graymouser

I find it amusing how much greater literary value the Hebrew Bible has than the Christian additions, when all is said and done.

-Wayne

The Evil One

All right, let's think about this. The snake story is a fairly typical example of a just-so story, but I don't think it's a particularly good example of the genre. Now maybe I'm not being fair on it, since I've never read it in the original, only in various translations, but it doesn't have the kind of "beautiful language" which i would associate with literary quality. It's kind of boring, in fact, until you get to the bit where God curses the snake, which is rather stirring. But otherwise, the story is very thin, very one-dimensional. The same could be said of the creations.

The double-threaded flood story is an example of bad editing. Bad editing is surely not a quality that you expect from "good literature".

See this is the thing. A lot of these stories read as very flat and boring, even if they are founded on interesting folkloric ideas, or else they suffer form having been mauled around by redactors. This is what makes me dubious about Genesis as literature.

Now Song of Solomon or Job or Psalms I could see more as worthy literature.

spin

Well, I'm a Hebrew bible man. I use it more than the xian books, but you could look at the bit about love in 1 Cor 13 (we have tended to abuse and debase the chapter though), the temptation of Jesus has become an icon in our culture, the sermon on the mount is quite effective, the drama of Peter's betrayal, the spectacle of Pilate's interaction with the populace, but then it's a thinner volume with a lot less depth of tradition behind it.


spin

DrJim

If you look carefully into the prophets, there is an awful lot of extraordinary poetry (eg. Joel 1-2, Isa 28). Lots of metaphors that build up and seem to shift their meanings, word-plays, alliteration, and so forth. Its much easier to appreciate if willfully suspend belief / disbelief in its truth claims, and just concentrate on the sort of images your mind can conjur up.


Although there are some rough edges in the incorporation of sources (especially with the David and Goliath episode), 1 Samuel is utterly brilliant. Saul is an estraordinary tragic figure.

Finding literature in the bible is often met with disgust by some believers. I had a student in a class flatly refuse to take part in a discussion of how one might make a film of some bits of 1 Samuel: what the characters would be like, and so forth.

So long as you don't read it with the kinds of expectations you have for modern works, the literary qualities of the H.B. are pretty high. Of course, its "literature" was always subservient to ideological / theological motives and agendas and hence to manipulation. The anceints not only produced different kinds of literature than we do, they did it for different reasons.

Jim

Godless Wonder

I haven't seen any parts of the Bible that are particularly good literature. Genesis? Good literature? No, 'fraid not. The Psalms? Well, I was never much for poetry, but they don't strike me as being all that great examples of poetry. Coleridge's Rhyme of the Ancient Marinier for example kicks the Bible's ass. As does Alice in Wonderland, and lots of Rudyard Kipling's stuff.

Perhaps it's good literature by "ancient literature" standards, but that's not a reasonable way to measure it. You wouldn't say that a large force of horse drawn iron chariots makes for a great army, though by "ancient army" standards it might once have been a reasonable thing to say.

I think that the Bible is not great literature, it's great propaganda.
Part of what makes it great propaganda is its sheer size. If the 4 gospels were all that it consisted of, it would be a mere pamphlet. Instead, it's got thousands of pages of mystical mumbo jumbo and all sorts of crazy goings on, that can be pored over for years and years. I think any random conglomeration of writings from as many authors compiled into a book of its size would have some examples within it of what would be considered good writing. I think those who would claim the Bible is great literature must look at it through the lens of Christianity.

Then again, what constitutes great literature is I suppose largely in the mind of the reader, so who am I to tell another person what they should or shouldn't consider to be great literature? For me, the Bible falls far short of the mark though.

The Admiral

I like the part describing the homo-sexual love affair between David and Jonathon.

The Admiral

spin

Can you be very fair when you compare a text written at the turn of the 20th century (Kipling) with one written nearly two thousand before it? Someone brought up on video games doesn't appreciate backgammon.

And yes it's an aetiological story, but it is more than that. What do you think for example of the nice part about the nakedness? and the hiding? and the buck-passing?

Beautiful language is a bit of a con. It's based on your expectations and that's why so many English speakers think French sounds beautiful without even understanding a word... social conditioning. If you want literary effects, read Hebrew poetry, but then you start to need the Hebrew to appreciate it. Most of the things I have suggested are things you can appreciate in English translation. But it will take some acclimatisation, because we are used to Lord of the Rings and Star Wars, much more passive cultural artifacts in the sense that the experiencer has to do so little work. You sit back and have your senses stimulated rather than partake in the literary experience. So, naturally...

