Biblical Poetry/Literature of the Bible

Based on Chapter 5 of "A Complete Literary Guide to the Bible" by Leland Ryken and Tremper Longman lll.

The books that are decisively poetic (81)

Proverbs, Job, Psalms and sections of prophetic books

Why it is difficult to distinguish biblical poetry and biblical prose (81-82)

Some scholars argue over certain texts belonging to either poetry or prose. There is no characteristic of poetry that cannot be found in prose.

The primary traits that define a text as poetic (82-84)

Terseness, the line, ellipsis, parallelism, and imagery.

Terseness

The overall shortness and or conciseness of a text

The fundamental unit for Hebrew poetry

The Line

2+ short clauses that form a line

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