Glossary of Literary Terms and Genres

This glossary provides succinct definitions, sometimes accompanied by an illustration from the Bible, of the leading literary forms of the Bible. More detailed information on most of these terms can be found in the following sources: Leland Ryken, James C. Wilhoit, and Tremper Longman III, eds., Dictionary of Biblical Imagery (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1998); Leland Ryken, Words of Delight: A Literary Introduction to the Bible (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992); Leland Ryken, How to Read the Bible as Literature (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984); James L. Bailey and Lyle D. Vander Broek, Literary Forms in the New Testament: A Handbook (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 1992).

acrostic.: A poem in which the successive units begin with the consecutive letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The units might be single lines, pairs of lines, or stanzas (as in Psalm 119).
adventure story.: A narrative genre in which stock ingredients create an atmosphere of excitement and the extraordinary. Stock ingredients include the following: variety and remoteness of settings; inclusion of the marvelous or supernatural; heightened conflict; danger or risk; suspense; surprise; arrests and escapes; chases; hiding; secrets and their discovery; journeys through dangerous landscapes; storms; disguises; shipwrecks; battles.
allegory.: A work of literature in which many of the details have a corresponding “other” meaning. The basic technique is symbolism in the sense that a detail in the text stands for something else. Interpreting an allegorical text must not be confused with allegorizing a text. To interpret an allegorical text is to follow the intentions of the author. Allegorizing a text implies attaching symbolic meanings to a text that was not intended by the author to be allegorical. An example of an allegorical text is Jesus’ parable of the sower (Matthew 13:1–9), for which Jesus himself gave every detail in the story except the sower a corresponding other meaning (Matthew 13:18–23).
allusion (verb form: alludes to).: A reference, sometimes by means of a quotation, to past history or literature.
annunciation story.: A story in which an angel or human agent announces to a barren wife that she will become pregnant and bear a child.
antagonist.: Any person or force in a narrative that stands in the way of the protagonist of the story, or with which the protagonist is in conflict. Features of a character’s own personality or character can function as antagonists, such as when Cain is in conflict with his own evil impulses (Genesis 4:5–16).
anthropomorphism (adjective form: anthropomorphic).: The portrayal of deity as possessing human body parts or emotions. To speak of God’s hand or foot or of his changing his mind is an example of anthropomorphism.
antithetic parallelism.: Two lines of Hebrew poetry in which the second line states the truth of the first line in a contrasting way: “The Lord knows the way of the righteous, / but the way of the wicked will perish” (Ps. 1:6).
aphorism (adjective form: aphoristic).: A concise, memorable statement of truth; synonymous with proverb.
apocalypse; apocalyptic writing; apocalyptic vision.: Literally the word apocalypse means “unveiling” or “revelation.” Apocalyptic writing is a branch of visionary writing that specifically portrays the end of history and the eternity that succeeds that end. At the same time, the events portrayed in apocalyptic writing often embody universal principles (such as a conflict between good and evil or the sovereignty of God over history) that are true at any point in history. Specific motifs in apocalyptic writing include the following: dualism (the universe envisioned as divided into good and evil); spiritism (angels and demons as characters); judgment against evil; messianic focus; animal symbolism; color symbolism; number symbolism; cataclysmic imagery; cosmic stage of action; forces of nature as “characters” in the story. Daniel 7–12 and the book of Revelation are the main (but not the only) examples of this genre in the Bible.
apostrophe.: A figure of speech in which the writer addresses someone absent as though present and capable of responding. By slight extension, an apostrophe might be an address to something nonhuman as though it were human and capable of responding, even if the speaker is in the presence of the object (for example, the poet in Psalm 148:3 might well be looking up at the sun, moon, or stars as he commands them to praise God).
archetype.: A plot motif (such as the ordeal), character type (such as the hero), or setting/image/symbol (such as the wicked city) that recurs throughout literature and life.
ascension story.: A story in which a person or angel takes leave from earth and journeys to heaven.
battle story.: A story of conflict between armies and individual warriors. A full-fledged battle story incorporates a large array of motifs, falling into the three categories of prelude to battle, conduct of the battle, and postbattle rituals. The prelude to battle can include these motifs: provocation to battle; mustering of armies; gathering of weapons; planning of battle strategy; arming of the hero; march to the battlefield; taunting of enemies; sometimes a challenge to single combat. Motifs of the battle itself include these: invasion; attack; ambush; hand-to-hand combat; flight and chase; siege. Postbattle rituals include the following: exaltation by the victorious; offering of kingship to the leader of the winning side; shouts by the victorious; poems or songs of thanksgiving that rehearse the details of the battle as a way of prolonging the ecstasy of victory; triumphal procession; feasting and celebration; taking of spoils and of trophies for public display; mutilating the bodies of the defeated; beheading of the defeated leaders and/or public display of their bodies.
beatitude.: A pronouncement of blessing, phrased in the formula “blessed is” or “blessed are.” When beatitudes appear in the Bible, they do more than express a wish for blessing; they confer a quality of blessedness on a person or group. Sometimes beatitudes pronounce blessing on God.
benediction.: A statement of God’s blessing conferred on a person or group by his designated human agent, such as an OT priest or NT apostle.
