Why is Literary Structure Important?

How the Bible is studied and taught requires balance between studying individual verses and studying the larger context, and over the years, trying a couple of approaches is helpful to individuals.  Therefore, a balanced statement is appropriate.    We have an appreciation for teachers who follow the text going verse by verse, because this is one primary means by which you focus and dig in depth.  After all, the Biblical author had something to say!  Therefore, coverage verse by verse is necessary, but is it sufficient?  The answer is no, it is not sufficient, because you must also recognize the literary structure.  Structure is important; it is foundational, and we are not the only ones who think so. 

Larger and important thoughts are certainly more complex than a single sentence or a single verse.  Ask yourself, if you read one sentence from one paragraph and two sentences from another, are you really grasping what the author was saying?  Of course not, and I don’t know anyone who would claim that they were.  Memorizing a verse here or there is important, but the context is missing.  To contrast deeper knowledge of the text with the understanding of a single verse, one can ask, what is the whole book about?   And if there is an underlying organizational or compositional pattern, what was the author following as he was writing?

Suppose you read a passage with a starting and/or ending point that does not align with the original structure.  Continuing the comparison to the paragraph style composition mentioned above, not knowing the start and end of a chiastic or fold-over structure means that you are essentially doing the same thing as reading part of one paragraph and then part of another.  Not identifying and incorrectly approaching the chiasm means that the internal parallelisms of the author are not being observed.  Not identifying the inclusio and center of the chiasm means you will likely miss the main point.   Also, if you are even trying to understand the flow of the overall text, you may be patching the overall composition together inappropriately.  Reading an ancient text without recognizing structure may well be nonsensical.

Not acknowledging the structure denies that the inspired author had a larger train of thought, and it minimizes the capacity of the author.    Likewise, it reduces appreciation of the beautiful heritage we have received.   Is not the interpretive task to understand what the author was saying to the original audience in the historical-grammatical context, in a full-orbed understanding of their larger expression or thesis?

So far, however, this blog posting has only discussed structure at a single book or scroll level.   We can also ask a related question about structure at the multi-book or at the whole Bible level.  Just as the form of topic sentence and paragraph is common across western writings, we can ask what literary forms God would have inspired across many books of the Bible.  The Italians and English employed the sonnet, the Japanese employed haiku, and the Irish the limerick.  Common forms are common.   Indeed, we should expect to find a common form used by the Hebrews in the inspired Scriptures, and given the cross, it should not be surprising to find that one of these common forms is a Menorah-tree.

The literary structure based on the Menorah-tree is more important than just book level relevance.    This structure brings information together at a multiple book level across the Bible.   A reason for this is that a tree is an excellent metaphor for a Kingdom or nation, and recognition of that is important to understanding Isaiah and other books. 

Keep in mind that how you read and how you interpret are two different things, just as what an author is following and what they are writing are two different things.  Because His Word is inspired, we don’t get to ignore a single verse that we don’t like.  More information on these distinctions will be commented upon elsewhere.  But for now, it is our prayer that in Isaiah you might see the Menorah-trees through the forest of verses, and that this might lead you even nearer to the cross of Christ.