How is the Bible different from a historical narrative?

Answer 1

It depends, for fundamentalists there is no difference. For mainstream Protestants and Catholics some version of the following holds. The Bible is a theological document written to tell a faith story, not history in the modern sense. In other words, the Bible is written to tell people something true about God. Note the important distinction here between truth and fact. All Christians consider the Bible to be true, different denominations disagree about the nature of fact in the Bible. Furthermore, the Bible is a collection of different genres and types of writing, the historical value of which must be analyzed separately. For example, much of the early parts of Genesis are legends meant to reveal something about the creation of the world and not history in any sense. It is good to remember that most of the Old Testament was handed on orally for hundreds of years before being written down. The Gospels, however, are faith reflections on the Apostles historical experience of Jesus of Nazareth. They tell us who Jesus was and what his life meant. They contain much fact, but should also not be read as literal accounts of everything Jesus said or did. The evangelists felt quite free to move events around and summarize to help say what God was calling them to preach about his Son.