Exegetical Toolkit, Part 5

Genre Analysis

(avg. read time: 10–20 mins.)

Part 1: Introduction and Context

Part 2: Textual Criticism

Part 3: Grammatical-Syntactical Analysis

Part 4: Lexical Semantics

While to this point we have focused on the details of texts, and we have discussed varying levels of context, one element of context still needs to be explored. This is the broader context of genre or literary form, the types/modes of communication, or particularly literature in the case of our interest. These are conventions according to which authors write, with genres typically applying to entire texts/books or at least large portions thereof and literary forms applying to smaller portions (though this is by no means a hard-and-fast distinction, as later lists indicate). The study of larger genres and smaller literary forms is a kind of literary criticism known as genre analysis.

Much has been written about genres and forms, and authors emphasize various things about them. One of the more concise descriptions comes from James Bailey when he says, “Genres are the conventional and repeatable patterns of oral and written speech that facilitate interaction among people in specific social situations. Decisive to this basic definition are three aspects: patternedness, social setting, and rhetorical impact.”¹ While interpreters have sometimes spoken of “rules” of genres, it is more customary these days to speak of genre “conventions,” which signals their flexible qualities (as opposed to an implied rigidity of rules), the shared elements of literary context that result from shared practices rather than dictations of authorities, and implicitly acknowledges how conventions can be “broken,” developed, and mixed with one another, as mixed genre works are quite common. These conventions take on forms of recognizable patterns whereby the audience can identify this work as functioning like another that operates with the same/similar conventions, which the author/speaker uses to help craft the work in the first place. That is, these conventions both emerge from and help to establish a social setting shared by author/speaker and audience, since, as Bailey says, they are meant to facilitate interaction. If the readership is highly restricted and the language may be heavily encoded, that also is supposed to facilitate interaction for the specified kind of reader who has the competence to interact with the writing or speech. And such interactions with these conventions are done for a specific purpose, which Bailey describes here in terms of rhetorical impact, the purposed effect for the audience.

Drawing on the insights of Mikhail Bakhtin, Bailey also notes the following characteristics of genre:

1) each genre is “a specific way of visualizing a given part of reality”

2) genres emerge from repeated social interactions within specific arenas of life and are normally employed within the same or similar social context

3) most cultures exhibit a rich repertoire of genres, offering a wide range of particularized visions of reality

4) genres take shape over generations and even centuries, crystallizing specific ways a culture comes to see experience and history

5) changes in “real social life” can modify a genre to such an extent that a new genre emerges

6) major genre forms exhibit flexibility and can be used in surprising ways²

In light of these points, it is unsurprising that identifying the genre(s) or form(s) of a text, speech, and so on can be challenging. The ways genres develop can lead to proximate genres and especially subgenres cross-fertilizing each other (such as histories and biographies). One should not make the mistake of thinking that some checklist needs to be fully satisfied or all rules designated by somebody need to be followed in order to identify a genre. It is more helpful to think in terms of degrees of resemblance (often known as “family resemblance”) and broad genre characterizations serving as “prototypes” to which actual examples of the genre may have varying degrees of conformity. While C. S. Lewis wrote both the Space trilogy and the Chronicles of Narnia series, one bears greater resemblance to works like H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine and Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (or other works of theirs), and the other bears greater resemblance to George MacDonald’s Phantastes and L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz.

Naturally, to identify and analyze a genre of a text and how it functions, one needs to be aware of the options. While knowledge of other texts—particularly those proximate in time, space, and so on—is obviously needed for this, scholarly resources can help narrow the options. Introductory books will tend to address genre matters and give some basic guidance on how to read them. Some of those that I would recommend include Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart’s How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, Grant Osborne’s The Hermeneutical Spiral, and Robert H. Stein’s Playing by the Rules: A Basic Guide to Interpreting the Bible. Other introductions to one Testament or the other will address similar concerns, but obviously with more focus. Commentaries, especially more substantial ones, also tend to discuss genre to varying extents in their introductions. Special monographs and articles may be dedicated to genre considerations, such as books on the Gospels (the most influential of which is Richard Burridge’s What Are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography). These studies will also include reference to other examples of a genre or form.³

As for actual examples, these tend to be genres assigned to various biblical books or parts thereof:

• Law/Covenant

• Narrative

  • History

  • Biography

  • Short Story

• Prophecy

• Apocalyptic

• Poetry/Song

• Wisdom

• Testament

• Homily/Sermon

• Letter/Rhetoric

Obviously, these genres could be subdivided further, and a number of books exemplify a mix of genres. Exodus, for example, has a substantial narrative component, but it also has much material addressing covenantal matters. Daniel also has narratives, but a substantial portion of it is concerned with visions and interpretations of the same.

