Critical study of the biblical sources is an attempt to trace the oral traditions before they were written down, since practically every oral story was older than its written text. Thus, literary criticism in biblical studies has been designated as source criticism. Examples of this include the Pentateuch four source theory and the two-source theory for the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.
oral story
The Bible narrative story
There is a narrative quality to the Bible. We have to appreciate truth in the story, because stories express truth. We tend to dismiss things as just a story. Even with modern technology, the Internet. YouTube, and Facebook are full of stories. Scientific facts are not poetry and thus they have different rules. The story world helps us understand our real world. We would not have a real world without language and story. Non-literate societies emphasized oral story as very important. Even today, whether it is television or movies, we love a good story. In the 1997 movie “Titanic” the story was simple, the ship sunk. However, the love story of Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet drew us in and made us feel the whole story. Historical novels are very popular as a means of understanding the past historical times.
Eugene Finnegan Bible Project 