Westminster Bookstore Blog

ESV Literary Study Bible: Interview with Philip and Leland Ryken

Exclusive Westminster Bookstore interview with Dr. Philip Graham Ryken and his father, Dr. Leland Ryken, editors of the new ESV Literary Study Bible.

(Answers from both authors were combined for purposes of this interview.)
WTSBOOKS: First, the most obvious question: What is a literary study Bible? What sets the ESV Literary Study Bible apart from the many other study Bible’s available?

Rykens: A literary study Bible is like other study Bibles in its inclusion of commentary on the whole Bible. It differs from conventional study Bibles in the kind of commentary that it provides and in its format.

In regard to format, our literary study Bible puts the commentary right with the Bible passages in the form of headnotes or lead-in material to the biblical passage that follows. This makes it a reader’s Bible in the sense that a reader is led into the biblical text instead of being distracted by the need to read a series of footnotes at the bottom of the page. [Editor's note: download a brochure (PDF) with sample pages to see how this formatting looks.]

A literary study Bible also differs from conventional study Bibles in the type of commentary that it provides. It gives a reader tips for reading and reflection in the following areas: the recognizable human experiences that are embodied in a passage; the literary genres (such as story or poem) in which the material is expressed; the structure and unity of passages; and further literary and stylistic features that are prominent in the passage.

WTSBOOKS: Why did you format the ESV Literary Study Bible into daily readings? Isn’t that unusual for a study Bible?

Rykens: The idea of formatting the ESV Literary Study Bible into daily readings came not long after our decision to put our commentary before the text instead of in notes at the bottom of the page. As we divided the biblical text into sections that had some literary coherence, we thought in terms of reading portions that would be suitable for personal Bible reading or for small group Bible studies. In many cases these reading portions did not correspond to conventional daily reading guides, which often take the Bible a chapter at a time, whether or not the chapter forms a literary unit.

The new daily reading chart goes through the whole Bible in a year, with double treatment given to five major books: the Psalms (the Bible’s hymnal, and also its main body of teaching on the doctrine of God), Isaiah (the grandest of the OT prophets), Luke (one of the four biblical Gospels), and Romans (the heart of the Bible’s theology of salvation).

WTSBOOKS: Who would benefit from this study Bible, and why?

Rykens: One of our main goals is that Christians will actually get into the Bible instead of absorbing background information about the Bible. Our literary Bible gives practical tips for moving through a passage and understanding it. An important byproduct should be that Christians will simply become better readers of the Bible in all of their Bible reading, and as part of that, to assimilate the Bible in terms of the kind of writing that it actually is instead of reducing virtually the whole Bible to a set of ideas. The result of doing the latter is to make the Bible appear as though it is all one kind of writing. Our literary study Bible shows the variety that exists in the Bible.

Our hope is that people will read the Bible with understanding and enjoyment, and also become better teachers of it, with the ultimate goal of Christian maturity.

WTSBOOKS: If the Bible is God’s Word, why should Christians care about its literary styles and themes? Isn’t that treating it like a purely human book?

Rykens: Christians should care about the literary forms in which the Bible comes to us because those forms were inspired by the Holy Spirit and therefore deserve to be treated in a manner commensurate with that inspiration. If the authors of the Bible spoke as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit, then it is a plausible conclusion that God inspired all that they wrote, including the forms in which they expressed their content. Furthermore, with any piece of writing the content is expressed through the forms of a passage; without the forms, no content even exists.

To pay attention to the literary forms of the Bible is not to treat it as a purely human book, any more than paying attention to its language or grammar or history is to treat it as an ordinary human book. God is the author of the literary forms of the Bible.

However, there is nothing wrong with human forms of writing. We will do a much better job of reading the Bible if we apply what we know about the writing that we encounter in other areas of life to our analysis of the Bible.

WTSBOOKS: Thank you both for giving us this ‘behind the scenes’ look at this great new resource!< Dr. Philip Graham Ryken is Senior Pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia (PCA), and a Board of Trustees member of Westminster Theological Seminary. He has written numerous books.