Personification in the Bible Personification in the Bible Personification, the attribution of human form and characteristics to abstract concepts such as nations, emotions and natural forces like seasons and the weather, is a literary device found in many ancient texts, including the Hebrew Bible and Christian New Testament. Personification is often part of allegory, parable and metaphor in the Bible. A famous example of personification is the personification of Wisdom as a woman in the Book of Proverbs, or natural forces in the Book of Job. An early example of zoomorphism in the Hebrew Bible is when sin is likened to an animal "crouching"
The Oldest Confession frequently quotes verses or phrases from a work called "The Keener's Manual", in at least three instances deriving the title of that particular book from something in the manual. The manual is, however, as noted in greater detail in the Richard Condon article, an imaginary book whose lines have all been created by Condon himself. The epitaph to this first novel, which appears on the title page of the first American hardback edition, reads in its entirety: The Oldest Confession Is one of Need, Half the need Love, The other half Greed These, of course, are much the same words