LITERARY GENRES (IN THE BIBLE). — Sacred exegesis, whose “supreme norm is to discern and establish what the writer intends to say” (encyc. Div. affl. Sp.), cannot neglect one of the most important principles of all exegesis, namely, the examination of what today is commonly called l. g., that is, “those forms of writing, governed by particular rules, in use in a given period or region, for the purpose of expressing one’s thoughts” (G. M. Perrella, p. 88).
Indeed, the truth of a historical account is one thing, that of a poem another, and that of a parable still another; one cannot help smiling at those pilgrims who, as early as the fourth century, venerated the inn of the Good Samaritan on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, or at those Christians of former times who awaited a thousand-year reign of Christ on earth, and, even in the secular sphere, at J. J. Rousseau’s indignation when he accused La Fontaine of having taught little children to lie.
No one, in fact, has ever doubted the existence of various l. g. in the Bible; but there has been some hesitation about admitting them in the books that the Bible presents to us in the form of historical narrative. Since rationalist exegetes abused them in order to assimilate many biblical narratives to pagan myths or secular fables devoid of all historical value, the Church’s Magisterium was initially very reserved. However, the encyclical Providentissimus (1893) promulgated the fundamental principle already formulated by S. Agostino: namely, that the sacred author did not intend to teach the intrinsic nature of visible objects, but wished only to give his contemporaries a popular exposition corresponding to the ordinary manner of expression of those times (Eschiridion bibl., Roma 1927, n. 106). Then the Biblical Commission, in 1905 and 1909, applying the same principle to the first chapters of Genesis, admitted that at times the sacred author “had not wished to relate a true and properly so-called history” (loc. cit., n. 154), but rather “notitiam popularem, prout communis sensus ferebat per ea tempora, sensibus et captui hominum accomodatam” (loc. cit., n. 336). For the first time, the encyclical Spiritus Paraclitus (1920) used the words “l. g.”, acknowledging the validity of the principle, provided that it was not abused; that is, it admitted l. g. that could be reconciled with the complete and perfect truth of the divine word (loc. cit., n. 474). Finally, the encyclical Divino afflante Spiritus (1943) did not hesitate to make the examination of l. g. one of the exegete’s principal tasks; it wisely observed that, in order “to determine what the ancient Orientals intended to signify by their words,” “the laws of grammar or philology, or even the context,” are not enough; the interpreter must also, as it were, return in his mind to those distant centuries of the East and clearly discern which l. g. the writers of that remote age intended to use. For the ancient Orientals, in expressing their ideas, did not always employ those forms or genres of expression that we use today; rather, they used those current among the people of their own times and countries. More precisely still, the letter of the Pont. Biblical Commission of 16 Jan. 1948 states that “the literary forms of the first eleven chapters of Genesis do not correspond to any of our classical categories and cannot be judged according to modern Greco-Latin literary genres. One therefore cannot either deny or affirm wholesale the historicity of all those chapters without wrongly applying to them the norm of an l. g. under which they cannot be classified.”
Indeed, A. Bea rightly observes (Il problema del Pentateuco, p. 124), commenting on these words: “history, in the strict, scientific sense in which it is defined today, is the account of a past event, based on documents accurately reporting the fact, placing it in time and space, and describing it as it actually unfolded.” In the literature of ancient peoples and of the Egyptians, however, “what is involved is rather the transmission of particular facts in the form of annals, or a mixed presentation of facts and legends or myths, or popular tradition transmitted orally, not in writing or in authentic documents.” Therefore, the same letter of the Pont. Biblical Commission invites the Catholic exegete to study “the literary procedures of the ancient peoples of the East, their psychology, their manner of expression, and the very notion that they formed of historical truth,” a notion, Bea adds, “quite different from our Aristotelian manner of reasoning and exposition” (loc. cit., p. 126).
L. g. must therefore not be determined a priori, as a means of evading difficulties, but from the study of contemporary literatures and from a thorough examination of the biblical book or passage in question. The exegete does not resort to l. g. for a merely apologetic purpose; rather, with the utmost reverence for the Word of God, which “expresses itself through the affirmation of the hagiographer,” he seeks to determine that affirmation with all possible accuracy, so as not to attribute to God what God does not say.
Consequently, the question of l. g. is not limited to a few passages bristling with difficulties, such as the first chapters of Genesis; it extends to the whole Bible: one may say that every book has its own l. g., which must be determined. Yet to speak of l. g., even with regard to a historical book, does not mean denying it all historical value. That would be to forget that there are many ways of recounting history, that is, of reporting true events. Thus, the portrait, the work of a great artist, may be as rich in strictly historical truth as a simple photograph, and the epic of a true poet as much so as a carabiniere’s official report—indeed, much more so. For example, according to the ancient canon of the Jews, the books of Giosuè, of the Giudici, of Saumele, and of the Re belong to the “prophetic” books—not that they fail to report events of the past, but they do so in order to recall to the people of Israel the demands of God’s Revelation, not in order to satisfy the curiosity of future scholars. A correct interpretation cannot fail to take this into account. Thus, far from stripping Sacred Scripture of its truth, as the rationalists of the last century had believed, a more attentive consideration of l. g. will cause not a few as-yet-unresolved difficulties to vanish and, above all, will make it possible to determine with much greater accuracy the true thought of the hagiographer and consequently the authentic Word of God.