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Hi, Kayla —
I think an enumeration of all of
these would be too involved for a
forum such as this one,
but we can touch on some of them.
The Jews divided their Bible into:
- the Law
- the Prophets
- and the Writings
The Law was the Pentateuch,
the first five books of the Bible.
(Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) This primarily pertains to the Law
given by God to Moses for the Jewish
people, together with the introductory
history to it: (Genesis and some of Exodus). This
was the part most treasured by the
Jews; in fact, it was the only Scripture
for the Sadducees.
The Prophets included the
historical books, apocalyptic writings,
and the prophets.
The Writings included the
wisdom literature, the poetic literature,
a few more prophets, and some history.
I think the division is probably
largely arbitrary; the prophetic
books are split between the Prophets and
the Writings, and historical
books can be found in all three sections so I'm not sure there is a way to
distinguish them except to look it
up.
The prophets naturally consist of
the writings of those men of God
whom God chose to speak His message
to the Jewish people, calling them
back to Him. Most of it has to do
with a call to repentance rather
than a supernatural prediction of
what will happen in the future (although
prophets often spoke of the natural
consequences of their sin).
You will also hear the term wisdom
literature used, as I mentioned above.
This is not one of the three divisions
but it is useful to use. It refers
to those books of the Bible written
to teach us how to live in a practical
sense, such as:
If you read these books, you'll get
a feel for what distinguishes them
from other books. Typically they
are in the form of instruction and
advice. For example:
- Proverbs gives
a very staccato list of, well, proverbs,
with little or no narrative, no history,
no prophetic words, etc.
- Job is a
bit different; it's an extended narrative
story with a moral to it.
- Ecclesiastes reads like Solomon's anguished journal.
- Song of Solomon is a mystical poem
portraying a lover and his beloved,
and
- Wisdom are like Proverbs but
a little less staccato.
I also referred to apocalyptic literature.
This literature, primarily parts
of Daniel, I think part of Ezekiel,
and all of Revelation, is very different
in style. It uses outlandish, often
cosmic symbolism to describe the
conflict between good and evil. Some
of it refers to the eschaton, or
consummation of all things. Some
of it refers to the destruction of
the temple, which is a microcosm
of the universe.
I'm not sure poetic is
typically a term used to denote parts
of Scripture, but certain parts of
Scripture, in particular, Psalms and Song of Solomon, are poetic.
Psalm 119 even uses an acrostic format,
where each line begins with successive
letters of the alphabet. You would identify
this as you would any poetic literature,
though you would probably need to know
Hebrew to do it.
In the New Testament, we have:
- the Gospels
- the Epistles
- Acts — which is historical
- and Revelation — which, as I said, is apocalyptic.
The Gospels are historical summaries
of what Jesus said and did. They
are the heart of the
New Testament. Only the priest can
read these because they are the words
of Jesus, and the priest is an icon
of Jesus in the liturgy, what we
call alter Christus (another
Christ). This doesn't mean he is
a replacement for Christ,
it means that he acts mystically
and symbolically
in a visible way for Christ whom
we cannot see. He's a proxy, in other
words.
The Epistles are letters written
by apostolic men. You can classify
these into the Catholic epistles,
which were written for everyone (as
opposed to being written to a specific
church), and the Pauline epistles (those written by St. Paul) . . . (though they are not
mutually exclusive). These epistles,
particular those written to congregations,
are written to address specific concerns,
often in reply to a letter we don't
have, rather than systematic presentations
of doctrine or history so we are,
in some cases, seeing one part and
one side of an ongoing conversation.
Acts is simply a history of the early
Church, a continuation of the Gospel
of Luke (the author of Acts).
And Revelation, depending on who
you talk to, either describes the
time of the destruction of the temple
in 70 A.D., the end of the world,
or maybe both. (It does describe
the life to come, this much people
agree on.)
I hope this gets to the heart of what
you're looking for. If not, write
back with questions and I'll try
to address them. I think the best
way to answer your question is to
read some of these types of Scriptures
and get a feel for yourself. St.
Jerome said:
Ignorance of Scripture
is ignorance of Chris."
so it's important to read Scripture
anyway.
If you want a recommendation of what
to read to get a feel for the different
types of Scripture, here you go:
Feel free to read a little more if
you want to go deeper into what the
different types are like.
Eric
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