Journal: Southeastern Theological Review
Volume: STR 12:2 (Fall 2021)
Article: Introduction: Literature And The Bible
Author: Adrianne Miles

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Introduction: Literature And The Bible

Adrianne Miles

&

Matthew Mullins

Guest Editors

In recent decades, numerous scholars have argued that the literary character of the Scriptures is integral to their meaning. Robert Alter, Adele Berlin, David Lyle Jeffrey, James Kugel, Tremper Longman, Leland Ryken, Meir Sternberg, and many others have produced compelling scholarship demonstrating that when we fail to take literary artistry into account, we risk misreading the Bible. And yet, prevailing approaches to Bible interpretation often minimize or overlook just how fundamentally its meaning is entangled with its artistry. Why must scholars make a perennial case for the literary value of the Scriptures? What is it about taking a literary approach to the Bible that makes it seem risky or unnecessary? Why do so many readers, teachers, preachers, and even scholars emphasize the instructional dimensions of Scripture to the near exclusion of its literary dimensions? And, perhaps most importantly, what are the costs of failing to account for this literariness? We might begin to answer such questions by pointing out that there is an implicit connection between the artistry of the Bible and the question of its authorship. The more we focus on literary qualities, the more we tend to emphasize the situated perspective of its human authors. The more we overlook literariness in favor of instructional content, the more we tend to emphasize the transcendent perspective of its Divine Author. This special issue of STR is devoted to these questions and to the relationship between the Bible’s artistry and authority. In short, how should we understand the dynamic between artistry and authority, and how does this dynamic inform our interpretation of the Scriptures? Though there is no singular argument we could deduce from the essays collected here, we contend that one collective implication of the analyses that follow is that an appreciation for the literary qualities of the Scriptures is integral to good interpretation.

And yet, we do not want to dismiss the tension between the artistry and authority of the Bible offhand. In her examination of the development of the literary study of the Bible as an academic discipline, Tomoko Matsuzawa points out that in the last half century or so, “the study of the Bible for the purpose of literary and aesthetic edification rather than for

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its liturgical, doctrinal, or salvific efficacy” has become commonplace.1 And so, it would seem there is good reason to pause anytime the Bible is being treated primarily as an object of literary study...