Catholic Studies Test 4 Material

Genre

Types of different writings that provides us with an expectation of what we are going to read prior to reading it

Law

Codes or collections of commandments or laws enjoined by God through Moses on the Israelites

History

Based on actual past events yet compiled not in a fashion subject to contemporary standards of academic history but as forms of remembering and recounting characteristic of the ancient cultures in which it was written (Court, Epic, Folk)

Poetry

Literature in verse form designed to elicit readers’ emotional response (Lyric, Didactic, Epic)

Prophecy

Not about predicting the future, rather encourages ethical and moral living by individual people and the believing community; “if you adhere to these moral precepts, then you are likely to experience these benefits” and vice versa

Didactic fiction

Stories drawn from authors’ imaginations (rather than historical events) and designed to teach important lessons (Religious novel, Parables)

Parable: a story that somebody invents to teach a lesson, told in a way that possesses a story setting

myth

A traditional story elucidating a people’s worldview or ideals, figuratively or symbolically embodying essential truths and recounting matters such as origins, purpose, meaning, and aspirations

Gospel

Proclamations of Good News of Jesus Christ which elaborate the meaning of Jesus’ words and deeds as understood in the light of His resurrection—thus, not biographies in the modern sense, but a species of the ancient Graeco-Roman “Life”

The accounts of the life of Jesus that conclude with his suffering and death

epistle

A letter, usually of a formal or didactic nature, to an individual or a community

Apocalyptic literature

Literature that makes liberal use of symbolic language and visions

textual criticism

Addresses baseline question of determining what the text is by analyzing available manuscripts to reconstruct or confirm a text’s actual words

historical criticism

Uses historical research to try and get at what the actual Event was

Form criticism

1) reconstructs Oral Traditions behind texts, traditions often in liturgical practice and use

2) also attends to questions of literary genre, which bear on Written Tradition

source criticism

Probes origins of authors’ Written source materials

Redaction criticism

Considers the process of Editing and compiling oral and written sources into final forms of individual biblical texts

Canonical criticism

Seeks a biblical text’s fuller meaning due to its being part of the Bible and probes how its meaning can guide the community now

literary criticism

Applicable to any literary text, it studies how readers respond to texts now, without reference to their origins and historical circumstances

Reception-history criticism

Studies how a text has been received and understood over time in various historical periods