Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

The rise and current status of literary criticism of the Old Testament / Paul R. House -- Story and poem : the Old Testament as literature and as Scripture / David J.A. Clines -- The Bible as a classic and the Bible as Holy Scripture / Krister Stendahl -- Form criticism and beyond / James Muilenburg -- Psalm 18 : a rhetorical-critical analysis / J. Kenneth Kuntz -- The structuralists and the Bible / Richard Jacobson -- A few comments on structural semiotics : a brief review of a method and some explanation of procedures / Jean Calloud -- A structural exegesis of Genesis 2 and 3 / Daniel Patte and Judson F. Parker -- A literary approach to the Bible / Robert Alter -- Some observations on the analysis of structure in biblical narrative / Shimon Bar-Efrat -- The plot of the biblical story of Ruth / Barbara Green -- Characterization in biblical narrative : David's wives / Adele Berlin.

The Bible's art of persuasion : ideology, rhetoric, and poetics in Saul's fall / Meir Sternberg -- Isaac, Samson, and Saul : reflections on the comic and tragic visions / J. Cheryl Exum and J. Williams Whedbee -- The grammatical aspect of biblical parallelism / Adele Berlin -- Of broken pots, fluttering birds, and visions in the night : extended simile and poetic technique in Isaiah / J. Cheryl Exum -- Who is "the reader" in reader response criticism? / Robert M. Fowler -- Readings, readers, and the succession narrative : an essay on reception / Willem S. Vorster -- New directions in the study of biblical Hebrew narrative / David M. Gunn -- Looking for the poem : reflections on the current and future status of the study of biblical Hebrew poetry / Mona West.