biography.: The story of a person’s life, either in whole or in part.
birth story.: A story that recounts the birth of a baby, usually a future hero. A full-fledged biblical birth story contains the following elements: a barren wife or couple; divine or angelic prediction that a child will be born; a birth that is accompanied by miracles; protection of the baby from hostile forces. Usually the baby thus born becomes a hero, saint, or savior.
boast.: A work of literature in which the leading ingredient is a formalized boasting or extolling by a speaker or writer. Originally a genre associated with battle or other types of victory, in the Bible the boast is often turned to spiritual effect when people boast in God or their salvation.
calling story.: A story in which either a prophet or a disciple receives a call from God to perform a task, enter a vocation, or follow Jesus. Also called a vocation story.
character; characterization.: Characters are one of three elements (along with plot and setting) that make up a story. In regard to characters in a story, a reader’s leading goal should be to get to know the characters as fully as possible from the data that the storyteller provides. Our acquaintance with characters in a story is based on the following things: a character’s actions, including thoughts and feelings; personal traits and abilities; relationships and roles; archetypes to which a character belongs; what the narrator tells us about a character; other characters’ responses to a character.
Christ hymn.: A NT psalm that praises Christ by extolling his nature, his acts, his attributes, and/or the redemptive effects of his life and sacrifice.
climactic parallelism.: Two or more parallel lines of poetry in which the first line is left incomplete until the second line (and sometimes third line) repeats part of it and adds to it: “Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings, / ascribe to the Lord glory and strength” (Ps. 29:1).
comedy; comic plot.: A U-shaped plot in which the action begins in prosperity, descends into potentially tragic events, and rises to a happy ending. Even if the first of these phases is missing, the plot can be called a comic plot.
complaint.: A genre of psalm in which the speaker defines a crisis and invokes God to help. Five ingredients are usually present in a biblical lament psalm: invocation or cry to God; definition of the crisis (which the psalmists call a complaint); petition to God to deliver; statement of confidence in God; vow to praise God. All lament poems are occasional poems that refer to specific events that gave rise to the poem. Synonymous with lament psalm.
conflict story/controversy story.: A story that is built primarily around the element of conflict between characters or groups. While plot conflict exists in virtually every good story, a conflict story subordinates other narrative elements to conflict or controversy.
confrontation story/narrative.: A story in which the central situation is one character confronting another character or a group; synonymous with encounter story. God’s accosting of Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3) and Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:1–26) are classic confrontation stories.
conquest story.: A story that narrates the victory of a person or group over enemies.
conversion story.: A story in which the central event is one or more characters’ coming to faith in God or Christ and having their lives turned around as a result.
creed.: A formal statement of beliefs, often expressed with aphoristic flair and in a patterned manner (often by means of tight syntax). First Timothy 3:16 illustrates these features.
crime and punishment story.: A story built around the threefold pattern of the antecedents of a crime (what led up to the crime), the occurrence of the crime, and the consequences of the crime.
denouement.: The last phase of a story, following the climax; literally “tying up of loose ends.”
diatribe.: A literary form of teaching, street preaching, oratory, and satire that arose in classical Greece and Rome. Motifs include the following: dialogue with imaginary questioners or opponents; as part of that, question-and-answer constructions, sometimes catechismlike in effect; use of questions or hypothetical objections as a transition to the next topic; rhetorical questions; adducing famous and representative figures from the past as examples; use of analogy as a rhetorical device; aphoristic style.
discourse.: A written or spoken address to an audience. The term usually refers to a formal or dignified oration or piece of writing.
docudrama.: A genre of film or video that presents information about a person, place, or movement. Stock ingredients include interviews; a narrator; photographs or film clips; and facts gleaned from historical archives, including news sources contemporaneous with the subject of the docudrama. Many historical narratives in the Bible give us the same ingredients that we find in a docudrama.
doom song.: A form of prophetic writing and satire in which the author predicts the downfall of a nation in vivid and sometimes taunting form. Often the author pictures the downfall in the present or past tense, even though the events may still be in the future. A common rhetorical strategy is to list the things that will be “no more,” lending the quality of an elegy (funeral poem) to the text.
doxology.: A command to praise God. Although the term is sometimes extended to mean an actual song of praise, this is an undesirable extension because it leaves us without a term to denote specifically a command to praise God. Psalm 148 is a catalog of doxologies, and the familiar “Doxology” of Christian hymnody is similarly a list of commands to praise God.
drama.: A narrative form in which the action is embodied in the form of dialogue among characters. The book of Job is a major work of drama in the Bible.
dramatic irony.: A situation in a story where readers know something of which some or all of the characters in the story are ignorant.
dramatic monologue.: A literary work in which a single speaker addresses an implied but silent audience and in which various details keep the dramatic situation alive in a reader’s awareness. For example, the format into which Psalm 45 (a wedding poem) is cast makes it easy to imagine the poet as speaking in sequence to the groom (vv. 2–9) and then the bride (vv. 10–17), while Proverbs 2 is couched as an address by a father to his son.
