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The Word of God: Prose and Poetry

© alberto esmeralda

This article begins a new series on the topic of "The Bible As Literature." To introduce the topic, a short commentary on Dei Verbum 12 will be made. This will be followed by an explanation of the characteristics of biblical prose and poetry and finally, examples of each as found in the books of the scriptures will be treated.

This series will have the following general outline:

• The Word of God: Prose and Poetry (this article)
• Biblical Poetry: Some Characteristics
• Biblical Prose: Narrative and Discourse
• Sample Readings

To begin our discussion therefore, let me bring forth a conviction that immediately follows from the idea that the Scriptures were authored by God through the instrumentality of men. The document Dei Verbum, 12 expresses this conviction thus:

"12. (S)ince God speaks in Sacred Scripture through men in human fashion, the interpreter of Sacred Scripture, in order to see clearly what God wanted to communicate to us, should carefully investigate what meaning the sacred writers really intended, and what God wanted to manifest by means of their words.   To search out the intention of the sacred writers, attention should be given, among other things, to "literary forms." For truth is set forth and expressed differently in texts which are variously historical, prophetic, poetic, or of other forms of discourse. The interpreter must investigate what meaning the sacred writer intended to express and actually expressed in particular circumstances by using contemporary literary forms in accordance with the situation of his own time and culture. For the correct understanding of what the sacred author wanted to assert, due attention must be paid to the customary and characteristic styles of feeling, speaking and narrating which prevailed at the time of the sacred writer, and to the patterns men normally employed at that period in their everyday dealings with one another. " [ Dei Verbum, 12]

Let us take "the interpreter of Sacred Scripture" to loosely mean "he/she who wishes to read the Bible intelligently." "Reading the Bible intelligently" is that activity by which the person of faith approaches the Scriptures with all of his/her God given talents in an integral and total act of religion to the God Revealing Himself in the humility of human words. This we have explained at length in previous articles. The phrase "intention of the sacred writer" must be understood strictly to refer to what was literarily meant by the human authors whom God has chosen to consign into writing everything and only those things which He wanted (cf. Dei Verbum 11). (I have purposely used the adverb "literarily" to emphasize the literary production of the sacred writers, and I intentionally use it against those who overly insist -- and most often without reason -- that the Scriptures should be understood literaly[1].) Given these distinctions, the rest of the passage should not be difficult to understand. The following points focus on the literary nature of God's revelation in the sacred text:

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