{"id":7969,"date":"2010-02-07T00:00:02","date_gmt":"2010-02-07T04:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fryeblog.blog.lib.mcmaster.ca\/?p=7969"},"modified":"2010-02-07T00:00:02","modified_gmt":"2010-02-07T04:00:02","slug":"frye-and-the-bible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/02\/07\/frye-and-the-bible\/","title":{"rendered":"Frye and the Bible"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"bible\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Responding to comments<\/a> by Russell Perkin and Michael Happy<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

It seems to me that Frye is looking at the Bible from the point of view of a literary critic. He begins with the assumption that, unlike other sacred books, the Bible is a unity. He is interested in the pursuing this unity as it manifests itself in the Bible\u2019s myths and metaphors. The former he examines in terms of the movement from Creation to Apocalypse, with all of the lesser up and down U\u2013shapes in between. The latter he examines largely in terms of recurring images. He of course brackets out any number of other features that a literary critic might legitimately want to investigate, especially those having to do with literary texture. His concern is with structure. That\u2019s the centripetal thrust of The Great Code<\/em>, Words with Power<\/em>, and his Bible lectures. According to the class notes<\/a> from his Religious Knowledge course, he called this the synthetic approach. The centrifugal thrust, largely absent from his Bible lectures, has to do with the kerygmatic myths to live by. That is, as a sacred book, the Bible is more than literary. Frye worries a great deal about what to call this, finally settling on \u201ckerygma.\u201d<\/p>\n

One can approach a written text, sacred or otherwise, from any number of perspectives\u2013\u2013biographical, historical, formal, sociological, cultural, religious, and so on. When I was in school in the 1960s biblical scholars such as Gerhard von Rad<\/a> and Martin Noth<\/a> were engaged in a type of interpretation called redaction criticism<\/a>, which began to pay attention to large units of the Bible, such as the first six books, as creative, literary forms in their own right. Since that time there has been an explosion of literary approaches to the Bible, and there is a large industry today devoted to the poetics of biblical narrative and imagery. The degree of interest among Biblical scholars in such approaches is revealed by a glance at the annual programs of the American Academy of Religion<\/a> and the Society for Biblical Literature<\/a>. The dialogue works both ways: we have literary critics interested in the narrative and metaphorical features of the Bible, and we have biblical critics interested in the Bible\u2019s literary features. Not long ago I was glancing at study of that most intractable book, the Book of Revelation, by Leonard Thompson, a well known biblical scholar. Thompson realizes that he can\u2019t crack the code of Revelation without speaking about its genre, its narrative structure, and its metaphoric unity, all of which are literary matters. Which is pretty close to Frye\u2019s approach.<\/p>\n

One of my favorite examples of Frye\u2019s mythical\u2013metaphorical approach is his commentary on the Priestly and Jahwist creation accounts in chapters 5 and 6 of Words with Power<\/em>. Whether the correct label for this \u201ca literary criticism of the Bible,\u201d I dunno. I guess I\u2019d say it\u2019s a reading of the Bible from the perspective of a literary critic who is interested in texts as wholes and in the structure of their narratives and imagery. Or is all of this too obvious to need remarking?<\/p>\n

