I started the new year by reading Leland Ryken’s How To Read the Bible as Literature (and Get More Out of It). The book is more of an introduction to the topic than a definitive source. Its best feature? Copious further reading lists at the end of each chapter. I’ll be checking out the following books.
- Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (New York: Basic Books, 1981).
- Northrop Frye, The Great Code: The Bible and Literature (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982).
- G. B. Caird, The Language and Imagery of the Bible (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1980).
- D. G. Kehl, ed., Literary Style of the Old Bible and the New (Indianapolis: Bobbs- Merrill, 1970).
- James L. Kugel, The Idea of Biblical Poetry: Parallelism and Its History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981)
- Literary Interpretations of Biblical Narratives, vols. 1, 2, ed. Kenneth R. R. Gros Louis (Nashville: Abingdon, 1974, 1982).
- Leland Ryken, The Literature of the Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1974).
- Robert C. Tannehill, The Sword of His Mouth: Forceful and Imaginative Language in Synoptic Sayings (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975).
- The New Testament in Literary Criticism, ed. Leland Ryken (New York: Frederick Ungar, 1984).
Experiments in Criticism 