We begin our look at the various forms (genres) present in the Bible by looking at narrative, because it is probably the most familiar to us.

Biblical narrative is best understood as a purposeful retelling of historical events. It is a story, designed to be told (not read) and remembered, but one that is historical rather than a fairy-tale. Narrative is the most common biblical genre. It is also the most similar to what we use today, as it is in many ways similar to a movie or a TV drama. In fact, many of the biblical narratives have been made in to blockbuster movies or theatrical productions e.g. The Ten Commandments, Joseph and his Technicolor Dreamcoat, Esther and various incarnations of Jesus’ life and times.

From an early age most of us have been indoctrinated with various story-telling conventions: “Once upon a time… they all lived happily ever after.”; the concept of a narrator; interior monologue (i.e. hearing a character’s thoughts) etc. Hebrew narrative has its own distinct characteristics, some quite similar to our own, some not. Here are some of the common features of Hebrew narrative:

• Narrator: The narrator tells the story, and is responsible for establishing the point of view. Most commonly in the narratives in the Bible the narrator is not identified. In the end, however, it is the narrator’s point of view that gives us our best clue as to God’s point of view on the events being retold.
• Scenes: Hebrew narrative is ‘scenic’ (i.e. made up of, and driven forward by, many ‘scenes’), much like a modern day movie or TV drama. Each scene has its own integrity, but it is the arrangement of them that tells the story.
• Characters: Unlike modern literature, Hebrew characterisation tended to have very little to do with physical appearance. More important are things like status (e.g. wise, wealthy etc.), profession (baker, carpenter etc.) and tribal affiliation (a Benjaminite, an Amalakite etc.). Characters often appear in contrast or parallel. For example, in 1 Samuel we receive a clear contrast between two Kings: Saul and David. Similarly in the book of Esther, Mordecai and Haman are shown to be opposites.

Because they are so similar to what we are used to, it is easy to fall in to treating biblical narrative the way we would treat any other story or history that we might read. It should be noted that biblical narrative:

• Doesn’t usually teach doctrine, although it often illustrates doctrine taught elsewhere.
• Records what happened, not what could or should have happened. We can’t necessarily take what we read as being an example for us to follow. e.g. in Judges 6:36-40 Gideon looks for guidance by laying a fleece outside overnight and interpreting the way the dew fell (or didn’t) on it to be an indicator of God’s will. Some have taken this to mean that we, too, should set out our own spiritual ‘fleece’ – “If someone from Wollongong calls this week it means God wants me to take a job down there”, “If she says yes then it was obviously meant to be,” or even “If iTunes pops out Michael Jackson on shuffle then God is saying I should go out dancing”! Looking at the story more closely, however, leads us to recognise that God answered in spite of Gideon’s lack of faith – after all, who needs signs like that when they’re already talking face to face with God¹?
• Doesn’t always tell us whether described events were ‘good’ or ‘bad’. We must work this out for ourselves, based on what is taught elsewhere. e.g. readers of 2 Samuel 11 won’t find a statement saying, “In committing adultery David did wrong,” but are instead expected to know because it is explicitly taught elsewhere².
• Doesn’t always have a ‘moral’. In this way narratives are different to parables, which always have a point that the listener is supposed to learn from.
• Doesn’t necessarily give all the relevant details. What is given is what the inspired author thought important for us to know.

How not to read Biblical narrative

Here are some of the most common errors of interpretation:

• Allegorising: This is where, instead of focusing on the clear meaning of the text, people instead decide that it is merely reflecting some other meaning beyond the text.
• Decontextualising: This refers to taking a given narrative out of its historical and literary context and studying it in isolation. This leads to us missing interpretational clues, and hence to some very strange interpretations indeed.
• Selectivity: Similar to decontextualising, selectivity involves focusing on particular words and phrases and ignoring the overall narrative. As an extreme example, one preacher reportedly argued that women should never wear their hair up in a topknot (i.e. a ‘bun’) because the Bible says “topknot go down” (“Let him that is on the housetop not go down”³ )!
• Moralising: This is the assumption that all passages contain some sort of principles for living. The narratives were written, however, to show the steady progress through history of God’s plan for redemption, rather than to illustrate principles.
• Personalising: Reading Scripture in a self-centred way, believing that certain or all parts apply to you in a way that they don’t apply to everyone else. e.g. “The story of David and Goliath is God’s way of telling me that I must overcome my own giants.”
  

  It is our conviction that the primary reason Christians have often read the Old Testament narratives so poorly, finding things that are not really there, is… the tendency to “flatten” everything because they assume that everything God has said in his Word is thereby a direct word to them. Thus they wrongly expect that everything in the Bible applies directly as instruction for their own individual lives.⁴

• Misappropriating: Using a text for purposes that are quite foreign to the narrative. e.g. ‘fleecing’ God as described above.
• Falsely appropriating: Reading into the text ideas that come from our contemporary culture that are utterly foreign to the text and context. e.g. some read 1 Samuel 20:41 where Jonathan and David “kissed each other” to mean they had a homosexual relationship. In reality, however, their relationship was one of covenant – read the next verse “Jonathan said to David, ‘Go in peace, for we have sworn friendship with each other in the name of the LORD'” (42).
• Falsely combining: This is taking elements from here and there in a passage, even though they are not connected in the narrative itself, to make a point that isn’t there.
• Redefining: This is where we redefine something to be something else. e.g. in 2 Chronicles 7:14-15, God promises that “‘If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place.'” Clearly this refers to the recently built temple, in Jerusalem, but we may be tempted to change “this place” to refer to Australia, or Sydney, or the Shire. The reality, however, is that we are to live as “strangers in the world”⁵, and as those “longing for a better country – a heavenly one,”⁶ not to be caught up in this land.

