Biblical References

[Medtner]

Hello,

I suppose this question applies to all the arts, but I'll make it specific for literature. I was wondering what the best way is to understand Biblical references in literature.

I don't really have much knowledge of the Bible, should i just read it from cover to cover? Or maybe this isn't necessary?

Thanks or your time.

[Katy North]

Honestly, because I found the Bible itself to be a boring, dry read, I read a childrens Bible. I read it through once, so I had a good idea of what was where, and if I wanted to reference the Bible itself, I would just remember where that story was in the kiddy Bible and read that section in the King James until I found the quote/reference I needed.

If a teacher ever assigns sections of the Bible for you to read though, you should grit your teeth and buckle down to it. That would probably only ever happen in a religious studies class though.

[OrphanPip]

Reading the Bible once won't enable you to catch all references, unless you have a very good memory. You should be able to catch the really well known passages. In most cases using an edition of a text with footnotes will help you catch all the Biblical allusions you would otherwise miss. It's difficult for people who aren't religious or Christian to learn the Bible well enough to catch every obscure reference.

Although, it doesn't hurt to read the Bible at least once, it's not the most exciting book in the world, but you don't have to read it all in one go. Try reading a book of the Bible a month or something like that.

[kiki1982]

Most Biblical names shout HEBREW NAME/BIBLE! I mean, Ahasuerus or Bethsheba, to take an example, is not going to be Shakespeare. Things like Jacob, Rachel, Joshua and the like are likely to be a reference.

With implicit references it is a little trickier because if you do not know the Bible by heart then you will not get it. Characters would act the same as one in a passage of the Bible, or would say kind of the same thing as one in the Bible. But, unless you really know that thing verse by verse, which requires a life-time of reading it through (like the protestants sometimes really do), you're not going to get that unless you have read that bit recently. But that is the same with implicit references to other non-Bible books: I recently discovered references in Jane Eyre to Defoe's Moll Flanders. If I hadn't read Defoe, I wouldn't have realised, and certainly not what Brontë was possibly trying to tell in that.

But if you do come across something strange, then look it up on the internet, there is bound to be an article on it.

Be honest with yourself: what is the chance that, upon reading the thing once, you will remember an obscure line about water in Psalm umph? No chance. You'll be lucky if you remember the whole gospel. Not to speak about the whole OT and the prophets (tedious is the word). Most writers rejoyce in taking references from the most obscure books at that: Esther, Ezra,... They leave more known ones like Mozes and Jacob out of the limelight.

Just be on your guard and look it up on the internet if it is suspect. And you'll see directly where it comes from.

And that comes from a Catholic (so not an atheist whatsoever).

You could also watch things like The Ten Commandments of course, that makes the thing a little less unbearable. :D

[Lokasenna]

If you're going to be a serious student of literature, you're going to have to read the Bible cover-to-cover at least once; the King James version of the Bible is one of the most influential books in history, and has coloured the vast majority of western literature since it appeared, and even medievalists like myself keep going back to the Douay-Rheims version of the Bible.

In terms of remembering, however, there are certain books of the Bible that are more often referenced than others, namely:

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Job, Psalms, Isaiah, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Revelation.

If you are principally familiar with those ones, then you'll get 95% of the references. And, if all else fails, there's always Google...

[stlukesguild]

The Bible is about as dry and boring and tedious as any other central classic tome such as Milton, The Divine Comedy, The Odyssey, The Shanameh, The Mahabharata, or the plays of Shakespeare. In other words... it is not dry and boring in the least. One might suggest that the problem lies with the reader or the reader's expectation rather than in the work itself. Certainly the Bible is a unique situation within literature in that it is not essentially one book but a collection of books or writings by various authors. These have been edited, interpolated, and at time scrambled. There are sections that are undeniably dry: inclusions of endless chronologies, additions of Hebrew law, etc... However, there are also an endless array of brilliant narratives, poetry, visionary prose, etc... Genesis and the creation story, Adam and Eve, Noah's Ark, Exodus and the legend of Moses and the Hebrews in Egypt, Job, the David story, the Lamentations, the Sermon of the Mount, the Song of Songs, Revelations... these are certainly some of the central works of Western literature.

I agree with Neely that considering the impact of the Bible upon Western literature (as well as art and music) it might do well to read the entire book through at least once. The Bible, I would suggest, is certainly best read with the accompaniment of a good literary commentary... and one might surely approach the work one section at a time. Of course one can get by without reading it... by referring to any number of reference books or Google... but then I would suggest that it is just as possible to get by without ever reading any of the Greek legends, Epic poems, or plays or any of Shakespeare's writings... but I would wonder why anyone with a serious interest in literature would wish to take such a course.:confused:

[Vautrin]

Medtner:

kiki1982 has the right idea. Looking references up as you go along is not a bad strategy. The internet (reliable sites) will save you a lot of time. Also, owning your own Bible will do you wonders. I've also noticed that many authors, past and present, reference many of the same people/characters/events of the Old and New Testaments. A nice short cut approach would be to look up the most notable names in the Bible:

Old Testament
Adam and Eve
Cain and Abel
Job
Lot
Noah
Abraham
Moses
David
Solomon
Samson and Delilah
David and Goliath
Jonah

New Testament
John the Baptist
Lazarus
Jesus
Judas
Peter
Virgin Mary

Hope this helps.

