Alter Ch 1-2

Question 1

What does it mean to take a literary approach to the Bible?

Answer 1

Pay close attention to:
the artful use of language the shifting play of ideas
Conventions
Tone
Sound
Imagery
Syntax
Narrative viewpoint 
Compositional units
And much else

Question 2

How has a structural approach of the Bible crippled or inhibited the analysis of its truths?

Answer 2

The Bible is a piece of literature (regardless to its historical truths) and should be read as literature to get a better understanding of the intended meaning - take a literary approach

Question 3

How does prose fiction allow Hebrew writers freedom and flexibility in their writing?

Answer 3

Allows flexibility in presentation
Liberates characters from the fixed happenings of timeless events
Transforms storytelling ritual rehersal to the delineation of the wayward paths of human freedom
See the moral agents and complex centers of motive and feeling

Question 4

Biblical narrative - historicized prose / prose fiction

Answer 4

Sudden specifications of narrative detail

Invention of dialogue that individualizes the characters and focuses on their relations

Question 5

Didactic

Answer 5

Instructive, intended for instruction and teaching

Question 6

Nominative

Answer 6

Relating to or denoting a case of nouns, pronouns, and adjectives used for the subject of a verb