Augustine's literary approach to the Bible, the dominant view during this time period
Augustine's approach is defined in On Christian Doctrine IV, 6-7. It's narrow, only analyzing rhetoric or style.
- He asserted the writers of the Bible followed the ordinary rules of classical rhetoric. He explicated passages from Amos and the Epistles to prove the Bible can be compared to familiar literature.
- He admired the eloquence and beauty of the Bible as having inherent value.
- He foreshadowed a cornerstone of modern literary theory when he claimed that the style of the Bible is inseparable from the message that it expresses
- For all his enthusiasm over the literary eloquence of the Bible, he showed an uneasiness about viewing the Bible as being totally similar to other literature, claiming, for example, that the eloquence of the Bible was not "composed by man's art and care" but instead flowed "from the Divine mind."
Though he had a minority opinion among church fathers, his view became the majority opinion during the Renaissance and Reformation and was expanded to champion a many-sided literary inquiry into both the content and form of the Bible. Exegetes (Luther, Calvin, and the Puritans) and writers of imaginative literature alike analyzed the Bible as literature.
Writers were motivated to form a Christian defense of imaginative literature. Sir Philip Sydney's Apology for Poetry is a typical example. He appealed to the concreteness or "figuring forth" of human experience in the Bible, as well as emphasizing the importance of literary genres and figurative language in the Bible.
(The Origin of the Bible: Newly Updated by F. F. Bruce, J. I. Packer, Philip W. Comfort, and Carl F. H. Henry, 2020. The Bible as Literature by Leland Ryken, Page 114-115)