[mal4mac]

If you're going to be a serious student of literature, you're going to have to read the Bible cover-to-cover at least once...

Who made you God to say what a 'serious student' of literature should or should not read? Does your rule apply to Indian students? In practice you are wrong, of course, even for Western students. Very few institutions demand that their literature students should read the bible cover-to-cover. Or do you have some other definition of 'serious student'? Perhaps: "Those who follow Lokasenna's rules."?

St Luke - I think the Bible has many more boring parts than the other classics you mention. I've spent the last year reading, or trying to read, the major classics. I'm reading the Divine Comedy (Mandelbaum translation), at the moment, and am finding it very interesting. There are some boring bits, but not that many. The descriptions of Hell more than make up for the (thankfully short!) lists of Italian nobodies that Dante dwells upon, here and there. It's *much* more interesting than the Bible. Shakespeare is even more interesting. There is hardly a boring paragraph in his masterpieces. I recently read Rieu's translation of the Odyssey, and that was very interesting. The Iliad was more problematic, but I did manage to complete it. The Bible is the only work I stopped reading because it was just too boring/hard/dry/painful.

Then again, the great poets make parts of the Bible sound very interesting, so one always starts thinking, "I should read the Bible". So I sought out abridgements -- but even they became too boring to suffer. I've now given up, and read works I actually find interesting. If they mention biblical stories then I make sure they have good footnotes. I sometimes use 'the net', but there's a lot of tedious stuff out there to wade through, on this subject in partuicular. I keep on meaning to buy a Bible dictionary. Could anyone recommend a good one? The Penguin looks a possibility...

To answer St Luke's question :) -- one should read Shakespeare, the Greeks and Dante if, perhaps after some considerable effort, you find them to be of overwhelming aesthetic value. I gave up reading the complete Bible even after putting much more effort into trying to read it than into reading Shakespeare, Homer and Dante, It is of insufficient aesthetic value, for me. I now view it as being a bit like Holinshed -- a nice source book for Shakespeare and others, but why on Earth would anyone read it now?

[Drkshadow03]

Who made you God to say what a 'serious student' of literature should or should not read? Does your rule apply to Indian students? In practice you are wrong, of course, even for Western students. Very few institutions demand that their literature students should read the bible cover-to-cover. Or do you have some other definition of 'serious student'? Perhaps: "Those who follow Lokasenna's rules."?

St Luke - I think the Bible has many more boring parts than the other classics you mention. I've spent the last year reading, or trying to read, the major classics. I'm reading the Divine Comedy (Mandelbaum translation), at the moment, and am finding it very interesting. There are some boring bits, but not that many. The descriptions of Hell more than make up for the (thankfully short!) lists of Italian nobodies that Dante dwells upon, here and there. It's *much* more interesting than the Bible. Shakespeare is even more interesting. There is hardly a boring paragraph in his masterpieces. I recently read Rieu's translation of the Odyssey, and that was very interesting. The Iliad was more problematic, but I did manage to complete it. The Bible is the only work I stopped reading because it was just too boring/hard/dry/painful.

Then again, the great poets make parts of the Bible sound very interesting, so one always starts thinking, "I should read the Bible". So I sought out abridgements -- but even they became too boring to suffer. I've now given up, and read works I actually find interesting. If they mention biblical stories then I make sure they have good footnotes. I sometimes use 'the net', but there's a lot of tedious stuff out there to wade through, on this subject in partuicular. I keep on meaning to buy a Bible dictionary. Could anyone recommend a good one? The Penguin looks a possibility...

To answer St Luke's question :) -- one should read Shakespeare, the Greeks and Dante if, perhaps after some considerable effort, you find them to be of overwhelming aesthetic value. I gave up reading the complete Bible even after putting much more effort into trying to read it than into reading Shakespeare, Homer and Dante, It is of insufficient aesthetic value, for me. I now view it as being a bit like Holinshed -- a nice source book for Shakespeare and others, but why on Earth would anyone read it now?

You do realize that this is of course merely your opinion. I found the Bible very interesting and entertaining when I read it, with the exception of most the parts St. Luke already indicated.

And at the end of the day it really does help you understand other literature.

As far as serious literature students, I remember reading an essay a few years ago in Theory's Empire anthology bemoaning the state of literary studies because students can go on and on about racial subtext, clandestine gender issues, and post-colonial theory, but cannot recognize the most basic of Biblical allusions in texts anymore.

[aquarium444]

Hello,

I suppose this question applies to all the arts, but I'll make it specific for literature. I was wondering what the best way is to understand Biblical references in literature.

