Steve Weiss

How should the Bible be classified in libraries and bookstores? I say that it should be classified as a novel because it has all of the characteristics of a novel and most certainly in not non-fiction. What are the options?

Liminus

Erotic fantasy horror.

RavenSky

supernatural horror (except the 'begats' - what's the genre for fictional geneology?)

Steve Weiss

What genre is Mad Magazine and DC comics? The Bible is less believable than those publications.

Doug Shaver

By whatever criteria make sense to the owners of libraries and bookstores.

sotto voce

Classification of any recognised collection of 66 books of obviously differing genres is not going to be straightforward, because such phenomena are not sufficiently common to be considered for classification. Indeed, the Bible is unique in this respect, afaik.

The novel was so called because it was novel! One cannot make accusations of Bronze Age decrepitude and dismiss the Bible as a novel. A novel is a single, but lengthy story, told in prose, and is overt fiction; it is never intended to be understood as actuality, though of course there may be a general truth (or propaganda), historical, political, social, psychological, philosophical, even religious, intended to underlie the narrative. Indeed, the first novel, according to some, was Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, an obvious allegory of spiritual ideas.

Now, as it happens, allegory is frequently found in the books of the Bible, cropping up unannounced among major genres such as poetry and chronology. Booksellers and librarians have sections for poetry and history. Even the keenest devotees of the Book of Job, though its poetic power is unquestioned, have doubted whether its narrative is to be understood literally. But the Books of Joshua, Judges, Chronicles and Kings are obviously intended to be understood as chronicle, as reporting actual events. Which bookseller or librarian has the competence to decide that they have no validity as chronicle, as history? Which bookseller or librarian has the competence to decide that the biographies known as gospels belong in the fiction section? Which bookseller or librarian has the competence to decide that the letters of the New Testament are spurious? The Bible is clearly unclassifiable, though in practice it joins the profusion of religious books that really are, in most Western libraries, the most farcical 'fiction' simply because they misrepresent the Bible.

The Qur'an is not a collection. It is the supposed work of a single author, supposedly historical, but severely retrospective, an unevidenced re-writing of history, with no new events recorded and consequent need to supply evidence for such events. If there is a book in the library to give cause to classify a religious work as a novel, it is the Qur'an. But which bookseller or librarian has the courage to decide that the Qur'an belongs in the fiction section? At the least, a decision should be made about this book, and the Book of Mormon, before attention is applied to the Bible.

mountainman

Dewey Decimal Classification

Maybe it should be moved from 200 – Religion to 800 – Literature ?

Chili

To put psychology beside philosophy is an insult to wisdom is it not? . . . I do not think Dewey knew what it is.

Kasper

Bird cage liner?

sotto voce

Is that what what brings people here? Pet care?