Poetry With a Purpose – Biblical Poetics and Interpretation

By Fisch, Harold
Indiana University Press, 1990, Paperback, 218 pp., Out of print, ISBN: 0253205646

Fisch takes a somewhat different approach to "the Bible as literature," treating it not only as literature but also as anti-literature.

That is, he sees in the biblical text both enchanting literary forms and, in the same instance, a warning not to be enchanted by them.

This tension, "it may well be, is the specific determinant of biblical poetics." He applies his approach to several literary forms in the Hebrew Bible (e.g., tragedy, prophecy,), discovering in each its own antithesis. In comparing the Bible with other literatures, ancient and modern, Fisch displays its unique nature. However, some of his observations are perhaps too ingenious to be convincing.