I don't really have much knowledge of the Bible, should i just read it from cover to cover? Or maybe this isn't necessary?

Thanks or your time.

I noticed some biblical references in H.P Lovecraft's stories. If you think about it, the Bible was more popular in the past and it would probably enhance any literature. That book though seems to make some people uncomfortable, so if you can read it than you are fortunate.

Lovecraft uses the theme of paganism related to human transformation and devil worship, etc. Say you were to try to understand what paganism was. One way to do it would be to compare it to Christianity or another religion. Otherwise what is paganism by itself? There is also philosophy, but religion is useful along with philosophy in the same way. These days you can just watch television and not worry about any of these things.

[MarkBastable]

I think it depends what you mean by 'references'. If you're a native speaker of any language predominant in a country that's been Christian for a few hundred years, the chances are you already make loads of Biblical references, whether you realise it or not. They're part of the idiom of most European languages, wherever in the world those languages are spoken.

But if you're talking about allusions to Biblical events and the recycling of Bibilical phraseology, then the Bible is only one of hundreds of books - or, to be more accurate, only sixty-six of hundreds of books - that tend to crop up in other books.

So then you're talking about the Bible as part of a literary and historical canon that informs the culture - which probably means that you should not dismiss it, nor that you should read it from Once Upon a Time to Happy Ever After - but a general familiarity with it would help.

Alternatively, you could back-engineer your knowledge of the Bible. Every time you come across a Biblical reference, read that bit of the original. Pretty soon you'll know all the parts that tend to get referred to.

[stlukesguild]

...you could back-engineer your knowledge of the Bible. Every time you come across a Biblical reference, read that bit of the original...

The problem with this approach is that you are assuming that the reader will recognize when and where a Biblical reference is being made. Literature is full of references to other works of literature. Certain works of literature (the Bible, the Greek plays/poems, Don Quixote, Dante's Comedia, Shakespeare, the Arthurian legends, etc...) are far more referenced than others.

[MarkBastable]

...you could back-engineer your knowledge of the Bible. Every time you come across a Biblical reference, read that bit of the original...

The problem with this approach is that you are assuming that the reader will recognize when and where a Biblical reference is being made. Literature is full of references to other works of literature. Certain works of literature (the Bible, the Greek plays/poems, Don Quixote, Dante's Comedia, Shakespeare, the Arthurian legends, etc...) are far more referenced than others.

..which is why I said, the Bible is only one of hundreds of books...that tend to crop up in other books.

Even so, if you googled every reference you didn't recognise, you'd know within about five seconds which were biblical. On top of which, you'd find out a lot of other stuff you didn't know too.

[kiki1982]

That is what I do. To me, call it fatalistic if you want, it is impossible to learn that bible as well as Brontë knew for example. She had been brought up with it and makes references to the most obscure things in it. What is the chance that I will be able to catch up on 30 years of only that? Maybe in 30 years then?

Most explicit references just scream the concept reference, so if you look all up, you do get mot of those.
Implicit is more difficult, but even after 3 reads you can't get all implici ones.

That said, though, there is no harm in reading, but I wouldn't deem it actually essential (unless I was a scholar).

[mal4mac]

... Every time you come across a Biblical reference, read that bit of the original. Pretty soon you'll know all the parts that tend to get referred to.

St Luke made a good point about implicit references, but Mark might have been referring to explicit references? In that case, I think good footnotes are better. References often direct you to very tedious, very long passages in the Bible. I've found it far better to read the summaries in, say, Bate & Rasmussen's RSC Shakespeare or Mandelbaum's Dante. Also, the notes in these excellent versions explain implicit references.

[Whifflingpin]

"If you're going to be a serious student of literature, you're going to have to read the Bible cover-to-cover at least once... "

"Who made you God to say what a 'serious student' of literature should or should not read?"

" it is impossible to learn that bible as well as Brontë knew for example. She had been brought up with it and makes references to the most obscure things in it. "

Obviously Lokasenna meant "serious student of Western Literature." A working knowledge of the Bible was a given for western writers until recently, and would have been assumed for readers too.

Not all parts of the Bible would have been equally familiar. The Brontes' readers would, in good measure, have been churchgoers, hearing Sunday by Sunday portions of the Bible read out as prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer. That would make a good starting point for any serious student of English literature, at least. Those passages, the portions of the Epistles and Gospels selected for Sundays and holy days, are possibly the least dull and would certainly have been the most familiar. After that, the psalms, which were read through or sung at least once each year. Read a psalm, out loud, using the King James version, every day. Then you'll know whence come the rhythms and cadences of five hundred years of English literature.

[mal4mac]

A working knowledge of the Bible was a given for western writers until recently, and would have been assumed for readers too.

