Bible Interpretation, Student Workbook, SW05

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B I B L E I N T E R P R E T A T I O N

1. God employs language, but God is beyond language; he employs difference to make his glory even more rich and thick.

2. The literature of the Bible employs special language.

a. Metaphor – You cow!

b. Simile – You smell like a cow!

c. Irony – Only Bessie, the Jersey, knew how bad cows smelled!

d. Personification – O, cow of the morning, how I have desired to milk you, to alleviate your pain and pressure . . . !

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3. No amount of explanation can capture the richness and depth of God.

4. God’s use of genre is an attempt to reveal the richness of mystery, without reducing himself or his work down to a prose sentence.

IV. Benefits of Biblical Genre Study

A. It will empower us to discover what the author’s originally intended to communicate both through their words as well as their forms.

B. It will edify our souls: God causes us to grow by making imaginative connections between our world (the known) and God’s truth (the unknown).