The Evil One

It is possible to read the Bible as literature rather than as scripture - IE to read it for its aesthetic value rather than for any particular truth value, much as we would read the ancient literature of any culture.

But, whihc parts of the Bible actually have literary value?

The long strings of begats clearly don't have much. Nor do the long catalogues of laws. And the narrative style of the Gospels leaves much to be desired. But some of the poetry in the OT is quite pretty.

What does everybody else think?

(Inspired by a comment by Goliath on another thread)

pistonhips

Good question. Inherent in the myth that is peddled "it's a good BOOK regardless of whether you're an adherent of the faith.." is that there must be some elements that are also present in other good literature; suspense, character development, plot, even readability fer christ's sake. I have to say that I can't see any of these in abundance.

spin

A small selection from the Hebrew bible:

Sections of Job which show the trouble that a "good person" can have in a world which is not manifestly good

The sacrifice of Isaac

Ps 23 (and many other psalms)

The story of Samson

The death of Uriah

Most of Ecclesiastes

Much of Genesis

Daniel

The life of Saul

The life of David


spin

spin

I'd have to say that you are applying criteria many of which are not applicable to ancient literature, being based on modern literary forms which only developed after the Renaissance. This is not to say that you won't find any of the things you mention in the bible, for they are there, but that you should be looking at other things, the expression of thought and emotion. If you can appreciate Allan Ginsberg, Emily Dickinson, Emily Bronte, then you surely can appreciate parts of the bible.


spin

Naruto

[Pointless post]

_I_ liked the part where Jesus died, personally

[/Pointless post]

graymouser

Let's see...

Parts of Genesis and Exodus are pretty decent as narrative; skipping all the law and theology, you can read pretty well through Joshua, Judges, and all the Samuel / Kings stuff (skipping things like the elucidation of all the stuff for the Temple). The psalmody has quality as poetry, though if you want it to be pretty in English you'd best stick to the King James (though the rest of the KJV Tanakh stuff is pretty lethal). Ecclesiastes is pretty much the only book in the Bible that does any serious stuff toward getting philosophical; it's also amusingly contradictory to the bulk of the rest of the stuff. Proverbs and Wisdom round out that section, though they can be a bit God-y at times.

In the New Testament...well, Revelation makes a great fantasy story, as long as you don't think it's actually going to happen. And John's Gospel probably has the best literary quality of the four.

-Wayne

pistonhips

Those are good points. In fact I've been unable to plow my way through numerous so-called literary classics , or having managed to make my way through have gained little pleasure.

Spin, can you detail why some of those passages you mentioned appeal to you as worthy on the merits of being well-written (or you may characterize them differently but still in a positive way)? Sometimes someone casting things in a different light can make it more enjoyable to others.

spin

I just picked things at random and could have chosen others, but the life stories of both Saul and David are interesting because they are not flattering and don't hold back on the nitty gritty, displaying the good and the not so good, the vanity, pride, the strengths and the weakness of both characters.

I could have mentioned the story of Ruth which deals with responsibility, humility, worthy actions in a good hearted romance, yet telling of hardship and anguish. And it's short.

There is something about the stories told with a stark simplicity yet able to convey complexity of thought and feeling. The story of Samson, especially his relationship with Delilah, its consequences and his redeeming death make it a good example of this story-telling.

The image of God as his shepherd is shown to be very comforting to the writer of psalm 23. In the description of himself as the sheep under the tutelage of the shepherd we find a very graphic description of the safety the speaker feels despite the adversities that appear, due to his trust in his god. This is the best of literature. (And yes it's about some dude talking about God, but we can look at the communication rather than the trappings.)

Every time I have to deal with the creation accounts in Genesis here on this forum the more I come to appreciate their complexity of thought. They display their dependence on the past and earlier literature, but at the same time they have lives of their own, doing new things that their redactors and rewriters have placed in them. I usually point out the structure of the first creation account because it is usually missed, how the notion of "waste and void" are essential to the development of the creation, giving form to the creation and then filling the various parts up. At the same time we have the enunciation of the sabbath day and its prime importance, as it even appears at the end of the creation. We find that to create his cosmos this god merely has to speak and it happens, what a supreme creator this god is to its writer. Does it matter that this creation has nothing to do with reality or science? Looking at it as a literary creation, I definitely think not. It's awful science, but then they didn't have the thousands of years of developments that we have. But wow, what a lot of thought went into the construction of the story, the results of which are stunning. And it would be worth reading that other interesting creation, the Enuma Elish, to get some perspective.

I could go into the angst of having to part with a son who was given to you in your old age, when your wife was apparently barren, and you bring the child up lovingly, to be suddenly told that you had to sacrifice him... Or I could look at the two mothers claiming the one child and how Solomon astutely dealt with the conflict... But you can get the idea at least that I think there's a lot for the non-religious to find of value in the bible.


spin

The Evil One

OK spin, I can go for most of the sections you consider good literature, but much of Genesis? I can see how you might consider individual sections to have literary value, but overall as a book it suffers rather badly from the begat-syndrome that I was talking about before...

spin

Just cut the begats out and look at the creations, the wily snake story, double-threaded flood story, the thrice told patriarch playing his wife as his sitory to the king, Lot in trouble, Abraham's wanderings, that very un-nice Jacob, the jealousy of Joseph's brothers and their redemption in Egypt. I think there's a lot there and also a lot that's not very nice at all. I look at the worthwhile content.


spin