Not all parts of the Bible would have been equally familiar. The Brontes' readers would, in good measure, have been churchgoers, hearing Sunday by Sunday portions of the Bible read out as prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer. That would make a good starting point for any serious student of English literature, at least. Those passages, the portions of the Epistles and Gospels selected for Sundays and holy days, are possibly the least dull and would certainly have been the most familiar. After that, the psalms, which were read through or sung at least once each year. Read a psalm, out loud, using the King James version, every day. Then you'll know whence come the rhythms and cadences of five hundred years of English literature.

What do you mean by 'a working knowledge'? Are you saying all serious Western writers have read the Bible cover to cover? I doubt it. Given that priests and vicars in literature are so often presented as idiots and dullards, I think we can assume the average 'church portions' were pretty dull fare.

So I'll be avoiding them.

There are some pretty dull scholars as well, so you have to be careful, but you can usually find versions of the classics with reasonably interesting notes. Just because a great writer had to suffer through a thousand boring sermons doesn't mean that we have to go through the same experience to appreciate him/her.

[Whifflingpin]

"What do you mean by 'a working knowledge'? Are you saying all serious Western writers have read the Bible cover to cover?"

I wasn't saying that, quite the contrary in fact - not that reading the Bible from cover to cover is particularly arduous, even including the less exciting parts. But regular church or chapel going was the norm, whether you like it or not. Regular readings from the Bible were part of the shared experience, and part of the underlying pattern of life, for writers and readers alike in the English speaking world from the mid-sixteenth century to the mid-twentieth century - four centuries, not five as I originally wrote.

"I think we can assume the average 'church portions' were pretty dull fare.
So I'll be avoiding them."
That's your choice, but I was really addressing the original poster (who has gone very quiet.) As a start to recognising and understanding the infinity of biblical references in Western literature, it would make more sense to read the most influential parts of the book, rather than attempting to read it right through it. There are parts that were, through the Book of Common Prayer, appointed to be read, at their set times, year after year. Those are the parts which, in my opinion, were most likely to be known to most writers and their readers.

[Lokasenna]

Obviously Lokasenna meant "serious student of Western Literature." A working knowledge of the Bible was a given for western writers until recently, and would have been assumed for readers too.

Absolutely - looking for Biblical influences in The Tale of Genji would, for example, be pretty stupid.

@mal4mac
I'm not suggesting that all western writers have read the Bible cover to cover - such a suggestion is very obviously ludicrous. However, the intellectual weight of the Bible has hung behind Western literature for almost the entirety of its history, and certainly since art made the transition from an oral medium to a written one. Unless a western writer is working completely outside the context of his society and cultural heritage, then he's going to be aware of Biblical issues and archetypes... the intellectual effect of Christianity is far too inherently woven into our cultural identity for it to be any other way, and that, at least, is what I mean by a working knowledge. As it so happens, I have read the Bible cover-to-cover a few times, but my memory certainly isn't good enough to remember everything - however, even before I read it, certain passages and allusions in other pieces of literature would resonate distantly with something in my mind, and upon further examination I would discover a biblical parrallel; that inital sense of there being some textual link is what I would think of as 'working knowledge' in practise.

[Virgil]

What do you mean by 'a working knowledge'? Are you saying all serious Western writers have read the Bible cover to cover? I doubt it.

I would say that you're wrong. Until say the mid 20th century, it was the norm for eveyrone to have read the bible. That was what was used in most schoolrooms and in most cases was the only book people owned.

[Modest Proposal]

Honestly, if you don't want to read and study the traditional Bible, I see two fun/informative options.

1. Buy a Bible as literature text. This will read more like literature and give a lot of information on the Bible's place in the development of story telling.

2. Always buy books-replete-with-references in heavily foot-noted editions.

[stlukesguild]

Even so, if you googled every reference you didn't recognise, you'd know within about five seconds which were biblical. On top of which, you'd find out a lot of other stuff you didn't know too.

Again... you don't always know that something even is an allusion or a reference. Obviously if you are reading a poem like The Wasteland... or Geoffrey Hill's Triumph of Love (which I'm currently working through) you may know enough to check any reference to an unknown person or place or any foreign phrase... but many other allusions can get by you (not that this is horrible or that you cannot appreciate a work unless you get each and every allusion). Still, one suspects that Faulkner assumes you recognize that "the sound and the fury" is a Shakespearean quotation and that T.S. Eliot clearly assumes that when he speaks of the crowd passing over the London Bridge with the phrase "I had not thought death had undone so many" or begins the poem with the lines "April is the cruelest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land..." he assumes that you recognize the allusions to Dante, Chaucer, and Whitman. Here is where I agree that good critical commentary or footnotes are far more useful that consulting Google. Google is great... but only if you recognize when something is an allusion.

[MarkBastable]

Even so, if you googled every reference you didn't recognise, you'd know within about five seconds which were biblical. On top of which, you'd find out a lot of other stuff you didn't know too.