Have you tried identifying with the human subjects?

In no sense bad editing. For the purposes of the redactor I'd think it was good editing to capture as much of each story as possible and still maintain a coherent narrative. Repetition is quite normal in oral storytelling and you must remember that texts were read aloud, probably even when read alone, but mainly to illiterate listeners.

In another thread I spoke about the first creation account in Genesis, which has had a number of redactors and yet I find it a very impressive passage.

I think you are finding narrative simplicity and calling it "dull and boring". Again prose fiction is mainly a post-renaissance literary manifestation, so much of what we take for granted was developed in the short time from then until now. A deceptively simple narrative can hide complex thought, such as the sacrifice of Isaac. I'm sure you can appreciate the thing that was asked of Abraham and the conflict he was put in, especially when God had promised that his offspring would become the chosen people and now God was asking him to sacrifice his only child, a child of old age. It may have been petty play by God, but if we read the passage closely we cannot but feel the pains of a parent, but the story is told with such disarming simplicity.

I can't cope with SoS, but elsewhere I have cited Job and the Psalms as containing examples of poetic literature that I could recommend.


spin

spin

Aren't you fundamentally disqualifying yourself from commenting?


spin

DrJim

But by what standard should we measure ancient literature? Of course, I assume you are only reading it in translation. Would Kipling still kipple in Korean? A lot is lost in the translation, but if you simply dismiss the anceint convensions and expressions as valid considerations when evaluating the text, then you are not really even reading the translaitons seriously.

But this is hardly a valid comparison: Armies have an objective criteria we can judge them by: the ability to wipe out the other army. Superiority here can be measured by technological evolution. This is something rather different than evaluating the qualities of literature cross culturally and accross time.

You assume the sheer volume of the biblical writings would result in something that fit your narrow standards if any of the writers were worth their salt. You are not prepared learn something about the past but assume that if the anceint Israelite writers were any good they would been able to read your mind about what would eventually be called good.


Folks who have actually tried to sort through the mumbo-jumbo and apparent craziness tend to appreciate the quality of the writing that went into it quite a lot. Of course its an anthology that serves ideological and theological purposes. It is a literary represetnation of a national / religious heritage. All sorts of stuff get piled into it. But that hardly means many individual sections are not masterpieces. If you are not willing to make the effort to sort through it, that's your buisiness of course, but folks who are see a lot more there than you do.

So Jews can't appreciate the Bible's literature, then. Hmmmmm.

Of course, everyone is entitled to their opinions and there is a great subjectivity involved in any of this. But if you are not willing to examine your own subjectivity and the cultural and linguistic gap between you and the biblical literature, your opinion is not a well educated one. You seem to be mistaking accessibility for quality. They are not the same thing.

The Evil One

Nice part? What's nice about it? It's just a completely plain summary statement of events.

Now see, what you're basically saying here (and elsewhere in your post in other ways) is that we can give these stories literary value if we make an effort to do so ourselves. This is a very different thing to them actually having aesthetic value on their own. If we have to put it there, then it can't have been there to start with.

Identifying with Adam and Eve - the text gives me no reason to do so. Because the story is told in such a boring way. And in such a superficial way. The whole thing's over in less than a chapter - there's literally hardly anything to it. Characterisation, motivation, emotion, imagery, allusion, metaphor - all the things that make up the toolbox of the poet(s) who is constructing a text of literary value - all these things are missing from the section in question. (Unless you buy the theory that the entire thing is metaphorical. Which is irrelevent to the question of whether it is aesthetically pleasing.)

Sure, I can in my head construct an idea of Adam and Eve's characters, what they may have said to one another and what they may have been feeling. In other words, I can as a creative individual flesh out the bare bones of what the text actually provides. And sure, such a fleshed-out version may have aesthetic value. But that doesn't mean that the original text itself has aesthetic value. So far as I can see, it doesn't.

I don't think it's unfair of me to use modern-day literary standards to evaluate an ancient work, because many other other ancient works hold up reasonably well under those same standards - the Mabinogion, the Iliad, in particular Beowulf, (and the Eddas, I'm told though I've not read them), Native American and African folklore...

I respectfully disagree with the notion that anything about the Flood narrative is coherent. Agreed, the editing in the Flood story is "good editing" if the goal is to retain as much as possible of two separate accounts, but in terms of the literary aesthetic (which is what this thread is about), it is bad editing, because it makes for a shabby and confusing plotline (whether it's read aloud or not).



Well, yes. If it's simple to the point that there's nothing to hold the attention.