Literature irreducible

[py3ak]

Barry Webb, in his NICOT commentary on Judges makes some good observations about how works of literature cannot be adequately reduced to a proposition:

"As for good literary works in general, however, the meaning cannot be stated adequately in terms of a single theme.
(...)
The meaning cannot finally be abstracted from the story. The narrative itself is the only formulation of it that contains all its aspects."

Barry G. Webb, The Book of Judges (NICOT). (Grand Rapids; Eerdmans, 2012), 342 & 343.

Stephen R. Donaldson has made a similar remark about his own writing, to the effect that the story embodies the totality of what he had to say; if it could have been put into an essay format, he would have done so.

 

[Jack K]

Very thought-provoking, Reuben.

This sounds like a helpful principle to keep in mind when teaching from the Bible's narrative books. I've often heard that each book has a main point and any lesson/sermon from any part of that book ought to be about that main point. Some teachers (and it's happened to me) get criticized for taking a passage and teaching something other than the "main point."

Now, it surely is helpful to think about main themes in a book and connect any passage to that context. And whenever my teaching strays far from those "main points," I probably I ought to pause and make sure I'm understanding the passage correctly. But for a while now, I've thought the whole main-point principle is also too simplistic. Sure, it guards against big interpretive mistakes. But it also narrows passages that are actually broad and deep. This means it's a not good to be too tied to a main-point model.

So I'm intrigued by the idea that the very form of narrative writing doesn't let it be reduced, in the first place, to a main point that can be stated in a few sentences. I still think an awareness of themes is helpful. But so is the understanding that this is, in some ways, inherently inadequate.

 

[py3ak]

But for a while now, I've thought the whole main-point principle is also too simplistic. Sure, it guards against big interpretive mistakes. But it also narrows passages that are actually broad and deep. This means it's a not good to be too tied to a main-point model.

So I'm intrigued by the idea that the very form of narrative writing doesn't let it be reduced, in the first place, to a main point that can be stated in a few sentences. I still think an awareness of themes is helpful. But so is the understanding that this is, in some ways, inherently inadequate.

That sounds very balanced to me. In a sense the limitation is contained in the description. Main point implies that other things are present. It is certainly a helpful discipline for focus and clarity to be able to find, state, and explicate a main point without rabbit trails. But the danger is reductionism, and so much good preaching and teaching has happened without this model (as in Calvin's sermons) that it should not be made absolute.