Genres may also attract certain literary forms with which they are more often associated, and some genres can be exemplified by smaller-scale literary forms. An incomplete list of such literary forms in the Bible include (again, in no particular order):

• Type scenes (meeting at a well, betrothal, epiphany/theophany, etc.)

• Songs

• Proverbs

• Parables (which I wrote a three-part intro to starting here)

• Prophetic sayings/pronouncements

• Praise/encomium

• Forms in argumentation

• Structural presentations (chiasm, inclusion, alternation, formulaic repetition, etc.)

• Household codes

• Visions/dreams (with interpretation)

• Greeting formulas

• Doxologies

• Thanksgiving

• Prayers

• Quotations (with or without formula)

• Genealogies

• Lists (virtue/vice lists, beatitudes, and others)⁴

At the same time, we must consider the matter of emic vs. etic categories. I have commented on this distinction elsewhere, but the application here is that, where possible, we should prioritize the language of internal description within the text itself over descriptions that may be imposed on the text much later based on subjective impressions. After all, the emic description tells us something about how the author crafted a text, how that author expected it to be received by others who knew of similar texts, and what kind of purposed impact there may have been in intentionally writing in this form, whereas a later designator of genre is more likely to be incorrect about the genre designation and all of these elements linked thereto. That is not to say that the text will always have some generic tag contained therein, as texts often do not have such things—and it is possible for an author to have misunderstood how applicable a genre label might be to their work—but if there is this kind of tag, it is a better starting point than the determination of someone much later in the history of interpretation. Of course, it is reasonable to work by extension through analogy, especially when you are dealing with similar genres or text forms from the same source/author. For example, not all of Jesus’s parables are identified within the text as parables, but if other instances are identified as parables, and a text shares generic features with the same, it can be a reasonable inference that this text is also a parable (depending on the logical justification given for that determination, of course).

How important is this tool and what difference does it make? John Barton is an example of one who sees it as paramount: “Biblical Criticism is essentially a literary operation, concerned with the recognition of genre in texts and with what follows from this about their possible meaning.”⁵ D. A. Carson illustrates well how misunderstanding a text’s genre can lead to misunderstanding the text: “One of the most common errors preachers make in the area of literary genre occurs in their handling of Proverbs. A proverb is neither a promise nor case law. If it is treated that way, it may prove immensely discouraging to some believers when things do not seem to work out as the ‘promise’ seeks to suggest.”⁶ And indeed, debates about genre are common among scholars, as one sees in the debates about the genre(s) of the Gospels, whether Acts is history or something else, or whether the Epistles (especially the Pauline Epistles) are best understood through the lenses of letters or of rhetoric.

However, it is possible to overstate and overfocus here. Excessive focus on genre matters can lead to looking at the forest so long that you never take in the trees. Genre is an important context, but it is not everything. This focus on genre can lead to focusing on etic categories, looking for the right one to fit and prioritizing one’s subjective impressions of “fit,” rather than engaging with a text on its own terms. Genres help in understanding, but considerations of the same should not be prioritized over reading the text itself and re-reading it in light of genre considerations to see what connections may be made then.

In such ways, one can treat a genre hypothesis as something of a working hypothesis that one tests in the act of (re-)reading. One can see what fits (or does not) and how well it fits (or does not). Such an exercise also entails an openness of imagination, a willingness to learn about these different communicative strategies and how they work (as well as if they apply in this case), and thus humility to hear out the case as well as a discernment to test it. One must evaluate these identifications, ask questions of the same, and consider the issues others have raised. In the act of re-reading, one must see how well this or that feature of a genre applies and if the resemblance is close or distant (my previously linked series on how to do comparison has some bearing on this matter). By the same token, in interaction with these other resources, one can test out the reading strategies suggested for each genre, how well they apply, what insights may be found, and what difficulties arise in applying these strategies. When it comes to reading selections/pericopes of texts, one must consider how that text functions in connection with others in the larger text (such as a book) to contribute to the genre features. Speaking of which…

Application to Rev 1:1–8

As this is the introduction to the book, one must inquire how the first eight verses set the tone for the whole. I had indirectly commented on this matter in the first part of this series:

In between these boundaries, the text can be further subdivided into an introduction identifying the senders and the text as an apocalypse/revelation (1:1–3), an epistolary prescript that in some ways resembles others we see in the NT (1:4–6), and oracles declaring the future action and identification of the source (1:7–8). This threefold subdivision comports with how the text as a whole draws on features of apocalypses, prophecies, and letters.

