BibleProject | How to Read the BibleSample

Day 3: Literary Styles in the Bible

The Bible is a collection of many books telling one unified story from beginning to end, but all those books were written in different literary styles.

First and foremost is narrative. It makes up a whopping 43 percent of the Bible! 33 percent of the Bible is poetry, and then the rest of the Bible (24 percent) is written in prose discourse.

Most books have a primary literary style, like narrative for example. But then embedded within the narrative, you’ll come across poems or parables or collections of laws. Every book is a unique combination of literary styles.

Reading the Bible wisely requires us to learn about the ancient literary styles used by the biblical authors. These writers expressed their ideas and claims through a variety of different types of literature, and this video will explore why it's important to distinguish them so we can better understand the message of each book.

There's one more unifying feature of biblical literature that’s really important and really cool, and that is what we’ll explore next.