Again... you don't always know that something even is an allusion or a reference. Obviously if you are reading a poem like The Wasteland... or Geoffrey Hill's Triumph of Love (which I'm currently working through) you may know enough to check any reference to an unknown person or place or any foreign phrase... but many other allusions can get by you (not that this is horrible or that you cannot appreciate a work unless you get each and every allusion). Still, one suspects that Faulkner assumes you recognize that "the sound and the fury" is a Shakespearean quotation and that T.S. Eliot clearly assumes that when he speaks of the crowd passing over the London Bridge with the phrase "I had not thought death had undone so many" or begins the poem with the lines "April is the cruelest month, breeding..." that you recognize the allusions to Dante, Chaucer, and Whitman. Here is where good critical commentary is far more useful that consulting Google. Google is great... but only if you recognize when something is an allusion.
Lilacs out of the dead land..." he

Gosh, you sure have read a whole heap of big books, haven't you?

[Modest Proposal]

Gosh, you sure have read a whole heap of big books, haven't you?

I hope, though I doubt, that you are not being snide.

There is of course a certain amount of academic arrogance in the world that is annoying, but I believe without a doubt that the world is far better for the knowledgeable despite this aspect. And for the record, I don't think StLukes was trying to beat you over the head with his knowledge. Rather he was doing exactly what I and so many others are thankful for, that is: giving a thoughtful, backed and informed opinion.

There are enough uninformed, rude, immature etc. opinions on the internet. I don't think we should despise the few thoughtful ones just because someone thinks they may POSSIBLY be flaunting their expertise.

[stlukesguild]

Exactly... when I want to brow-beat you with arrogance and my stellar academic acumen I will begin citing Tang and Sung poets, as well as unknown Canadian writers, and quoting Leopardi in Italian.:D

By the way... its true... I probably have read well more than my share of books... but Eliot, Faulkner, Dante, Chaucer, Dante, Whitman and the Bible...? These would all seem to be standard reading for most Western students of literature. Its not exactly like I was citing William of Ockham, Martin Heidegger, O.V. de L. Milosz, and the Codex Sinaiticus:confused:



(Seriously, JBI, I've begun reading that volume of P.K. Page's poetry and I must admit she has quite rapidly seduced me. I'll certainly be on the lookout for more.:thumbs_up)

[mortalterror]

Gosh, you sure have read a whole heap of big books, haven't you?
Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets. She crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates: in the city she uttereth her words, saying, "How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge?" -Proverbs 1: 20-22

[Modest Proposal]

Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets. She crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates: in the city she uttereth her words, saying, "How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge?" -Proverbs 1: 20-22

No one lays the smack down like Solomon.

[Basil]

Still, one suspects that Faulkner assumes you recognize that "the sound and the fury" is a Shakespearean quotation...
Even more to the point, as far as this thread is concerned, Faulkner assumes the reader is aware of the basic facts concerning the life of Jesus: Most of the action in The Sound and the Fury takes place during Holy Week, and there are numerous references and allusions to biblical events in the novel. Of course, you don't have to know all the references to appreciate the book, but having a working knowledge of the Bible would probably give you a better understanding of Faulkner's work.

I seem to remember Faulkner once saying he preferred the Old Testament to the New Testament because the Old Testament was the one with all the "stories."

[mal4mac]

I wasn't saying that, quite the contrary in fact - not that reading the Bible from cover to cover is particularly arduous, even including the less exciting parts.

I found it more arduous than any other book I've tried to read, and that includes the most advanced physics texts I tackled in my degrees. Dante, Shakespeare and Homer were far less arduous. Kant was almost as arduous, but at least I finished his first critique.

I also thought "it would make more sense to read the most influential parts of the book, rather than attempting to read it right through." But I couldn't find a good abridgement or guide to the parts worth reading. I get the impression that Biblical scholarship is far behind that of Shakespearean scholarship, at least in attempts to make it accessible to the common reader. I have not found any equivalent to Bate & Rasmussen, or even to the "Wordsworth classics" notes producers. Christianity has aways had a tendency to 'keep its secrets', to keep the Bible as a closed book that can only be interpreted by a priesthood. That's partly how the Bishops keep their power, why they still get a vote in the British parliament even though nobody votes for them!



There are parts that were, through the Book of Common Prayer, appointed to be read, at their set times, year after year. Those are the parts which, in my opinion, were most likely to be known to most writers and their readers.

I've never seen any serious critic refer to the Book of Common prayer as a great work of literature, or even as a useful guide.


Honestly, if you don't want to read and study the traditional Bible, I see two fun/informative options.

1. Buy a Bible as literature text. This will read more like literature and give a lot of information on the Bible's place in the development of story telling.

2. Always buy books-replete-with-references in heavily foot-noted editions.

Neither of these have been fun options for me! Books with light footnotes have been fun - think RSC Shakespeare, or "Wordsworth Classics" Joyce. Which Bible as literature text would you recommend?

[Whifflingpin]

"I've never seen any serious critic refer to the Book of Common prayer as a great work of literature, or even as a useful guide."

The Book of Common Prayer is one of the masterpieces of the English language. Personally, I'd judge the seriousness of any critic on whether he recognised that fact or not, if I had any interest in judging literary critics.