elegy (adjective form: elegiac).: A funeral poem. In its strict form, such as David’s elegy for Saul and Jonathan in 2 Samuel 1:19–27, the motifs include the following: references to the circumstances of death; praising or eulogizing of the deceased; recollection of past friendship; lament or grief over the loss. The adjective elegiac is often attached to works of literature that embody a sorrowful mood or that are permeated by a sense of irretrievable loss; the book of Lamentations is governed by an elegiac mood.
emblematic blazon.: A blazon is a love poem that praises the beauty and virtue of the beloved. An emblematic blazon catalogs the attractive features of the beloved and compares them to objects in nature; the Song of Solomon contains numerous examples.
encomium.: A work of literature that praises either a general character type (e.g., Psalm 1 on the godly person and Proverbs 31:10–31 on the virtuous wife) or abstract quality (e.g., 1 Corinthians 13 on love and Hebrews 11 on faith). Conventional motifs are these: a formal introduction to the subject being praised; the distinguished and/or ancient ancestry of the subject of praise; a listing of the acts and attributes/qualities of the subject; the indispensable or superior nature of the subject (usually using the technique of comparison to demonstrate this superiority and often listing the rewards that accompany the subject of praise); a concluding command urging the reader to emulate the subject that has been praised.
encounter story/narrative.: A story in which the central situation is one character’s confronting another character or a group; synonymous with confrontation story. God’s accosting of Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3) and Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:1–26) are classic encounter stories.
epic.: A long narrative having the following characteristics or ingredients: expansiveness and grandness; the story of a nation or group (nationalistic emphasis), not simply an individual; a unifying hero; motifs of warfare, conquest, kingdom, rulership; presence of supernatural characters and events (what literary critics have traditionally called “the marvelous”); exalted style. Epics are very important to societies; in fact, they sum up what a whole culture wants to say about itself and about life. The story of Israel’s exodus from Egypt is the most obvious epic in the Bible, but there are epiclike stories in abundance, and the life of David can be considered an epic.
epiphany.: A moment of heightened insight or revelation in a story; it usually comes late in a story and casts a retrospective light on the meaning of the story as a whole.
epistle.: A NT letter that possesses the usual ingredients and structure of letters generally. An epistle is not a sermon or treatise. Most NT epistles are occasional letters, meaning that specific questions or crises gave rise to them and shaped their content. NT epistles, except for Romans, are thus not freestanding treatises; they are embedded in a specific occasion and setting. NT epistles follow the customary conventions of Greek and Roman letters of the same era, with modifications. Three of the stock ingredients of NT epistles correspond to the letters of the day: salutation, body, and conclusion. But even here we find innovations, as the salutation, for example, becomes a theologically charged “grace and peace” formula, and the body deals specifically with moral and religious issues. Additionally, NT letters have two unique units: a thanksgiving that consists of a liturgically formulated statement of thanks and praise for spiritual blessings, and a paraenesis composed of lists of virtues and vices, or moral commands.
epithalamion.: A wedding poem that celebrates a specific occasion (a wedding), not simply the institution of marriage. Psalm 45 and the Song of Solomon are biblical epithalamia.
epithet.: An exalted title for a person or thing; a feature of the high style. Examples are “the Lord of hosts” as a title for God and “Darius the Mede” as a title of the Persian king (Dan. 5:31).
eschatological discourse.: A vision of what will happen at the very end of human history and just prior to that end; synonymous with end times discourse.
etiology.: The nonliterary dictionary definition is “assignment of a cause or origin” to something. As a literary term, etiology is sometimes used in the broad sense as synonymous with story of origins, but more precisely it is a story that tells how a person or place received its name. An example is Genesis 11:1–9, which explains how the unfinished city of Babel received its name. Etiologies link the origin of a name to a historical event and are not fictional stories composed to explain an already-existing name.
exile motif; story of exile.: An exile is a person or group that has been forced to leave home or nation. A poem or story based on exile recounts the process of being expelled and/or the experience of living in exile.
exposition.: The opening phase of a story, in which the writer presents the background information that readers need to know in order to understand the plot that follows.
expository writing.: Writing (ordinarily in prose) in which the main purpose is to convey information.
fantasy.: A work of literature or a passage that portrays events, characters, settings, or images that do not literally exist in the real world (though details in a work of fantasy may be metaphors of real-life people or experiences). Whereas realistic literature gives us a replica of the known world, fantasy whisks us away to an alternate world of the imagination. In fantasy, horses can be red (Rev. 6:4), a branch can build a temple (Zech. 6:12), and a goat’s horn can reach to the heavens and throw stars to the ground (Dan. 8:8–10). Fantasy presents real events, places, or characters, but it does not present them in their literal form. For example, a great red dragon that sweeps down a third of the stars of heaven (Rev. 12:3–4) refers to a real being, Satan, but does not give a literal portrayal of him.
farewell discourse.: An address by a prophetic or political leader to followers at or close to his or her death. The aim of the discourse is to prepare followers for the loss of their leader. Customary motifs include the following: the leader’s summoning of followers; announcement of impending death; review of the leader’s past relations with his or her followers; exhortations to remain faithful to the leader’s teachings; revelations about the future, including the difficulties that the followers will face in the absence of their leader; warnings; predictions of woes and controversies; words of comfort and promise; prayers and blessings pronounced on the followers; appointment of a successor.
