provides a thoughtful, concise, and nonsectarian introduction.

171 pages, Paperback

First published February 28, 2002

Reviews

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

VERY disappointed with this one. When you view the Bible strictly as a piece of literature, the issue of whether you believe it to be divinely inspired or not is completely irrelevant. That's the problem with this book: The author spends more time trying to disprove the Bible's supernatural origin than he does talking about its literary merit. I loved the first part where the author explains the different literary genres incorporated within the Bible and elaborates on which books of the Bible fit into which genres. But then he starts talking about the origins of the different books using assumptions which are all too self-serving. For example, when it comes to prophetic works, he dates them under the assumption that the prophesied events had already taken place before the work was written, thereby explaining how the prophets got their "predictions" correct. But, by this logic, we would have to date the books of Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Amos as all being written sometime after 1948 because of their prophecies regarding Israel's rebirth as a nation. Not surprisingly, the author doesn't bother pointing this out. He mentions one case where he believes a prophet got one of his predictions totally wrong, but this is especially odd considering the author also states that the prediction was written after the event had already occurred. Wow, can't even FAKE a prophecy accurately! Of course, there are many famous instances where historians attacked the Bible, only to discover later that it had been right all along. The author of this book spends a lot of time talking about other so-called "discrepancies," but they have all been addressed by other books--such as ALLEGED DISCREPANCIES OF THE BIBLE by John W. Haley--and been rendered non-issues in the minds of many. In the case of the Gospels, the author claims both that they are too similar (three of them must have been plagiarists of the original) and, at the same time, too dissimilar (How can we know what Jesus really said when the Gospels each paraphrase him a bit differently?) I think that simply demonstrates the validity of the Bible: different enough to show that they weren't just copying each other (and of course they were mostly working from memory), but similar enough so we can see that the underlying message is completely intact. Basically, Making Sense of the Bible is a great book for atheists who want to know something about the Bible without ever being asked to take it seriously. If people want to attack the veracity of the Bible, they have every freedom to do so, but I wish they wouldn't disguise it as studying the Bible through the lens of literature. I wasted $10 on this book thinking I was getting an objective bit of research. In my humble opinion, MAKING SENSE OF THE BIBLE does anything but.

[Jandro · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. I am going to read the Bible as a 2021 goal and this book gave me a good critical springboard to start with. The author completely removed anything but a literary view of the work, which I appreciated.