This characterization needs to be unpacked and qualified.

Apocalypse

This is the most common generic characterization of Revelation in modern scholarship. The most popular definition of this genre remains the summary presented by John J. Collins:

a genre of revelatory literature with a narrative framework, in which a revelation is mediated by an otherworldly being to a human recipient, disclosing a transcendent reality which is both temporal, insofar as it envisages eschatological salvation, and spatial insofar as it involves another supernatural world.⁷

This article and another one by Collins have also been appealed to for how they lay out characteristics of apocalyptic work.⁸ Adela Yarbro Collins later added to this definition in an article for a later volume of the same journal, saying that this literature is “intended to interpret present earthly circumstances in the light of the supernatural world and of the future, and to influence both the understanding and the behavior of the audience by means of divine authority.”⁹

Thus, Benjamin Reynolds combines the two in this definition:

a genre of revelatory literature with a narrative framework, in which a revelation is mediated by an otherworldly being to a human recipient often through visions, dreams, or an ascent to heaven, disclosing a transcendent reality which is both temporal, insofar as it envisages eschatological salvation, and spatial insofar as it involves another supernatural world, and an apocalypse is intended to interpret present earthly circumstances in the light of the supernatural world and of the future, and to influence both the understanding and the behavior of the audience by means of divine authority.¹⁰

However, this genre assignment is not unproblematic, nor is the description thereof. The adjective “apocalyptic,” while it may have its uses, has become notoriously slippery. It is often distinguished from prophetic literature, and it is true that “apocalyptic” works are not always concerned with prophecy, but oftentimes the distinctions are drawn too strongly to try to make “apocalyptic” literature stand out more when the differentiation between some examples of both categories is, in fact, not so stark. A text can fit both categories.

I have put “apocalyptic” in quotes as well because the name is not an emic generic description. When I included the word study of “apocalypse” in the previous part of this series, I did not list any previous examples where it was clearly a generic designation, because there is no such extant case. This is a designation given to texts that later readers determined had certain commonalities. The name for this genre comes both from its revelatory function and from the fact that a text reminds the reader of Revelation/the Apocalypse. That is, “apocalyptic” texts give the impression of being “Revelation-like” or “Apocalypse-like.” In this subtle way, it is presented as a kind of prototype for the literary genre named after it, although there are a number of respects in which Revelation is differentiated from other works designated as “apocalypses” (though I also think these differences can be overstated, especially if they are concerned more with theological perspective than literary issues per se). Nor is this to suggest that Revelation invented a genre, since it has precursors to which it can be fittingly compared, and such a claim would only further problematize the idea of John using the term “apocalypse” as a literary genre designation.

Again, there is nothing inherently wrong with using etic categories, but we should be clear about when we are doing so. “Apocalyptic” as a genre designation is such an etic category. Revelation can be usefully compared with other works designated in this fashion and characterized in ways like the Collinses have done. But it is less useful for understanding authorial purpose, the patterns used, the social location, and the rhetorical impact, since it is not as apparent that John himself patterned the text in such a way, or if the similarities are due to other factors. And since this is an etic designation, it is unreasonable to use it to override an emic one, as if to say the text is an apocalypse but is not what John says it is, as can often be the effect in attempts to draw hard-and-fast lines between apocalyptic and prophecy.

It should also be said that there are works among the now-designated “apocalyptic genre” that John is more directly connected to. This includes parts of Daniel (such as Dan 2 and 7–12), Ezekiel (esp. 34–48), Zechariah, and, to a lesser extent, Isaiah 24–27.¹¹ I have reviewed the more apparent connections with these texts, among others, here. But again, the terminology of “apocalypse” is not one of the signals of a purpose to write in line with a genre that designates these other texts, since there is no evidence they were called such at the time.¹²

Although it is not an emic genre designation, it is obvious that John characterized his work as an apocalypse/revelation from the very opening. We discussed shades of meaning for this designation in the previous part. This introduction does indeed prepare us for this being a revelation/disclosure from God, but it is both one in which the Father directly speaks to for John’s hearing and one that will be mediated as such to John through Christ’s speech, angelic messengers, visions, and some interpretations of the same. This text also introduces a narrative framework by identifying principal characters, invoking past events (like the gospel story) and past promises as well as future events as a result of promises and transcendent perspective on events in the narrative present (indeed, there are many shifts in temporal reference throughout the book). All of these characteristics are adumbrated in 1:1–8, as we have explored previously, and they will be reiterated as the text progresses. But in any case, John’s text is not only “apocalyptic.”

