The Bible is a collection of sixty-six books written by over 40 authors that took over 1500 years. Although the Bible was written by a collection of men, these men were inspired by God according to 2 Timothy 3:16. The Bible is the unadulterated Word of God that has stood the test of time, but it is also an assemblage of literary works that is classified by genres.

Synonymous to music having different genres such as rap, pop, rhythm and blues, and contemporary Christian, the Bible also has genres to separate different writing styles. Each musical style has a distinct sound understand and has different nuances and the Bible is no different. In order to perform a sound exegesis of Biblical text, the reader must understand the genre to fully grasp the tone and intentions of the author.

The Historical Genre

Ecclesiastes 1:9 says "what has been will be again, what has been done will be done again, there is nothing new under the sun". Ecclesiastes 1:9 drives home how important history is, to our society. It has been said that if we don't take time to know and understand history we are doomed to repeat our past mistakes. Experience is not the best teacher, but experience is the hardest teacher. Rather than learning by experience God has left us with His word to see the past successes and failures of the men and women who came before us. The Bible is full history, but the majority of the history is within the Old Testament. Each literary genre was written in a specific point of view, in the historical genre, the writings contained a great deal of euphemisms. A euphemism is replacing a really harsh word or saying for one that is less direct. The Old Testament contained laws, statues and the consequences for those who did not keep the statues God provided to His people. Euphemisms were used in place of God informing people that they would die, also many of the rituals performed by ancient Israel were harsh and less harsh words replaced the harsh ones to assist the interpreter when reading the scriptures. In the New Testament there is history in the Gospels and the Epistles. Interpreting History also requires the reader to understand that during different eras there were different countries in control. The New Testament was translated during the Greco Roman period and Greek was the primary dialect during that time, thus the New Testament was translated in  Greek.

The Genre of the Law

Once God liberated His people from the hands of the Egyptians, He needed to establish a standard for His people to live. God delivered the law to His people in books such as Deuteronomy and Leviticus. God gave the law to Moses to deliver to His people because once they left Egypt they were no longer in captivity and needed a new way to live. Biblical law is not only a collection of statues but could also falls into the historical genre because the law contains rich history (Halberstam, C. (2007). Understanding the law allows the interpreter to see God establish a covenant with His people and how God found new ways to keep His covenant with man because man failed to meet the conditions on the covenant. The people of Israel took the law of God and made it legalistic, and God spoke of a New Covenant in the book of Jeremiah in which the law would be written on the hearts of man.

The Wisdom Genre

Wisdom would not be the thing many would ask for if God agreed to give us anything our hearts desired. Solomon could have gotten anything from God, money, fame, notoriety, prestige, instead Solomon asked God to give him wisdom. Solomon understood that if I had wisdom and chased after the heart of God all the other desires would fall in line. Wisdom is a very important trait to have because wisdom has been called the architect of history (Swearingen, C. J. (2011).  There was none that compared to Solomon when it came to wisdom, and riches because He put God first in his life. Solomon wrote the book of Proverbs that is filled with things that Solomon learned and are still relevant today. The book of Proverbs is personified by giving wisdom human traits and many times he gave wisdom the characteristics of a woman, which is  no surprise when it comes to Solomon.

The Psalms.

The book of Psalms can be summed up as a book that contains poetry and songs. David never hesitated to worship God through good and bad times and the Psalms are a collection of books that were written prior to and during David's Kingship. The interpreter can really establish a connection with the writer of Psalms because David wrote about his successes, failures, good, and bad moments. David was transparent and wrote with his heart which is what poetry is all about. Asaph, a worship leader during ancient Israel also wrote songs that are contained within the book of Psalms. Asaph's writings took on the tone of David's and their writings could be difficult to distinguish.

Conclusion.

When preaching the Word of God there is a great responsibility to ensure that the word is handled properly to prevent God's people from becoming lost. There have been some that preach from their personalities and aren't properly interpreting God's word. When spending time in the Word of God and researching the different eras and genres the scriptures were written, a greater appreciation is gained because not only is the Word being made plain, the interpreter develops a deeper revelation of God's plan. Interpreting the Bible is more than reading and relying on the Holy Spirit to give revelation. Even though God's grace allows the spirit to reveal some things, proper interpretation and exegesis means breaking the Word down and raking the scriptures of everything they contain.