Reading Biblical Narratives as Fiction

In the past few episodes of the podcast series on learning how to really study your Bible, I’ve focused on the issue of how critical it is to take the Bible in its own context, not a context that is familiar to us, like modern evangelicalism or the Reformation. I want to transition now to another important area of study: learning to read the Bible in terms of the various types of literature found in its pages.

In this episode, we’ll talk about how to read narrative intelligently. I recommend reading it like fiction — like you would read a novel. The problem is that we read the Bible like we read a textbook. That kills inquisitiveness.  Read it like a novel; read it like the writer had an agenda or a plan – because he did.

Shimeon bar-Efrat, Narrative Art in the Bible [Understanding the Bible and Its World