But I was not offering the Book of Common Prayer for its literary qualities, only that it points to those parts of the Bible that people would have been most familiar with, and hence it is possibly the best "guide to the parts worth reading" if the aim is to recognize biblical allusions. I mentioned the Epistles and Gospels used in the Communion service, but, probably for most of the period the table of Old and New Testament lessons appointed to be read at Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer would be more relevant.

[kiki1982]

I also thought "it would make more sense to read the most influential parts of the book, rather than attempting to read it right through." But I couldn't find a good abridgement or guide to the parts worth reading. I get the impression that Biblical scholarship is far behind that of Shakespearean scholarship, at least in attempts to make it accessible to the common reader. I have not found any equivalent to Bate & Rasmussen, or even to the "Wordsworth classics" notes producers. Christianity has aways had a tendency to 'keep its secrets', to keep the Bible as a closed book that can only be interpreted by a priesthood. That's partly how the Bishops keep their power, why they still get a vote in the British parliament even though nobody votes for them!

I've never seen any serious critic refer to the Book of Common prayer as a great work of literature, or even as a useful guide.

There was at least one critic I have read who had a look at Jane Eyre and the references to The Book of Common Prayer... Other than that I haven't seen it so far, but then again, I was obsessed with the former and I haven't read so much about one book in particular since.

As for 'secrets', you could say that of the Catholic Church, although their theology or interpretation is not at all secret, although it is considered as a science that is taught at uni. The faculty now mainly contains lay people instead of priests and nuns (professors are even laymen). That said, though, theology is so vast and intricate that it is almost impossible to learn it without a proper book on it (like it is difficult to get any philosopher without works on the particular text and the general philosophy of the philosopher and his use of wording). Do physicists have secrets? I do not see people claiming that. Yet, not everyone knows how electricity works. Not everyone knows how The Holy Trinity (to take a Catholic example) works, yet you can find a theological explanation anywhere on the net if you want, just like the explanation about electricity, in the short and mor complex version. You can find even whole books on both.

As for protestants: they make a point of studying the bible themselves, daily, or at least that was the set-up. I don't suppose they all do it now, although there are bound to be some diehards still doing it. Where the Catholic Church kept the thing in Latin (unreadable for most people), the protestants translated it into the people's language in order to offer them the chance of studying themselves and they dragged their children to Sunday school to make sure they got the message of the stories, as did the Catholics with the Cathecism.

Whether that is good or not is not the point we are discussing. Fact is that the bible in itself is very flowery and contains a lot of old symbolism, like Medieval literature (not the same kind, but it is comparable in its mainly symbolica manner of writing). It cannot be just read and understood like a normal book. I mean, there might be people who believe that Moses heard a voice in the bush on Sinai (?) and then that God came down in a dark cloud; or that when Jesus died on Golgotha, God made it dark (it was probably a sun-eclips that lasted for a few seconds and not hours and hours on end) but is that really true?

But fact is that most people who wrote classics either went to church every Sunday (or even every day) or at least had read the bible (certainly in protestant countries) or the Gospel. They either loathed it and crusaded against it, or they really believed and made a point of proving it. It all depends on what experiences one has had with it.

Now may I ask, what is wrong with reading one psalm at the time? I haven't done it, only for Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, but that wasn't that bad. A few pages are not 300 pages of the Book of Kings or Chronicles! Or those few paragraphs of Joshua... Really, if you read it in little bits as you go along, it really isn't that bad.

Though I grant you the fact that it is pretty tedious to read it all in one go.

[stlukesguild]

mac I'm tempted to suggest that its all you... an aversion to Christianity that you can't get around? Seriously, the Bible should probably not be read as a single unified book... and you might do well to recognize that the separation of the work into books (Genesis, Exodus, etc...) does not always follow the actual separations between sections and authors. The work was highly edited and additions were interpolated where various religious figures felt the text was lacking). Nevertheless, I have not found the work grossly difficult whether reading in the King James Version or another translation of a given book or section. Again, good commentary is a plus and can steer you away from long lists of heredity (who begat whom) or stiff passages of Hebrew law, and focus your attention upon the key narratives and upon the visionary prose and poetry.

The Psalms have been touted as a good starting point, but I'll state that even in the time of the KJV it was recognized that the translation was lacking as poetry (with the exception of the marvelous 23rd Psalm), and was essentially English prose. You might wish to check into the translation of the Psalms by the Hebrew scholar, Robert Alter (and trust me Biblical scholarship is in no way lacking in comparison to Shakespeare) or you might check into The Poet's Book of Psalms, edited by Laurence Wieder in which the editor chose what he found to be the strongest translation (as poetry) of each Psalm and drew from English writers ranging from Chaucer, Milton, Christopher Smart, Sir Philip Sidney (and his wife), to Coleridge and more contemporary poets.