How to read a Biblical narrative

So far we have mostly looked at what not to do when reading Biblical narrative. Let’s now look at things a little more positively

Biblical narrative occurs on 3 levels:

• Individual scenes;
• Collections of scenes that form a bigger story; and
• Collections of stories that outline a major theme.

In understanding the narrative in its original context, then, we need to understand it on all 3 of these levels. For example, consider the account of Moses and the Burning Bush⁷. The individual scene shows Moses out in the desert tending his father-in-law’s sheep, when he stumbles across a bush that was burning but did not burn up. He then converses with God, who instructs him to go and seek the release of the people of Israel from Egypt. To properly understand this scene, however, you need to know that it is part of a larger story – the exodus (exit) of Israel from Egypt. By viewing it in this context, you learn that Israel had been in Egypt some 400 years, initially as guests and refugees from the famine in their own land, but more recently as slaves. Similarly we learn that Moses himself was a fugitive from Egypt, having killed a man⁸. This is the second level of narrative. The third level is bigger again – the theme is well summarised in Exodus 2:25 “God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them”. God has made promises to his people, and he is faithful to honour them. Those promises don’t involve being slaves in Egypt, and so God is acting through Moses to set them free.

Here, then, are some of the questions to ask of a Biblical narrative:

1. Who are the characters? What do we know about them?
2. What are the events of the passage? Why are they significant?
3. What is the narrator’s perspective on the events and characters of the story? What is God’s perspective?
4. Is the story intended to teach us something? If so, what?
5. Is this story part of a larger story? What is its role in advancing that larger story?

For example, let us consider the story of David and Bathsheba⁹.

Who are the characters? What do we know about them? Clearly the central character of this passage is David. He is the one responsible for all of the actions in this passage – he sends Joab and the army out to war (1), sends for Bathsehba (4), recalls Uriah (6), and orders Joab to have Uriah killed (14-15). We know that he is the King of Israel.

What are the events of the passage? Why are they significant? David, having sent his army off to war but stayed home himself, spots Bathsheba bathing and has sex with her. When he learns that she is pregnant, he first tries to cover it up by trickery, and when that fails he resorts instead to murder. All of this is significant because it show God’s anointed king, David, acting contrary to God’s laws.

What is the narrator’s perspective on the events and characters of the story? What is God’s perspective? The narrator gives us a little bit of implicit commentary right from the start of the passage. “In the spring, when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army.” (1). So David was not acting as the king was expected to act, by staying home. The narrator is also quite clear on the fact that David knew what he was doing was wrong – he knew that Bathsheba was married before he sent for her, and his conscience obviously impelled him to try and cover up afterwards. The narrator also sets David up in contrast with Uriah – Uriah’s self-discipline is emphasised in order to further condemn David’s lack¹⁰.

Is the story intended to teach us something? If so, what? Much of the interpretation of this story is found in the next chapter, 2 Samuel 12, but even without reading that chapter we can learn some things:

• David’s decision to stay home from war gave him opportunity to sin.
• Disobeying God’s law (e.g. “You shall not commit adultery.”¹¹) has serious consequences.
• By trying to cover up his sin, David only lead himself to commit more sin.
• … and many others!

Is this story part of a larger story? What is its role in advancing that larger story? Back in 2 Samuel 7, God made some promises to David, including:

• A place for Israel (10)
• A house (i.e. a lineage) for David, who will rule God’s kingdom forever (11-16)

We understand from this story, then, that David is not God’s ultimate king, who will rule forever – he is an imperfect foreshadowing of that king.

Special notes for Acts

In many ways, the book of Acts may be treated in exactly the same way as any Old Testament narrative. However most Christians do not read Acts in the same way they read from the Old Testament. This is because the Old Testament is commonly seen as ‘pre-Christian’, and therefore we do not necessarily consider the customs presented there as being ‘examples’ for us or our church. Even those that we do, such as the ‘fleecing’ of God mentioned above, we treat metaphoriaclly – we do not put an actual fleece out.

Acts is different, though, because it is a part of the Christian era. Many churches today aspire to being able to ‘return’ to the church depicted in Acts. They, rightly or wrongly, consider the Acts church to be normative, that is to say they consider it to be an example that all churches should be modelled on.

Whilst there is some validity in this view, I do not believe it is as easy as that. For example, should we give up all of our possessions to be held on our behalf by the church¹²? Should we expect that God will strike down those who skimp on their giving¹³?

I would encourage you to keep in mind the earlier warnings for dealing with narratives, even when reading the book of Acts. e.g. Not every story has a moral, we are not always told whether actions are good or bad but should interpret based on other Scripture etc.

Further Reading

• Gordon D. Fee & Douglas Stuart, “The Old Testament Narratives: Their Proper Use” and “Acts: The Question of Precedent” in How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth (3rd Edition, Zondervan, 2003) pp. 89-125
• Julius A. Bewer, “Early Narratives” in The Literature of the Old Testament (Revised Edition, Columbia University Press, 1933) pp. 21-29.

Endnotes

1. See the rest of Judges 6.
2. Exodus 20:14
3. Mark 13:15 KJV
4. Gordon D. Fee & Douglas Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth (Third edition, Zondervan 2003) pp. 102-103.
5. 1 Peter 1:1
6. Heb 11:16
7. Exodus 3
8. Exodus 2:11-25
9. 2 Samuel 11
10. Interestingly, this parallel is the reverse of the situation between David and Saul, where Saul is shown as being out of control but David in control of himself – see 1 Samuel 24 & 26
11. Ex 20:14.
12. Acts 4:32-36
13. Acts 5:1-11