What are the gospels?

What are the Gospels? Genre

First, we need to ascertain what kind of creature we are about to encounter. If we were to treat a cartoon featuring Churchill as though it were a photograph, we would soon make mistakes in its interpretation. Similarly, one does not listen to a fairy story in exactly the same way as to a news broadcast. Correct interpretation of a painting or a story depends on a correct identification of what kind of communication it is, that is, of its genre. We differentiate between painting, drama and word, between the spoken word and the written word, between fiction and non-fiction, poetry and prose, tragedy and comedy, legend and history, and so on…