PB1A

It is often questioned how a literary genre is defined.  Many genres do not necessarily have strict rules, but rather a set of conventions or guidelines that works tend to follow to fall into that category. There are many obvious genres like novels, articles, and essays, but genres can be much smaller and more specific.  For example, religious scriptures can be classified as their own literary genre.  This is one of the oldest literary genres in the world and is referenced very often.  The most well known books and scriptures in the world fit into this genre and include the Bible, the Quran, the Book of Mormon an many more.  This genre is special because of its ability to influence people and cultures. People base their entire lives off of books from this genre and dedicate their time to studying and memorizing their content.  There are not set in stone rules of how writings of this genre should be constructed but the key idea is that all writings in this category are based off of a religion's history and ideas.  As for syntax, many works of this genre follow a fairly specific set of conventions.  Generally, works of this genre are composed of many different books and chapters, sometimes from different authors, all brought together to form one big piece of literature.  Within these books and chapters are often found verses.  This makes it easy to reference specific parts when necessary.  For example, when someone wants to reference a particular part of the New Testament, they could write John 3:16.  This is the proper way of denoting a book, chapter, and verse of the Bible.  Another convention commonly found in religious scriptures is an abnormal use of outdated language.  Many famous religious scriptures were written long ago and in the language customary to that particular religion or geographical region.  Religious groups try to stay as true to the original texts as possible, and as a result, translations are often difficult to understand or outdated.  For example, many of the texts contained in the Old Testament and Torah were originally written in Hebrew as per their regions of origin, but it has since been translated so many times that many verses take on new forms and meanings when translated to other languages.  It is for this reason that many religions encourage their followers to study their original languages so they can have a better understanding of their religious texts. Another important convention of this genre is that they are usually written by a person of significance in the founding of the religion.  For instance, the Book of Mormon was written by Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism and passed on to his followers.  These are all common conventions of religious scriptures, but they are not entirely necessary for a literary work to fall into this genre.  There are many ways to approach a literary genre and often times the way a genre is defined is changed by the works made for them.