Verbum 9 Tip: Aside: Traditional Literary Criticism part 2
Docx files for personal book: Verbum 9 part 1; Verbum 9 part 2; Verbum 9 part 3; Verbum 9 part 4; How to use the Verbum Lectionary and Missal; Verbum 8 tips 1-30; Verbum 8 tips 31-49
Reading lists: Catholic Bible Interpretation
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Characters
The primary tools provided by Verbum in the Factbook entry for a person and the Biblical people participants and ancestry charts. For a very limited number of characters, Verbum offers Bible People Visual Timelines and Narrative Character Maps. Canvas provides support for plot charts, story boards, character interactions and other graphic analysis of narratives. None of these tools focus on character qualities or literary roles but they point us to primary and secondary resources that provide the data.
Factbook: Person
Factbook: Figurative language
Factbook: Places person went
Factbook: Life of person
Biblical People Diagram – event
Bible People Visual Timelines
Bible People Visual Timelines
Narrative Character Maps
Textual units (Pericope boundaries)
Pericope is used in two separate senses in Biblical studies:
- The newer usage is the divisions of the text provided by translators (or commentators) for which they provide headings.
- The older usage is the division of the text into readings/lessons as specified by liturgical texts and tables.
For the first, Verbum provides the Compare Pericope tool for Bible derived pericope sets:
Tools à Passage --> Passage Analysis --> Compare Pericope
In this example, the pericope sets selected are:
- Logos – the pericope set within Factbook
- LEB, LES, LES(AT) are other Faithlife translations
- NRSV, NABRE, NJB, CEV – are Catholic translations or have Catholic editions
There is no visibility given to the pericopes as defined by the commentators nor anything that provides comparative views of pericopes in lectionaries or service books. There are also no tools to provide the data necessary to judge the validity of alternative pericope boundaries.
From a decade old note on Wim Weren, Windows on Jesus. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International. 1999:
Potential pericope boundary markers
- Narrative structures
- Change of place
- Change of time
- Change of characters
- Structural elements
- Concentric pattern
- Chiasm
- Inclusion
- Parallelism
The structural elements have no specific support within Verbum; the narrative elements, to the extent they exist, are tied to Biblical Events rather than pericopes.
Genre
By genre, in this context, think of the traditional genres of Mackie literary genre of the New Testament and Tooman literary genre of the Old Testament rather than the more linguistically oriented Longacre genre and the Andersen-Forbes genre..
From Verbum Help:[quote]
Literary Typing Section
This section places the guide passage within a literary genre, with the passage broken down by book, chapter, and verse. Passages are hyperlinks to the relevant portion of Scripture, and literary types are links to a definition of that type in the Lexham Glossary of Literary Types.[1]
Documentation:
- Mangum, Douglas. The Lexham Glossary of Literary Types. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014.
Some labels provide additional genre classifications, e.g. psalm genres in the Psalm Explorer:
Similarly, the type in the Proverbs Explorer can be viewed as a genre classification while form is a literary characteristic.
[quote]Proverb Types
The type of proverb is meant to indicate the particular genre or literary theme of the saying. This is not a matter of thematic topic, but of the methodology of the saying. There are seven types of proverbs distinguished for the user.
• Prologue: Introductory comments to a set of proverbs.
• Advice: Predicated as a direct address, often to a specific hearer.
• Characterization: An attempt to define a class of persons by their characteristics.
• Consequence: A saying that describes the probable result of a certain behavior or action.
• Means: The description of the means by which a result occurs.
• Ode to Wisdom: The personification of wisdom where the benefits of wisdom are listed and glorified.
• Saying: The most general type of proverb, an assertion of a general truth.
Proverb Forms
The form of a proverb is meant to indicate the linguistic or literary form of the saying. This is not a rigid taxonomy of formal features like word order, but a loose collection of literary features. There are eight forms of proverb distinguished for the user.
• Antithetical Parallel: The second half of a parallel expression expresses the opposite sentiment of the first half.
• Better/Than: A comparison between something that is better than another thing.
• List: A list or progression of material.
• Redirection: A topic is redirected to something new.
• Similar Parallel: The second half of a parallel statement restates the first half.
• Simile: An explicit comparison using the adverbs “like” or “as”.
• Statement: A non-parallel statement that expresses a complete thought through both lines.
• Synthetic Parallel: The second half of a parallel expression builds on the first half.[2]
Structural elements/internal coherence
Verbum has no support for structural elements and internal coherences outside the parallelism of the psalms. Chiasm, stair-step, repetition, inclusio, repeated motifs, you are generally on your own. The only hint of help is the visual filters for corresponding words/lemmas/roots that can identify repetition.
Reading list
In Verbum, the basis for literary criticism is informed primarily by Leland Ryken including this projected six volume series:
- Ryken, Leland. How Bible Stories Work: A Guided Study of Biblical Narrative. Reading the Bible as Literature. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2015.
- Ryken, Leland. Sweeter than Honey, Richer than Gold: A Guided Study of Biblical Poetry. Reading the Bible as Literature. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2015.
- Ryken, Leland. Letters of Grace & Beauty: A Guided Literary Study of New Testament Epistles. Reading the Bible as Literature. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016.
- Ryken, Leland. Jesus the Hero: A Guided Literary Study of the Gospels. Reading the Bible as Literature. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016.
- Ryken, Leland. Short Sentences Long Remembered: A Guided Study of Proverbs and Other Wisdom Literature. Reading the Bible as Literature. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016.
- Ryken, Leland. Symbols and Reality: A Guided Study of Prophecy, Apocalypse, and Visionary Literature. Reading the Bible as Literature. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016.
Applied literary criticism, primarily traditional in approach:
- Ballantine, William G. Ezekiel: A Literary Study of His Prophecy. New York; Chicago: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1892.
- Culpepper, R. Alan. Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel: A Study in Literary Design. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987. (implied reader is a modern literary approach)
- Dille, Sarah J. Mixing Metaphors: God as Mother and Father in Deutero-Isaiah. London; New York: T&T Clark, 2004.
- Gunn, David M., ed. Narrative and Novella in Samuel: Studies by Hugo Gressmann and Other Scholars 1906–1923. Translated by David E. Orton. Sheffield: Almond Press, 1991.
- Kallen, Horace Meyer. The Book of Job as a Greek Tragedy. New York: Moffat, Yard and Company, 1918.
- O’Connell, Robert H. Concentricity and Continuity: The Literary Structure of Isaiah. Vol. 188. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994.
- Syrén, Roger. The Forsaken First-Born: A Study of a Recurrent Motif in the Patriarchal Narratives. Vol. 133. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993.
- Tannehill, Robert C. The Narrative Unity of Luke-Acts: A Literary Interpretation: The Gospel according to Luke. Vol. 1&2. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1991.
- Witherington, Ben, III. New Testament Rhetoric: An Introductory Guide to the Art of Persuasion in and of the New Testament. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2009.
Commentary series apt to have literary criticism observations:
- Paideia Commentaries on the New Testament
- Reading the New Testament
- Reading the New Testament, 2nd Series
- Reading the Old Testament Series
[1] Verbum Help (Bellingham, WA: Faithlife, 2018).
[2] Jimmy Parks, Proverbs Explorer Dataset Documentation (Bellingham, WA: Faithlife, 2018).
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