Reading the Bible as Literature: An Introduction - Tapa blanda

Dr Crain's book offers undergraduates an invaluable means of studying the biblical texts, systematically demonstrating how applying a host of different literary techniques can help illuminate the biblical writers' message.  By analyzing the writers' use of such rhetorical devices as image, metaphor, archetype, narration, and character portrayal, Dr. Crain equips students to interpret the Bible responsibly and effectively.
Stephen Harris, Professor Emeritus, Department of Humanities and Religious Studies, California State University, Sacramento

Reading the Bible as Literature has three overarching virtues in addition to its myriad of individual insights into both literature and the Bible:  (1)  it is a comprehensive introduction to the literary forms of the Bible; (2) it is wonderfully systematic in its approach to the material; (3) it is copious in its coverage of published scholarship on the Bible as literature.
Leland Ryken, Wheaton College

Reading the Bible as Literature is a solid and sure introduction to the field. Crain hits all the bases here. She manages, through her conversational approach and well designed additions, to create a resource which will serve as a strong introduction to an important field.
David G. Miller, Mississippi College

With Reading the Bible as Literature, Dr. Crain has written an especially helpful guide to important literary tools, such as genre and characterization, with which the average reader can approach this collection of ancient literature.  As a teacher of the Bible, I often find students reading not the text itself, but instead recalling what they have heard about the text.  I am pleased to see Dr. Crain opening the Biblical text up to students once again.
John Strong, Missouri State University

Reading the Bible as Literature provides the idealentry-point to the process of reading, understanding, and assessingwhat many recognize to be the important and powerful literature ofthe Bible. Such reading holds potential for helping studentsunderstand literature generally and the Bible in itself. The bookintroduces the tools of literary analysis, including: language andstyle, the formal structures of genre (narrative, drama, andpoetry), character study, and thematic analysis.

The overall organizational structure of the book proceedsincrementally from basic literary elements to higher units of form.Each chapter includes an outline, preliminary considerations thatprovide background and insight into scholarly debates, and anexplanation of the literary qualities of the primary text throughspecific examples, exercises, and directions for furtherstudy.

The book emphasizes the act of reading itself, focusing upon thewhole text as it exists in its current form. It invites anexperiential entering into and reliving of the Bible'sstories, encourages analytical and holistic reading, exploresmultiple interpretations, and embraces a power of languageoriginating in the mythological, metaphorical, and symbolic. Aboveall, the book seeks to return the Bible to the common reader and tobuild in that reader an appreciation for a collection of ancient, literary texts often trivialized by competing theologies ormarginalized by a relentless insistence upon fact, science, andhistory.