The Bible is a book full of images and literary
conventions. Because of this there
are some who question the historical nature of the Bible. The argument seems to go, roughly
stated, that if an author utilizes stylized literary conventions this is indicative
of non-historicity or of a fictionalized account.
A helpful reference work in this regard is the Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, general
editors: Leland Ryken, James C. Wilhoit, and Tremper Longman III (Downers
Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity Press, 1998).
In their introduction there is a basic discussion of the concepts of
images, metaphors, similes, and archetypes. Included is a significant section entitled: “Do Literary
Conventions Mean That the Bible is Fictional?” Here is a portion of their discussion that is particularly
helpful.
“It is fair to ask at this point
how all this talk about literary conventions relates to the question of the
historicity or fictionality of the Bible.
The answer, in brief, is that the presence of conventions and literary
artifice in the Bible does not by itself say anything at all about historicity
or fictionality.
“It is true that scholars like
Robert Alter tend to regard the presence of conventions and type scenes as a
sign of fictionality. But this
assumption is unwarranted.
Underlying the assumption that the presence of literary artifice in the
Bible signals fictionality is the unstated belief that events like this do not
happen in real life. But real life
is full of ‘type scenes.’ Real
life stories of meeting one’s future spouse at college would be as filled with
repeated ingredients as Old Testament stories of meeting one’s spouse at a
well.
“In real life, and not just in
literature, we constantly impose patterns on the flow of events. It is not a matter of making things up
but of ‘packaging’ them—in other
words, of selectivity and arrangement.
Consider the conventions of the television sports report or
interview. The reporter is filmed
with a sports arena in the background.
During the course of the report the reporter either interviews an
athlete or is momentarily replaced by a film clip of sports action. It is a rule of the sports interview
that the conversation consist only of clichés and that it be devoid of anything
approaching intellectual substance.
The syntax of the athlete being interviewed is expected to be
rudimentary or even nonexistent in the usual sense. It is a rule that at some point the athlete mumbles
something to the effect of ‘just trying to go out there and do my job.’ A look of false modesty is expected to
accompany this world-changing announcement. At the end of the report, the reporter stares into the
camera and utters a catchy, impressive one-liner.
“The artifice of such conventions
is obvious. Yet the artifice and
high degree of conventionality do not make the interview anything other than a
factual event that really happened.
What such conventions do
signal is the degree to which communication, whether on television or in the
Bible, is based on shared assumptions or expectations between writer and
audience about how certain things are communicated or composed.” (p. xvi)