foil.: Something within a work of literature that heightens or “sets off” (the literal meaning of the word foil) a main element in the work; usually a foil is a contrast, but sometimes it is a parallel. In the story of the separation of Abraham and Lot (Genesis 13), Lot’s selfishness and worldly-mindedness are foils that highlight Abraham’s generosity and willingness to live a life of faith in God’s promises.
genealogy.: A list of ancestors. The genealogies of the Bible serve as many as five purposes: they reflect the interest of biblical cultures in family and individual origins or roots; they express the continuity of generations (for either good or evil); they show the importance that God places on individuals (named individuality is important in the genealogies); they root biblical faith in space-time history; they embody theological meaning (as, for example, in the genealogies that trace the messianic line).
genre.: Literary type or kind. The two biggest genres are story (narrative) and poetry. But as we move across the continuum from these general categories to very specific ones, we end up with genres like doxology, taunt, and travel story. Genres have their own conventions (ways of conducting their literary business), and they need to be interpreted in keeping with these conventions. Considerations of genre also help program our experience of a text, alerting us beforehand what to be looking for as we read.
golden age vision/prophecy.: A picture of a future era of total bliss and abundance. This is a common genre in the OT prophetic books. Lavishness of imagery characterizes the genre.
good life motif.: The portrayal of an ideal place and way of life. A leading impulse in literature is to portray the good life. Abraham and Sarah’s entertainment of the heavenly visitors (Gen. 18:1–8) pictures the good life conceived in pastoral (rural) terms. The city scene portrayed in Zechariah 8:3–8 is an urban picture of the good life.
Gospel.: A narrative genre of the NT that tells the story of the life of Jesus. Primarily the Gospels inform us about the person and work of Christ. The material is divided approximately evenly between narrative (events) and discourses. The Gospels combine three primary ingredients: Jesus’ teaching and preaching (what Jesus said and taught); Jesus’ actions (what Jesus did); the responses of people to Jesus (what others said and did). Jesus’ conversations and controversies are a hybrid that combine all three ingredients: they are a form of teaching, they are speech acts that have the effect of an action, and they involve people’s responses to Jesus. Numerous subgenres converge in the Gospels—birth stories; stories of calling, recognition, witness/testimony, conflict/controversy, encounter, miracle, pronouncement; sayings, parables, and discourses/sermons by Jesus; passion and resurrection stories. The overall aim of the Gospels is persuasive, as the writers seek to give readers adequate reasons for believing that Jesus is the Savior of the world and to appeal to them to place their faith in Jesus. The Gospels thus have affinities with biography, but biography tends to be packaged as a straightforward factual account, not as an embodiment of dialogues, stories, and discourses.
hero.: A protagonist whose experience is representative of people generally and who is either wholly or largely ideal in behavior and character.
hero story; heroic narrative.: A story built around the character and exploits of a protagonist who is (a) representative of a whole community and (b) largely or wholly exemplary/idealized. The Bible is in many ways a collection of hero stories, and one of the distinctive features of these stories is that only a few of its heroes are completely idealized, in keeping with the essential realism of the Bible.
horror story.: A story that portrays frightening or grotesque experiences in such a way as to make a reader feel terror. The story of the ten plagues (Exodus 7–12) and the narrative of the murderous rape of the concubine (Judges 19) are examples of horror stories in the Bible.
hyperbole.: A figure of speech in which a writer consciously exaggerates for the sake of effect; usually that effect is emotional, so that we can loosely say that hyperbole usually expresses emotional truth rather than literal truth. The psalmist’s statement that “my tears have been my food day and night” (Ps. 42:3) is a hyperbole.
idyll (also spelled idyl).: A short work of literature that describes a simple, pleasant aspect of rural and/or domestic life. The book of Ruth is an idyl.
image.: A word or phrase that names a concrete action or thing. By extension, a character, setting, or event in a story is an image—a concrete embodiment of human experience or an idea.
image pattern.: Multiple occurrences of an image in a passage or work of literature. Images of emptiness and fullness are an image pattern in the book of Ruth. An image pattern in Psalm 121 is words referring to a journey.
imagery.: The whole span of images in a piece of writing, and/or patterns of images in a piece of writing. For example, in Psalm 1 we find the imagery of the path or way, the assembly, and nature or harvest.
inciting event/moment/agent.: The second phase of a well-made plot, following the opening exposition; the thing that sets the main action and plot conflict into motion when it is added to the situation already introduced.
initiation motif; story of initiation.: A story or situation in which characters are introduced to something for the first time and/or undergo an experience for the first time.
invitation to love.: A genre of love poetry in which the speaker invites the beloved to a life of mutual love, or to some specific action such as going for a walk in nature (which is usually metaphoric of a life of mutual love). Song of Solomon 2:8–15 is a pastoral invitation to love.
irony.: An incongruity or discrepancy. Three main categories of literary irony exist: (1) dramatic irony, in which a reader knows more than characters in a story know; (2) verbal irony, in which writers or speakers say the opposite of what they mean; (3) irony of situation, in which a situation is strikingly incongruous with (or even the opposite of) what is expected or appropriate. An example of irony of situation is Lot’s arguing with his angelic rescuers about the escape route as his home city is about to go up in smoke (Gen. 19:17–20).