By a similar token you might look at the Song of Songs (or the Song of Solomon). This book is translated marvelously in the KJV and it stands as no more difficult than the lyrical poetry of Theocritus (or other Greek lyrical poets... who most certainly influenced this work according to the latest scholarship). For a version complete with solid scholarly notes (including an afterword by Robert Alter) you might look for Chana and Ariel Bloch's translation of The Song of Songs.

Stephen Mitchell offers a wonderful translation of one of the greatest books of the Bible... indeed, of the whole of literature, The Book of Job. Again, the KJV is unsurpassed in many ways, but Mitchell offers some intriguing insights... connections with Kafka and certain works of Asian literature. He also draws attention to the sections of the work that were added later by Hebrew religious figures who found the work to be blasphemous.

There are endless other brilliant sections of the Bible, and other narratives worthy of consideration. I quite enjoyed Robert Alter's Five Books of Moses, and The David Story which focus mostly on the key narratives from the Hebrew Bible (the Prophets are beast of another sort altogether). Richard Elliott Friedman's The Hidden Book in the Bible suggests a single extended narrative with a single author that has been fragmented and collaged over any number of books. His concept builds upon the so-called "documentary hypothesis" which is explored by your critical idol, Harold Bloom, in The Book of J. What you might find is that a great majority of Biblical scholars focus upon a given book or collection of books as opposed to the Bible as a whole for the very reason that they recognize that the Bible is not a single book, but rather a collection of books.

[Modest Proposal]

Neither of these have been fun options for me! Books with light footnotes have been fun - think RSC Shakespeare, or "Wordsworth Classics" Joyce. Which Bible as literature text would you recommend?

Oxford has a very interesting one and if you are at the university there are almost always these classes available.

And in regards to your previous post, I always heard of the Book of Common Prayer regarded as one of the masterpieces of English. If you are interested in works and authors influenced by it, check out some of the great 19th century Americans. Emerson and Thoreau were HUGELY influenced by it.

Think of Thoreau's language in 'Walden' in relation to 'The Book of Common Prayer's' famous style. "We have left undone the things we aught to have done and have done the things we aught not to have done."

[stlukesguild]

Fact is that the bible in itself is very flowery and contains a lot of old symbolism...

Flowery?

At the beginning of God's creating of the Heavens and the Earth,
When the Earth was wild and waste,
Darkness over the face of the Ocean,
Rushing spirit of God hovering over the face of the waters-
God said: Let there be light! And there was light.
God saw the light: that it was good.
God separated the light from the darkness.
God called the light: Day! and the darkness he called: Night!
There was setting, there was dawning: one day.

-tr. Robert Alter

A great deal of the narratives of the Bible read as simple fables... folk tales... far from being "flowery"... although one might make such as assumption from the language of the King James Version. Many other sections of the Bible employ the simple language of parable. Certainly there is metaphor and symbol... especially in the "prophetic" books such as Isaiah or Revelations, where the intention is to veil the prophesy in a visionary language, but much of the Bible is easily read (although it has often been complicated over time through interpretations which seek to suggest something that was not there).

[mal4mac]

Now may I ask, what is wrong with reading one psalm at the time? I haven't done it, only for Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, but that wasn't that bad. A few pages are not 300 pages of the Book of Kings or Chronicles! Or those few paragraphs of Joshua... Really, if you read it in little bits as you go along, it really isn't that bad.

Though I grant you the fact that it is pretty tedious to read it all in one go.

That's what I do! Dante is very good for this -- a canto a day. Same with Shakespeare - an act a day. But, surely, you need to look forward to your daily encounter? If, as with the Bible, everyday becomes a boring grind, then why go on? Maybe the psalms are better. Maybe not. I haven't found a trusty guide to tell me what to read and what to avoid. So it's easier just to avoid the whole thing, there's plenty good stuff to read...

[MarkBastable]

I hope, though I doubt, that you are not being snide.


No - as you suspect, I was being snide. Which doesn't mean, incidentally, that I'm not well-read.


That's what I do! Dante is very good for this -- a canto a day. Same with Shakespeare - an act a day. But, surely, you need to look forward to your daily encounter? If, as with the Bible, everyday becomes a boring grind, then why go on? Maybe the psalms are better. Maybe not. I haven't found a trusty guide to tell me what to read and what to avoid. So it's easier just to avoid the whole thing, there's plenty good stuff to read...

I don't think anyone's saying that you should read the Bible or the Book of Common Prayer if you've given them a go and you can't get on with them. I think what's exercising people is your insistence that no-one need read them, and that no-one worth reading has been influenced by them.

It's pretty inescapable - and I say this as a happy atheist who's very familiar with the Bible - that those two books have had more influence on Western literature than any other two books we could argue for. So, for the student of literature, the question is not whether they are enjoyable, or easy, or well-written or good or bad or set in an annoying font - it's just that they are so intrinsic to the canon that they're unavoidable.

And, of course, they wouldn't be that intrinsic if they had nothing going for them at all.

[Scheherazade]

~

Please do not personalise your arguments.

