Literary Forms: Is the Bible History or Myth?
Renewing Your Mind
Ligonier Ministries
4.8 • 4.9K Ratings
🗓️ 1 January 2026
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Since the Bible sometimes uses symbolic language, how can we know that Jesus' resurrection literally took place? Today, R.C. Sproul explains how a clear study of Scripture's literary forms upholds the Bible's historical reliability.
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Meet Today's Teacher:
R.C. Sproul (1939–2017) was founder of Ligonier Ministries, first minister of preaching and teaching at Saint Andrew's Chapel, first president of Reformation Bible College, and executive editor of Tabletalk magazine.
Meet the Host:
Nathan W. Bingham is vice president of media for Ligonier Ministries, executive producer and host of Renewing Your Mind, and host of the Ask Ligonier podcast.
Renewing Your Mind is a donor-supported outreach of Ligonier Ministries. Explore all of our podcasts: https://www.ligonier.org/podcasts
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This serpent, who is described as more subtle than any of the beasts of the field, comes into the garden and it starts to talk. |
| 0:08.2 | And so we scratch our head and say, wait a minute. |
| 0:10.9 | Snakes don't have the capacity to converse in human patterns of speech. |
| 0:16.5 | But there raises all kinds of questions. |
| 0:19.0 | And some have jumped on this particular dimension of biblical literature to claim |
| 0:25.6 | that the very beginning of biblical literature is unhistorical and in fact legendary or mythological. |
| 0:45.6 | Most of us intuitively know that poems need to be read differently than prose, and parables differently than narrative. |
| 0:47.3 | But sometimes in the Bible, these categories are not as clear. |
| 0:52.1 | Have you ever been left wondering how to understand some of the incredible |
| 0:55.6 | stories in the Bible? How should we interpret the passages that seem larger than life? Welcome to this |
| 1:03.3 | Thursday edition of Renewing Your Mind. I'm Nathan W. Bingham, and Happy New Year. It is a new year, |
| 1:10.3 | and with this new year, we have something new for you. |
| 1:12.6 | If you're watching on the official Renewing Your Mind YouTube channel, |
| 1:16.6 | it's good to be seen and not just heard. |
| 1:18.6 | So if you're not, why not search for renewing your mind on YouTube? |
| 1:22.6 | Subscribe, turn on notifications, and like today's video. |
| 1:26.6 | Well, today we're continuing our study of the literary forms of the Bible subscribe, turn on notifications, and like today's video. |
| 1:28.0 | Well today we're continuing our study of the literary forms of the Bible from R.C. Sproles |
| 1:33.0 | series Knowing Scripture, and we're looking specifically at the relationship between |
| 1:38.0 | history and myth. |
| 1:40.3 | How we define these genres and how we apply our definition to Scripture has drastic implications |
| 1:46.6 | on our theology. |
... |
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