journey motif; journey narrative.: A story in which the focus of the plot is on the journeying of a person or group, usually toward a goal.
lament; lament psalm; psalm of lament.: A genre of psalm in which the speaker in the poem defines a crisis and invokes God for help. Five ingredients are usually present in a biblical lament psalm: invocation or cry to God; definition of the crisis (which the psalmists often call a complaint); petition to God to deliver; statement of confidence in God; vow to praise God. All lament poems are occasional poems, meaning that they arise from a specific event in an individual’s or nation’s life.
love story.: A story in which the central story line involves romantic love between a man and a woman. Such a story almost always deals with courtship rather than married life, even though its goal is marriage. Common motifs include the following: an idealized man and woman who are worthy of each other; background observers to the romance; a go-between or matchmaker; a confidant for the lovers; a rival lover; a memorable first meeting; meetings or rendezvous in secret places; good-bye scenes; bestowing of favors on the beloved; overcoming of obstacles to the romance; betrothal as a high point; expressions of compliment and affection toward the beloved; heightened sentiments expressed in heightened language. The Song of Solomon serves as the chief example in the Bible.
lyric.: A short poem that expresses the thoughts and/or feelings of a speaker. Lyrics capture an experience, feeling, or idea at the height of its intensity. Lyrics unfold according to a three-part structure: (1) introduction to the thought, feeling, or situation to which the poet is responding; (2) development of the main theme; (3) rounding off the poem on a note of resolution and closure. Lyric poets use as many as four ways of developing their theme: repetition; contrast; catalog or listing; association (in which the poet branches out from the initial motif to a related one). Lyrics do not ordinarily tell a story, and they often have a disjointed structure in which the poet jumps from one thought or feeling to another one.
metaphor.: An implied comparison that does not use the formula like or as: “The Lord is my shepherd” (Ps. 23:1).
miracle story.: An account of a supernatural action on behalf of one or more people. Standard elements in such a story are as follows: a need is established; the help of Jesus or a prophet is sought; the person in need expresses faith or obedience; a miracle occurs; characters in the story respond to the miracle and/or the miracle worker.
moment of epiphany.: A point of heightened insight that occurs to a character in a story, with the reader of course sharing the insight or revelation. A moment of epiphany ordinarily comes late in a story and is in effect a statement of the main idea of the story. It also casts a retrospective light on the story and expresses an interpretive framework within which to understand the preceding action. For example, late in Joseph’s story Joseph twice makes key statements about his experience of redemptive suffering (Gen. 45:5–8 and 50:20–21).
motif.: A discernible pattern composed of similar individual units, either in a single work or in literature generally. Psalm 23 is built around the motif of a shepherd’s daily provision for his sheep. Jesus’ special concern for outcasts and marginalized people is a motif in the Gospel of Luke.
narrative.: A sequence of events composed of the three ingredients of plot, setting, and character. Synonymous with story.
narrator.: The voice or presenter in a work of literature; the speaker in the work, whom we get to know as an explicit or implied character.
nature poem; nature psalm.: A poem that takes nature as its subject. Such poems describe and praise nature, usually by painting word pictures of nature and expressing emotional responses to nature.
occasional poem; occasional literature.: A literary work that takes its origin from a specific historical event or situation in a writer’s life. Psalm 84 is an occasional poem that arose from the experience of worshiping God at the temple in Jerusalem. The NT epistles are occasional letters that refer to specific problems and happenings in a given local church.
ode.: An exalted lyric poem that deals with a dignified subject in an elevated style. An ode is the most exalted type of lyric. Examples include Psalms 104 and 139.
oracle.: A pronouncement from God, usually mediated through a human prophet.
oracle of blessing.: A prophetic genre in which either the prophet himself or the prophet as conveyer of God’s message pronounces or predicts blessing on a group, nation, or individual. The rhetorical forms that appear in such oracles include straightforward pronouncements of blessing; promises of blessing; catalogs of the specific forms of prosperity that the blessing will take.
oracle of judgment.: A prophetic genre in which either the prophet himself or the prophet as conveyer of God’s message predicts calamity for a group, nation, or individual. The predicted judgment is pictured as God’s punishment for sin. The rhetorical form by which the calamity is portrayed is either a catalog of catastrophes or a portrait of misfortune. An oracle of judgment is an example of satire: there are discernible objects of attack, a literary form in which the abuses are concretely embodied, and a stated or implied standard of judgment by which evildoers are being criticized.
oracle of redemption or salvation;.: A prophetic genre in which either the prophet himself or the prophet as conveyer of God’s message predicts that God will save or redeem a group, nation, or individual. The oracle predicts that at a future time God will restore the fortunes of the recipients of the oracle. The most common rhetorical pattern is the catalog of blessings that God will bestow. Alternatively, the prophet paints a picture of an ideal situation. The picture of restored favor with God can focus on either earthly prosperity or spiritual salvation from sin.
parable.: A brief allegorical story that embodies one or more themes. The allegorical nature of a parable means that we need to identify a corresponding “other” meaning for at least some of the details in the story. The word parable is based on two Greek words meaning “to throw alongside,” signaling that double meaning is at the heart of the genre. As a story, a parable requires ordinary narrative analysis of plot, setting, and character.