Letter

Revelation is certainly quite different from the other letters we see in the NT or elsewhere.¹³ But we do see epistolary elements, especially in the seven letters of Rev 2–3 that consist of various formulaic characteristics (the structural elements of which I have reviewed in the last letter here and here). The whole document is also framed with epistolary elements. 1:4–6 is an epistolary prescript that identifies the sender and the recipients, and it includes a customary greeting formula wishing “grace and peace” on the recipients. It is further linked with other NT letters not only by the reference to “grace and peace,” but also by identifying the source thereof as the Trinity (with this being the fullest Trinitarian version of the greeting formula in the NT). This is one of the early signals of Revelation’s commonality of tradition with other NT texts (for more on this, see here, here, and here). The last verse of Revelation (22:21) also contains a benediction that is common in letters, particularly Paul’s letters (Rom 16:20; 1 Cor 16:23; 2 Cor 13:14; Gal 6:18; Eph 6:24; Phil 4:23; Col 4:18; 1 Thess 5:28; 2 Thess 3:18; 1 Tim 6:21; 2 Tim 4:22; Titus 3:15; Phlm 25; cf. Heb 13:25; 1 Pet 5:14). The function of this work as a letter facilitates its communication to multiple audiences, its being circulated among those multiple audiences, and those multiple audiences encouraging each other and calling each other to account in light of the document they all receive.

Our text forms part of this framework. It also adumbrates the parts of the text more directly shaped by epistolary elements. But chs. 4–22, except for the very end, are lacking in these elements. While “letter” is a fair genre characterization of part of Revelation, it does not work as a characterization for the majority of the text. Even the precedent of the “prophetic letter,” though closer in some ways than other examples, does not fit what we see in Revelation.¹⁴ This is not the only case of a text that is otherwise not a letter has elements of an epistolary framework (Hebrews is another, as it has an epistolary closing). It should also be remembered that the work itself is never identified within as a letter.¹⁵

Prophecy

The emic identification of Revelation is as “prophecy.” This is so at the beginning of the book in this unit (1:3), and it is frequently reiterated in the closing parts of the book (22:7, 10, 18–19; cf. 10:11). This characterization also fits how the parts of the OT Revelation most often connects with are from the books of prophecy (except for Daniel).¹⁶ For as much focus as the visionary elements receive, John also often refers to what he hears (1:10; 4:1; 5:11, 13; 6:1, 3, 5–7; 7:4; 8:13; 9:13, 16; 10:4, 8; 11:12; 12:10; 14:2, 13; 16:1, 5, 7; 18:4; 19:1, 6; 21:3; 22:8) and he—or, more properly, the one in whose name he speaks—calls upon others to hear (2:7, 11, 17, 29; 3:3, 6, 13, 20; 13:9; 22:17). The visionary forms of Revelation themselves are also extensions of what are found in some prophetic books, as noted earlier, and the use of symbols fits with prophetic works, even if Revelation arguably represents an extension and amplification of the same. The presentation and interpretation of the same serves prophetic ends of delivering the message of God from one authorized to speak in his name. More specifically, John delivers first-person oracles from God-and-Jesus in various texts outside of the seven letters (1:8, 17; 16:15; 21:6–7; 22:7, 12–13, 16, 20). In the seven letters, he uses τάδε λέγει (“thus says”) followed by the identification of the speaker (in every case, it is Jesus, but he refers to himself in different ways; 2:1, 8, 12, 18; 3:1, 7, 14). This term is the LXX translation of כה אמר, a typical (but not exclusive) marker of prophetic speech conveying what the Lord has said (Exod 4:22; Josh 24:2; Judg 6:8; 1 Sam 2:27; 2 Sam 7:5, 8; 1 Kgs 11:31; 2 Kgs 1:4, 6, 16; Isa 7:7; Jer 2:2, 5; Ezek 2:4; Amos 1:6, 9, 11, 13; Obad 1; Mic 2:3; Nah 1:12; Hag 1:2, 5, 7, 9; Zech 1:3, 4, 14, 16, 17; Mal 1:4 and many others). As with other prophecies, including “apocalyptic” subsets of the same, the past, the present, and the predicted future are invoked in various, often symbolically represented, ways.¹⁷