I suppose one doesn\u2019t have to be a literary critic to pay attention to features of a text that are literary, but if you\u2019re trained to consider the centrality of such things as metaphor in any text, you\u2019re more likely to see things that those untrained do not. Spend ten minutes, for example, leafing through any collection of hymns. You\u2019ll discover that God is a mighty fortress, Christ is a master workman, Christ is a star of the East, Christ is a dying lamb, the earth is a story teller, the Holy Spirit is a dove or a divine fire or a wind, Christ is a solid rock and similar figures from the mineral world (such as Rock of Ages), God\u2019s mercy is a bright beam, Christians are soldiers (and also from that hymn, we are the body of Christ), the hour of prayer is sweet, the heart is a dwelling place, Christ is the light of light, Jesus is a shepherd; and of course all the royal metaphors imported from the Old Testament of the \u201cChrist is king\u201d or “Christ is ruler\u201d variety and the associated metaphors of crowns, diadems, and thrones. Some hymns give us rather difficult instructions, such as \u201cfold to thy heart thy brother\u201d or \u201clift up your hearts,\u201d the folding of a brother and the lifting of a heart seeming to be rather difficult things to do literally. Sometimes we get dual metaphors, as in the hymn \u201cO Holy City,\u201d where we\u2019re told that \u201cChrist the Lamb doth reign,\u201d a figure that combines a pastoral and sacrificial image with a royal or regal one: Christ is a lamb: the lamb is a king. In \u201cO Master of the Waking World,\u201d we\u2019re told that Christ has all the nations in his heart, an extraordinary metaphor that rather strains our powers of comprehension. In another hymn we\u2019re called on to deliver our land from \u201cerror\u2019s chain.\u201d Why \u201cchain\u201d? Well, the hymnist needs a word to rhyme with \u201cplain\u201d and \u201cslain,\u201d but we nevertheless sense the direction in which the figure takes us: the heathen nations (the hymnist mentions India and Africa, along with, of all places, Greenland) are imprisoned (that is, chained) by error. Even in \u201cMy Country, \u2019tis of Thee\u201d freedom is said to be a holy light, and as one of the imperatives is for it to ring from the mountain side, freedom also seems to be a bell. In \u201cIt Singeth Low in Every Heart\u201d we\u2019re told that the dead \u201cthrong the silence of our breasts,\u201d indicating that in our breasts, where everything is silent, we have a host of dead souls or maybe just dead people hanging out, an image that is something of a problem for the literal minded. In \u201cPraise to the Lord, the Almighty,\u201d we were told in the first stanza that \u201cGod is health\u201d and in the second stanza that God is a bird. As we\u2019re sheltered under the wings of God, this appears to be a mother bird, a hen perhaps. The hymnist doesn\u2019t say that God is like a mother hen, but that he is one. In one of the choral responses we implore the Lord to makes us a sanctuary, which means a sacred place or a place of refuge.<\/p>\n