paradox (adjective form: paradoxical).: An apparent contradiction that, upon analysis, can be seen to express a truth. The contradiction in a paradox must be resolved or explained before we have identified its truth. Proverbs 12:10 states a paradox: “The mercy of the wicked is cruel.”
paraenesis.: Sections in the NT epistles that list moral virtues and vices, or collections of moral commands to practice specific virtues and avoid specific vices. The Greek word paraenesis (pronounced para-NEES-us) means moral instruction or exhortation. No substitute English term has gained currency.
parallelism.: Any successive series of phrases or lines that have the same grammatical format, such as “whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely” (Phil. 4:8). More technically, parallelism is the verse form in which virtually all biblical poetry is written. While there are specific types of the verse form of parallelism (antithetic parallelism, synonymous parallelism, synthetic parallelism, climactic parallelism), the overriding idea that covers all of them is this: parallelism consists of two or more lines that form a pattern based on repetition or balance of thought and grammar and/or syntax.
parody.: A work or passage of literature that imitates or echoes a specific work of literature or a literary genre, but with altered (and sometimes opposite) effect compared to the original. The result is to drastically alter the meaning of the original. For example, when the prophet Amos says, “Come to Bethel, and transgress” (Amos 4:4), he is parodying the priestly exhortation to worship with inverted (satiric) effect.
passion story.: A story that recounts the circumstances surrounding the trial and crucifixion of Jesus.
pastoral literature.: Literature in which the setting, characters, and actions are those that belong to the world of shepherding. Usually the pastoral world is presented as an idealized “good place” and becomes symbolic of the good life. Much love poetry is pastoral poetry, on the ground that the beautiful rural setting provides an appropriate place for idealized love to occur. Sometimes the characters and events in a pastoral work are allegorical in nature, referring to real-life people and events.
penitential psalm.: A psalm in which the speaker confesses sin, expresses sorrow for sin, describes the effects of guilt, and petitions God for forgiveness and/or celebrates God’s forgiveness.
personification.: A figure of speech in which human attributes are given to something nonhuman, such as animals, objects, or abstract qualities. Wisdom and Folly are personified as women in Proverbs 1–9. Light and truth are personified as guides in Psalm 43:3.
plot.: The sequence of events in a story. The essence of plot is one or more conflicts that reach resolution and closure by the end of the story. Plot conflicts can pit the protagonist against the environment, other characters, the supernatural, or himself or herself. The sequence of a plot usually unfolds according to the following phases: exposition (background information); inciting moment/force/incident; rising action; turning point (the point from which, in retrospect, we can see how the action will be eventually be resolved, even though we do not know the details); further complication; denouement (tying up of loose ends).
poetic justice.: A situation in which virtue is rewarded and vice is punished.
poetic license.: The tendency of poetry to rely on figures of speech rather than literal statement.
poetry.: Writing that employs a preponderance of imagery and figures of speech and that is written in a verse form (in the Bible, nearly always some form of parallelism).
praise psalm; psalm of praise.: A lyric genre in which the speaker praises God, specifically. Praise psalms fall into three phases: (1) a formal call to praise, potentially including the command to praise, the recipient of the command, and the mode of praise; (2) a catalog of the praiseworthy acts and attributes of God (on rare occasions replaced by a portrait of God); (3) a note of resolution or closure (such as a concluding benediction or prayer). The overall purpose of a praise psalm is to elevate and exalt the worthiness of God.
pronouncement story.: A Gospel subtype that pairs an event with one or more memorable statements by Jesus, so that the story and saying(s) are remembered together. An example of a pronouncement story is Mark 2:15–17, where the story of Jesus’ being criticized for eating with sinners is linked to Jesus’ saying about the sick rather than the healthy needing a physician.
prophecy.: The discourse of a prophet. A prophet mainly tells forth the word of God. Often (though not always) the prophet’s message also foretells the future. The utterance of a prophet is called an oracle—a message from God, ordinarily through the mediation of a prophet. Depending on the content of the message, an oracle can be an oracle of judgment, an oracle of salvation or redemption, or an oracle of blessing. The oracle of judgment usually focuses on a present state of affairs in the prophet’s own nation or an adjoining nation, and because this social and moral critique contains an element of attack, the genre of satire is operative as well. In addition to depicting the evils of a society, prophecy incorporates denunciation of those evils. Visions of the future in prophetic writing include golden-age visions of a coming restoration and perfection. The three main themes of prophetic writing are sin, judgment, and restoration/redemption. Often prophetic writing is visionary writing, and much of it falls into the genres of apocalyptic writing and eschatology.
protagonist.: Based on the Greek words for “first struggler,” the main character in a story, whether sympathetic or unsympathetic.
proverb.: A concise, memorable statement of a general truth. Proverbs express an insight into the repeatable situations of life. They are often so striking that they do not merely express an insight but compel it. Proverbs are simultaneously simple and profound, specific and universal. Proverbs achieve their memorable quality through tighter-than-normal syntax, figurative language, and (frequently) the verse form of parallelism. Proverbs are the human race’s testimony to its own experience, and they grow out of close observation, usually of the social and human scene.
