In chapter one of V. Phillips Long’s highly recommended book, The Art of Biblical History, he begins by asking whether the Bible is a history book.  If we mean by this label to define the essential character of the Bible, then surely this is not the case.  However, by answering in the negative, Long does not mean to suggest that history is not part of the Bible, for surely it is.  What Long wants to stress it that that Bible is made up of many diverse literary genres such that no single label is sufficient to capture its essence. In addition, Long highlights the importance of allowing the larger discourse unit to set the meaning trajectory for the smaller-scale literary forms within the larger entity.  To illustrate “the importance of considering the larger discourse before rendering the generic or form-critical verdicts,” Long provides the following example.  For some modern biblical critics, “common sense” and the “laws of nature” press us to conclude that since neither trees nor donkeys speak, Judges 9:7-15 and Numbers 22:28-30 must be fables.  However, Long questions whether such reasoning is sound given the Christian worldview.  “After all, according to the ‘laws of nature,’ bushes do not burn without being consumed, and dead people do not rise from the grave” (p. 49).  Long then argues in such a way that the Christian worldview in which the supernatural is operative and not rejected tout court as part of one’s presuppositional stance, yet Long is able, based on the literary clues of the text, to differentiate in a non-arbitrary way between the textual form that we have in the Judges 9:7-15 passage and the Numbers 22:28-30 passage.  As Long explains,

“In the case of Jotham’s speech, it is not the fabulous storyline but, rather, the larger context that makes it unmistakable that Jotham’s speech is a fable.  The verses that precede it introduce the historical personages and the point of tension reflected in the fable, and Jotham concludes his speech with direct references to the same:  ‘Now if you have acted honorably and in good faith when you made Abimelech king, and if you have been fair to Jerub-Baal [...].  But if you have not, let fire come out from Abimelech and consume you, citizens of Shechem and Beth Milo, and let fire come out from you, citizens of Shechem and Beth Milo, and consume Abimelech!’ (Judg 9:16, 20).  The phrase ‘let fire come out’ is a repetition of the phrase found at the end of the fable:  ‘then let fire come out of the thornbush and consume the cedars of Lebanon’ (v. 15).  This is clear evidence that Jotham’s final words in his speech (vv. 16-20) are an interpretation of this fable” (p. 49).

So what about the Numbers 22 passage?  It also contains “fabulous” aspects.  As Long makes clear, the approach to Scripture that he is advocating does not classify a passage or account as fable just because it presents us with a supernatural occurrence-Long fully embraces the supernatural claims of Scripture.  According to the approach that Long takes, the Numbers passage is not understood as a fable because

“the broader context apparently offers nothing that would mark it out as such; no interpretation, for example, is given. What one has, rather, is a story involving certain wondrous occurrences within the larger account of the book of Numbers with no indication that a new formal literary type has been introduced.  Thus, unless one is willing to argue that the book of Numbers as a whole must be characterized as fable, there appears to be no valid literary reason to label the Balaam stories as such” (pp. 49-50).