My guess is that form critics and redaction critics and canonical critics and reader\u2013response critics are less likely to be attuned to such metaphors than a critic interested in figurative language.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Responding to comments by Russell Perkin and Michael Happy It seems to me that Frye is looking at the Bible from the point of view of a literary critic. He begins with the assumption that, unlike other sacred books, the Bible is a unity. He is interested in the pursuing this unity as it manifests […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[11,16,72,87,170],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible","category-bob-denham","category-great-code","category-kerygma","category-words-with-power"],"yoast_head":"\nFrye and the Bible - The Educated Imagination<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/02\/07\/frye-and-the-bible\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Frye and the Bible - The Educated Imagination\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Responding to comments by Russell Perkin and Michael Happy It seems to me that Frye is looking at the Bible from the point of view of a literary critic. He begins with the assumption that, unlike other sacred books, the Bible is a unity. He is interested in the pursuing this unity as it manifests […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/02\/07\/frye-and-the-bible\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Educated Imagination\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-02-07T04:00:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2010\/02\/bible.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"849\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"565\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Bob Denham\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Bob Denham\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/02\/07\/frye-and-the-bible\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/02\/07\/frye-and-the-bible\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Bob Denham\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/#\/schema\/person\/f0d6833dfde3f2793ecbbc6aacd83812\"},\"headline\":\"Frye and the Bible\",\"datePublished\":\"2010-02-07T04:00:02+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/02\/07\/frye-and-the-bible\/\"},\"wordCount\":1116,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/02\/07\/frye-and-the-bible\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2010\/02\/bible.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Bible\",\"Bob Denham\",\"Great Code\",\"Kerygma\",\"Words with Power\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/02\/07\/frye-and-the-bible\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/02\/07\/frye-and-the-bible\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/02\/07\/frye-and-the-bible\/\",\"name\":\"Frye and the Bible - The Educated Imagination\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/02\/07\/frye-and-the-bible\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/02\/07\/frye-and-the-bible\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2010\/02\/bible.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2010-02-07T04:00:02+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/#\/schema\/person\/f0d6833dfde3f2793ecbbc6aacd83812\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/02\/07\/frye-and-the-bible\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/02\/07\/frye-and-the-bible\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/02\/07\/frye-and-the-bible\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2010\/02\/bible.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"http:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2010\/02\/bible.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/02\/07\/frye-and-the-bible\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Frye and the Bible\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/\",\"name\":\"The Educated Imagination\",\"description\":\"A Website Dedicated to Northrop Frye\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/#\/schema\/person\/f0d6833dfde3f2793ecbbc6aacd83812\",\"name\":\"Bob Denham\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2e142dc4b6eec3365c24a599621bb9d757dd5f86d31eb62d98586fead4050d33?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2e142dc4b6eec3365c24a599621bb9d757dd5f86d31eb62d98586fead4050d33?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2e142dc4b6eec3365c24a599621bb9d757dd5f86d31eb62d98586fead4050d33?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Bob Denham\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/author\/denham\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Frye and the Bible - The Educated Imagination","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/02\/07\/frye-and-the-bible\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Frye and the Bible - The Educated Imagination","og_description":"Responding to comments by Russell Perkin and Michael Happy It seems to me that Frye is looking at the Bible from the point of view of a literary critic. He begins with the assumption that, unlike other sacred books, the Bible is a unity. He is interested in the pursuing this unity as it manifests […]","og_url":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/02\/07\/frye-and-the-bible\/","og_site_name":"The Educated Imagination","article_published_time":"2010-02-07T04:00:02+00:00","og_image":[{"width":849,"height":565,"url":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2010\/02\/bible.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Bob Denham","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Bob Denham","Est. reading time":"6 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/02\/07\/frye-and-the-bible\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/02\/07\/frye-and-the-bible\/"},"author":{"name":"Bob Denham","@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/#\/schema\/person\/f0d6833dfde3f2793ecbbc6aacd83812"},"headline":"Frye and the Bible","datePublished":"2010-02-07T04:00:02+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/02\/07\/frye-and-the-bible\/"},"wordCount":1116,"commentCount":0,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/02\/07\/frye-and-the-bible\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2010\/02\/bible.jpg","articleSection":["Bible","Bob Denham","Great Code","Kerygma","Words with Power"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/02\/07\/frye-and-the-bible\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/02\/07\/frye-and-the-bible\/","url":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/02\/07\/frye-and-the-bible\/","name":"Frye and the Bible - The Educated Imagination","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/02\/07\/frye-and-the-bible\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/02\/07\/frye-and-the-bible\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2010\/02\/bible.jpg","datePublished":"2010-02-07T04:00:02+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/#\/schema\/person\/f0d6833dfde3f2793ecbbc6aacd83812"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/02\/07\/frye-and-the-bible\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/02\/07\/frye-and-the-bible\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/02\/07\/frye-and-the-bible\/#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2010\/02\/bible.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2010\/02\/bible.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/02\/07\/frye-and-the-bible\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Frye and the Bible"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/","name":"The Educated Imagination","description":"A Website Dedicated to Northrop Frye","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/#\/schema\/person\/f0d6833dfde3f2793ecbbc6aacd83812","name":"Bob Denham","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2e142dc4b6eec3365c24a599621bb9d757dd5f86d31eb62d98586fead4050d33?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2e142dc4b6eec3365c24a599621bb9d757dd5f86d31eb62d98586fead4050d33?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2e142dc4b6eec3365c24a599621bb9d757dd5f86d31eb62d98586fead4050d33?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Bob Denham"},"url":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/author\/denham\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7969\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}