psalm.: Strictly speaking, a psalm is a lyric poem that appears in the Psalter (the collection of 150 psalms that constitute the OT book of Psalms). But a lyric that appears elsewhere in the Bible can legitimately be called a psalm as well.
quest motif; quest story.: A sequence of events in which a character or group progresses toward a goal.
realism.: Writing marked by two different literary characteristics: at the level of subject matter, the portrayal of unideal or sordid human experiences; at the level of technique, reliance on an abundance of concrete details taken from everyday life. In both cases, realism gives us a “slice of life,” and practitioners of realism claim as their goal to portray life “as it is.”
recognition story.: A story that turns upon one or more characters’ perceiving something noteworthy. The designation is most often used of a subgenre in the NT Gospels in which characters recognize that Jesus is the Christ and further recognize the deeper meanings or implications of this. But a looser application of the term extends it to any narrative situation in which characters recognize something significant, usually about God. For example, the Israelites on Mount Carmel are led to recognize that the Lord is God (1 Kings 18).
reform story; reformation story.: A story in which an individual or nation reverses a negative situation by resolving to follow God and a course of right action. Ordinarily the story narrates the circumstances leading up to the change and also the specific changes in behavior that followed the resolve to reform.
rescue story.: A story that portrays deliverance from a dire situation or a situation of immediate and impending disaster. Such stories follow a U-shaped pattern: first we are shown the situation that requires deliverance and then the steps by which the characters in the dire situation are rescued from it. A rescue requires one or more people in need of rescue and an agent of rescue. The Bible is an anthology of rescue stories.
resurrection story.: A story about a character who returns to life after having been dead. Often the label is limited to the events surrounding the resurrection of Jesus as narrated in the Gospels, but any story in the Bible in which a dead person comes back to life is a resurrection story.
return story.: A story in which individuals or groups return to a place from which they have been absent. The return is often accompanied by a sense of restoration of what had been lost.
revenge story.: A story in which the mainspring of the plot is a character’s exacting justice against a hostile person or group.
reversal.: An element of plot in which the action takes a turn opposite to what had prevailed up to that point; often reversal entails the added element that an action produces the opposite effect of that intended by the character who performed it.
rhetoric.: Rhetoric has always meant two things to literary people: (1) a writer’s strategies of persuasion and (2) discourse that is ornamented or embellished with certain conventional techniques (such as figurative language or patterns of repetition).
rhetorical question.: A question that is asked for the sake of effect rather than to elicit an answer. The answer to a rhetorical question is obvious and is therefore left unstated. A rhetorical question is a standard way to express emotion or strong conviction.
royal psalm.: A psalm that takes the king or kingship as its subject. Some of the royal psalms are spoken by a king. Motifs include rulership, the nation, God’s covenant with David and the nation of Israel, and the coming Messiah as the perfect king.
salutation.: The opening elements of a letter, including as many as three ingredients: sender/author, recipient, greeting.
satire.: The exposure, through ridicule or abuse, of human vice or folly. Four main elements make up satire: (1) one or more objects of attack; (2) a discernible literary vehicle (such as story or a list of vices) in which the attack is embodied; (3) a satiric norm or standard of correctness by which the criticism is conducted; (4) a satiric tone (either biting or laughing).
saying.: In a biblical context, a proverb or aphorism.
setting.: The place(s) in a story or narrative within which the action occurs. When one is analyzing a story, it is important to explore the contribution that setting makes to the action. Possible functions include these: providing a suitable “container” for the characters and events; symbolizing qualities that are important in the story; establishing atmosphere.
simile.: A figure of speech in which a writer compares two things using the formula like or as. Psalm 1:3 is a simile: “He is like a tree planted by streams of water.”
soliloquy.: A statement uttered by a speaker while alone; as readers or listeners, we overhear the speech. Examples are Jeremiah’s musings in Jeremiah 15:10–14 and Job’s taking stock of his own innocence in Job 31.
song of victory.: A lyric genre belonging to war literature. A song of victory celebrates a military victory and thanks God for it. Often references in the poem create the impression that the poem is spoken on the battlefield immediately after the battle is over. Biblical songs of victory can be found in Exodus 15, Judges 5, and Psalm 18.
story.: A sequence of events made up of plot, setting, and characters. Synonymous with narrative.
story of origins.: A story that recounts how something began. The preeminent example is the Genesis account of creation and fall from innocence. Genesis, the Bible’s “book of beginnings,” also contains numerous individual stories of origin, and there are scattered examples beyond that. Exodus 12–13 tells the story of the origin of the Passover.
stream of consciousness.: A literary structure in which the content of the work unfolds in a random way that corresponds to how the human mind organizes thoughts, feelings, and consciousness. Such a structure aims to re-create the flow of the mind, and it has a psychological cast. In Song of Solomon 2:3–7, the thoughts of the woman follow a stream-of-consciousness structure.
succession story.: A story involving the transfer of leadership from one leader or prophet to the next. Sometimes the early exploits of the successor are also called a succession story.
symbol; symbolism.: Any detail in a work of literature that stands for something else. In biblical poetry, for example, God’s right arm symbolizes his power.
symbolic reality.: A technique in which the details that we encounter as we read a work consist so thoroughly of symbols that we enter an imagined world consisting primarily of symbols. The book of Revelation is the supreme example of symbolic reality in the Bible, but the technique also is evident elsewhere in the prophetic books.
