TYPES OF LITERATURE

The New Testament contains many types of prose literature developed in prior Greek writings. All books of the New Testament except one (Revelation) are in Greek forms shaped earlier: history, biography, letters, philosophy, and oratory.

Greek prose (which began after poetry) was a literary medium with less regular rhythms than poetry and closer to the speech of ordinary people.

The New Testament, which is rich in prose, lacks poetry in the classical Greek tradition, which is nevertheless included here as an essential element of Greek culture -- a continual source of ongoing creative imagination, in both poetry and prose.

1. POETRY

2. HISTORY

3. BIOGRAPHY

4. LETTERS

5. PHILOSOPHY

6. ORATORY

7. APOCALYPSE

1. POETRY

Greek poetry - writing that created emotional responses through meaning and metric patterns, with various regular rhythms of short and long sounds.

Epic poetry started the written Greek literary tradition by the transcriptions of Homer's and Hesiod's poems during the Archaic Age (7th and 6th centuries BC).

Lyric poetry, originally meant to be sung, occurred in varied rhythms and often expressed personal emotions and experience.

Poetic drama -- tragedy and comedy in rhythmic meters -- developed from sung choruses in the Classical Age (5th - 4th centuries) in Athens.

Poetry of the Hellenistic Age (3rd - 1st centuries BC) often reflected on earlier poetry by imitation or allusion.

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2. HISTORY

Greek history was a chronological record of significant events (often of a political group, institution, or military campaign), sometimes explaining their causes.

Luke's Acts of the Apostles belongs to Greek historical tradition as it presents the origins and growth of the early Christian community.

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3. BIOGRAPHY

Greek biography contained narrative of the events of a person's life and illustration of his or her character.

Greek biography had varying forms, styles, length, and degrees of relative truth.

Christian gospels form a part of the Greek tradition, with their hero, anecdotes of happenings, and famous sayings.

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4. LETTERS

Greek letters were direct or personal written messages addressed to a person or group, for private or public communication.

Greek letters included

• correspondence of famous people
• "open" letters of advocacy (Isocrates, Plato, Demosthenes)
• letters of moral advice (Plutarch and Paul)
• technical and scholarly treatises in letter form (Dionysius of Halicarnassus)
• letters attributed to famous people (for instance, Socrates, and heroes of early Christianity, such as James, John, and Peter).

Christian authors followed the lead of pagan philosophers, who shaped into letter form their ideas about ultimate reality and principles of human behavior.

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5. PHILOSOPHY

Greek philosophy involved a search for a general understanding of values and reality.

Philosophical writings in the Greek tradition are preserved in various forms:

• dialogues
• letters
• treatises
• accounts of philosophers (biographies and lists of teacher/student relationships)
• speeches
• collections of doctrines or sayings

Greek philosophy from the 3rd century BC (through the 2nd century AD and beyond) was particularly concerned with ethics -- moral thinking about human life. Such concerns are shared among pagan and Christian writings, such as the letters of Paul and James.

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6. ORATORY

Spoken communication was vastly important in ancient Greek culture and flourished for long centuries after writing became common. Speeches were recorded by lawyers and politicians from the 5th century BC onward. Also, teachers of the public speaking (rhetoric) provided written models as they trained ambitious young men.

Speech as a medium of teaching was preserved as:

• lectures
• exhortations
• sermons

Philosophical speeches in question-and-answer format, known as diatribes, became common among philosophers in the 3rd to 1st centuries BC, and many similar elements occur in the New Testament writings of Paul in the 1st century AD. Some New Testament letters, such as the letter of James, reflect their probable beginnings as exhortations or sermons.

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7. APOCALYPSE

Apocalypse was a genre of literature developed in Judaism, represented in the Hebrew Scriptures by the book of Daniel, and outside the Bible by documents composed by both Jews and Christians.

These were often concerned with great historical crises or visionary trips to heaven.

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