Anytime we read anything we are attempting to connect to the person who wrote whatever it is that we are reading. And the hope is always that we are able to ascertain what it is that the author was intending to communicate as closely and effectively as possible.
But many factors can affect that efficacy of that effort. Some of those factors may have little to no effect on the attempted communication. Some others though can keep the faithful and true delivery of meaning far away.
Let’s say you are wanting to read a book that is only written in Chinese. Can you read Chinese? That’s going to be an almost insurmountable problem defeating your attempt to connect with the author of that book. What if it’s in the language that you speak but is written using many archaic terms? Or what if it was written in a different dialect different from your own? So many factors can hinder a good and proper reading, your attempt at connecting fully with the author.
The more you have in common – language, style, milieu – with the composer the more likely you are to have a more perfect understanding of what they wrote.
The modern reader knows almost nothing about the forms and functions of the literary structures employed by the ancient biblical composers. Now if those who wrote back then used literary structure for something that was of little importance then the deficit the modern would encounter would be of little consequence. But the ancients used literary structure as a device that would effectively conceal the real meaning of the text, the wisdom, the treasure. And this is why we must capture and understand this technique.
Learning the forms and functions of the literary techniques of the ancients will allow you to hear and understand them on a much deeper level. This much deeper level is really the level of most importance.
The classes that I will provide will first introduce you to the mechanics of the ancient techniques. These are intentional literary constructs that the authors used to organize their materials into a coherent form. It will take some time to learn what these forms look like, how they work, and then, most importantly, how to interpret them. It is this last level that is the most important.
See the page: The Purposeful Composition of an Ancient Text
Why are the literary structures of the ancients so important? Once you’ve learned how to interpret them, you will enter into their thought-world and you will hear what they are actually saying, what they are actually wishing to teach you.
I understand that if you are a modern western person, you may be skeptical of this and the value it may bring. But what you cannot see now, you eventually will. It’s actually right in front of you. It’s on the pages that you’ve read so many times before. It’s always been there. But you’ve likely never been trained to see it, to recognize it, to even imagine that it’s there. For we don’t really look for something that we don’t know exists.
Would you like to have a commentary on the text you are reading? Written by the author of that text? In a nutshell, this is what the literary structure provides; a commentary written by the author of the text.
I cannot overstate the importance of the literary structures to you. But to really understand this you’ll have to experience it. That’s what the classes are for.