synonymous parallelism.: A type of parallelism in which two or more lines state the same general idea in different words or images but in similar grammatical form; the second (and sometimes third) line repeats the content of all or part of the first line. Psalm 46:7 is an example: “The Lord of hosts is with us; / the God of Jacob is our fortress.”
synthetic (“growing”) parallelism.: A type of parallelism in which the second line completes the thought of the first line without repeating anything from the first line. An example is Psalm 104:5: “He set the earth on its foundations, / so that it should never be moved.”
taunt; taunt song.: Any work of literature in which the central ingredient is a mocking, jeering, or put-down of an enemy or guilty party, often in a formalized manner (such as a list of coming woes or a rehearsal of the details of a defeat that has been inflicted on an enemy). The largest repository of taunts in the Bible is the prophetic books, and the next largest repository is battle stories.
temptation story.: A story in which the plot revolves around the temptation of one or more characters by an agent of temptation. A temptation story features, at the very least, a victim of the temptation and an agent of temptation. In a full-fledged temptation story, we witness a threefold pattern: the luring of a victim toward an evil action by the agent of temptation; a process in which the agent of temptation manipulates the victim and in which (usually) the victim initially resists the temptation but gradually weakens; the final succumbing to the temptation (though there is always a possibility that the intended victim will successfully resist).
thanksgiving.: A standard section of the NT epistles, usually coming immediately after the salutation. The usual content is a prayer for the spiritual welfare of the recipients of the letter, remembrance of past relations between author and recipients, and commendation or enumeration of the spiritual riches that the recipients have in Christ.
theme.: A generalization about life that can be deduced from a work of literature. Works of literature usually embody multiple themes. A theme in the story of Cain (Genesis 4:1–16) is the self-destructiveness of uncontrolled sin in a person’s life. A theme of Psalm 23 is the contentment that comes from resting in the sufficiency of God’s provision.
theophany.: A work of literature that describes an appearance of God in visible form. Often the description pictures spectacular forces of nature like thunder and lightning.
tragedy.: A narrative form that presents an exceptional calamity stemming from a protagonist’s wrong choice. At the heart of tragedy is the tragic hero’s choice, and from the time of Aristotle critics have agreed that we can see a notable hamartia—a missing of the mark—in the wrong choice that the tragic hero makes. Tragedy is a story of retribution or punishment for sinful action. A full-fledged tragedy unfolds according to the following sequence: exposition (background or prelude to tragedy); dilemma (as the hero is drawn in two directions); choice; catastrophe; suffering; tragic perception or recognition (sometimes absent); death. The two full-fledged literary tragedies in the Bible are the OT stories of Samson and King Saul, but there are numerous brief tragedies scattered throughout the historical books and the parables of Jesus.
transformation story.: A story in which a character undergoes a drastic change or reversal. Gideon is transformed from a reluctant leader suffering from an inferiority complex into a heroic leader who conquers his nation’s enemy. The apostle Paul is transformed from a zealous persecutor of Christians into a Christian missionary.
travel story.: A story in which a leading action is the journeying of a person or group through a series of places. One reason this genre is so prevalent (including in the Bible) is the literary motifs that converge in a travel story: variety of adventure; danger; risk; suspense; testing; encounters with a range of characters; quest; flight; escape; exile; wandering.
utopia; utopian literature.: Portrayal of a “good place” or ideal society, along with an explanation of the institutions and rules that undergird and produce that society. The word utopia is based on two Greek words meaning “no place,” but they are a pun on the Greek words meaning “good place.” The book of Deuteronomy outlines the contours of a godly society and includes the laws that help to produce it.
visionary writing.: The essential feature of visionary writing is that it presents material that is envisioned as opposed to something that exists in the real world. Another literary term for this genre is fantasy—writing that presents characters, events, or scenes that exist only in the imagination and not in the real world. A dragon with seven heads and trees clapping their hands belong to the realm of visionary writing. Even though such details are unlifelike at a literal level, they nonetheless picture events, people, places, and human emotions that really exist. The places in the Bible where we are most likely to confront visionary writing are the prophetic books and eschatological predictions surrounding the end times. Two kinds of alternate reality appear in visionary writing, and they may be combined in the same passage: (1) the writer transports us to a world of the imagination that transcends earthly reality; (2) the writer keeps us rooted in the known world but envisions a future time when conditions that now exist are radically altered (for example, the empire that is in power at the time of writing has been toppled). The structure of visionary writing is typically a pageant of brief, constantly shifting pictures.
vocation story.: A story in which either a prophet or a disciple receives a call from God to perform a task, enter a vocation, or follow Jesus. Also goes by the label calling story.
wisdom literature.: A branch of biblical literature in which the writer depends mainly on the proverb as the basic unit. The OT books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes and the NT book of James are the leading biblical examples of wisdom literature.
witness story.: A subgenre in the Gospels in which a character testifies about the person and work of Jesus. Three questions converge in such stories: who (the witness); what (the testimony); why (the proof, which might include circumstances). Synonymous with testimony story.
worship psalm.: A psalm built around the experience of worshiping God, almost always specifically in the temple in Jerusalem. Also called song of Zion.