God as Storyteller
More than half of our Bible is filled with captivating and memorable stories. These stories do more than entertain us. They teach us about the Lord and our relationship with him.
God as Storyteller explores the art of turning events into stories. Storytelling is not the random dispatch of details, but a careful process of selecting and organizing details to achieve the desired impact. In the case of the Bible, the divinely sanctioned goal is the animation of insight, faith, and action.
In this book, Beck explores the art of storytelling we see at work in the Bible. Chapters are dedicated to topics like: the patterning play of words, the strategic use of context and structure, the critical role of characterization, tinkering with time, and the literary use of geography. With an overview of the storytelling process in place, Beck then presents and illustrates a method for extracting meaning from Bible stories.
God as Storyteller
Excerpt from the Introduction
The fact that God is a storyteller leads quickly to the next question. Why would the eternal God elect to speak to us by using stories? The inspired authors of the Bible do not take time to discuss or defend this literary choice, much as they do not discuss or defend any of the genre choices deployed throughout our Bible. But given what we know about stories and storytelling, we can reflect for a moment both on why people tell stories in general and why God may have chosen to speak with us in this way. Continue Reading.