In summary for the whole book, then, Revelation can be described as a mixed genre book that self-describes as a prophecy with letter and “apocalyptic” elements included. No other ancient work quite has this peculiar mix, and Ramsey Michaels aptly summarizes: “If it is a letter, it is like no other early Christian letter we possess. If an apocalypse, it is like no other apocalypse. If a prophecy, it is unique among the prophets.”¹⁸ There are also many other forms that we see in Revelation beyond what we will discuss here (since they concern texts after 1:1–8), such as songs, declarations of woe, theophany or angeolophany scenes, many other doxologies and benedictions, and so on.

In addition to identifying the whole text as prophecy (v. 3), as well as the shifts in temporal reference we have noted in several other contexts (encapsulated by the reference to God as “the one who is, the one who was, and the one who is coming”), our introductory text contributes to the generic characterization in the following ways. First, of course, v. 1 establishes the characterization of this entire work as a revelation, which I expounded on in the previous part. Second, though we have noted the significant auditory element, v. 2 emphasizes the visual that will be prominent throughout the book. Third, vv. 4–6 supply the first epistolary elements that adumbrate others to come. Fourth, within those verses (specifically in vv. 5–6) we see the first of many doxologies in this book that help to convey the prominence of worship therein (which is, again, an amplified element of what we see in prophetic books, as well as their “apocalyptic” subset or other kinds of “apocalyptic”). Fifth, vv. 7–8 provide the first of many oracles of this prophecy. Some will be in the form of third-person speech, like v. 7, while others will be in the form of first-person speech, like v. 8.

For more on these matters, specifically related to Revelation, see here and here.

1. James L. Bailey, Genre Analysis,” in Hearing the New Testament: Strategies for Interpretation, 2nd ed., ed. Joel B. Green (Grand Rapids; Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2010), 143 (italics original).

2. Bailey, “Genre Analysis,” 144–46.

3. I have written a series on Roman literature broken down by genres and the analogies they or may not have with NT texts here.

4. For a guide on interpreting lists, see Fredrick J. Long, In Step with God’s Word: Interpreting the New Testament with God’s People, GlossaHouse Hermeneutics & Translation Series 1 (Wilmore, KY: GlossaHouse, 2017), 218–25.

5. John Barton, The Nature of Biblical Criticism (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2007), 5.

6. D. A. Carson, Exegetical Fallacies (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 138.

7. John J. Collins, “Introduction: Towards the Morphology of a Genre,” Semeia 14 (1979): 1–20, here 9.

8. John J. Collins, “The Jewish Apocalypses,” Semeia 14 (1979): 21–59, here 22–28.

9. Adela Yarbro Collins wrote a similar article in “Introduction: Early Christian Apocalypticism,” Semeia 36 (1986): 1–11, here 7.

10. Benjamin E. Reynolds, The Apocalyptic Son of Man in the Gospel of John, WUNT 2/249 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 16.

11. I say “to a lesser extent” only for these particular chapters simply because they are often designated as a kind of (proto-)apocalypse. Revelation has many links to Isaiah, of course, including these chapters, but it is less obvious that these chapters are especially formative compared to other parts.

12. The closest we get is the use of the term to refer to the vision in Dan 2 and the interpretation of the same revealed to Daniel.

13. For a great review of ancient letters and their features, see Hans-Josef Klauck, Ancient Letters and the New Testament: A Guide to Context and Exegesis (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2006).

14. On this, see David E. Aune, Revelation 1–5, WBC 52A (Dallas: Word, 1997), lxxii–lxxv.

15. To be fair, this is true of many letters, including in the NT, but several of these nevertheless do include identification as letters (Rom 16:22; 2 Cor 10:9–11; Col 4:16; 1 Thess 5:27; 2 Thess 3:14, 17; 2 Pet 3:1) and comparison thus contributes to the identification of other works as letters (or not).

16. Daniel is never formally identified as a prophet or his work as a prophecy, but his visions are at least similar in some respects to examples in other prophetic works.

17. Whereas the past in OT prophetic works may have involved references to key events like the exodus or more recent catalysts (not to mention examples in Ezekiel of summarizing Israel’s history), Revelation may have more indirect references to these events, as well as summaries of the gospel or references to gospel events, and (in the seven letters especially) references to more recent history.

18. Ramsey Michaels, Interpreting the Book of Revelation (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992), 31–32.