Posts containing inflammatory/personal comments will be deleted without further notice.

~

[mortalterror]

I took to reading the Bible last night. Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon come right after each other, in that order, and are all delights to read with a great deal of variety.

Though I never tire of Job, I'd rather read Hafiz's Divan than the Song of Solomon, which is not to say that I did not like them. Proverbs got a little repetitive; so I'd rather have a book of aphorisms like Confucius' Analects or The Maxims of La Rochefoucauld. If Job is the best book of the Old Testament, then Revelations is probably the high point of The New, and I don't know where I would find anything to take it's place in secular literature. You could probably replace much of Genesis with choice parts of Ovid's Metamorphoses and The Epic of Gilgamesh.

I don't know that a person necessarily has to read all four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The plot remains much the same from book to book, but the character of Jesus is altered from the perspective of each narrator. One is the story of a god on earth while another is very nearly a man. It's very Rashomon, with it's shifting perspectives. I don't know which I'd say is the best, but you get something different out of each of them.

[kiki1982]

I don't know that a person necessarily has to read all four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The plot remains much the same from book to book, but the character of Jesus is altered from the perspective of each narrator. One is the story of a god on earth while another is very nearly a man. It's very Rashomon, with it's shifting perspectives. I don't know which I'd say is the best, but you get something different out of each of them.

The three evangelists Mark, Luke and Matthew all copied from each other, or more to the point from the oldest which was written by Mark. Mark turns out to be more natural (although medieval 'translations' have actually made it more holy). If I remember rightly from the useful RE classes I have had, there was a doctor among them. I think it was Luke, but I'm not sure. He tends to dwell on how Jesus actually cured the lepres/the blind/... or on the moment. It is pretty ineresting. Mark hadn't known Jesus himself, but wrote down the stories of witnesses and one man in particular. The rest came longer after those witnesses.

John was the only one who wrote really his own gospel and it is totally different. He was also the latest, so by then the myth of holy Jesus was really spread, where the other three still wrote about someone more human.

[mal4mac]

Oxford has a very interesting one and if you are at the university there are almost always these classes available.

And in regards to your previous post, I always heard of the Book of Common Prayer regarded as one of the masterpieces of English. If you are interested in works and authors influenced by it, check out some of the great 19th century Americans. Emerson and Thoreau were HUGELY influenced by it.

Think of Thoreau's language in 'Walden' in relation to 'The Book of Common Prayer's' famous style. "We have left undone the things we aught to have done and have done the things we aught not to have done."

Which Oxford? The Oxford Classics KJV is just the boring old KJV. I actually bought this, but gave somehere around numbers. The Annotated Oxford goes into too much detail. So not only do you get the boring parts of the Bible you get them explained in boring detail as well! Is there a Biblical equivalent of the RSC Shakespeare?

Could anyone recommend a good annotated version with light, useful notes? I have W.H. Stevenson's "King James Bible: A Selection", and "Testament" by Philip Law. But both had flaws that led me to give up. Law's abridgement was bearable until about half way through "David". I got lost in the desert.

The problem I had with Stevenson was not really Stevenson but the KJV. I was forever encountering passages I could not understand, and started looking up modern translations on the Web. This made progress very slow so I just decided to switch to a modern trsnalation (Law). But then I lost the beauty of the language! And I ran into the sand in David. Then I decided Shakespeare, Homer & Dante were more beautiful, and much easier to understand, so I gave up on the Bible.

I have read Thoreau (Walden) and Emerson is on my list. Maybe reading these authors will inspire me to take *another* look.

[mal4mac]

I don't think anyone's saying that you should read the Bible or the Book of Common Prayer if you've given them a go and you can't get on with them. I think what's exercising people is your insistence that no-one need read them, and that no-one worth reading has been influenced by them.

It's pretty inescapable - and I say this as a happy atheist who's very familiar with the Bible - that those two books have had more influence on Western literature than any other two books we could argue for. So, for the student of literature, the question is not whether they are enjoyable, or easy, or well-written or good or bad or set in an annoying font - it's just that they are so intrinsic to the canon that they're unavoidable.

And, of course, they wouldn't be that intrinsic if they had nothing going for them at all.

Someone certainly did say I should read the Bible, at least implicitly! Read the thread from the beginning. I like to think I'm a "reasonably" serious student of literature, so for someone to say I'm not serious because I haven't read the Bible is rather insulting. Tackling Shakespeare's complete works & Dante seems fairly serious to me. Of course, I'm not a "serious specialised scholar" in these areas, but I think I'm a "serious common reader", and I think a common reader can be a serious student of literature.

I agree that many of the characters and concepts form the Bible are unavoidable, but you can learn about them from footnotes. Don't most literature students do this anyway? Obviously many of the ideas in the Bible are important to understanding our culture, but do you have to gain an understanding of them through reading the Bible?

As a physics graduate I know, through experience, that "serious students of physics" do not have to read a word of Newton's Principia. But Newton's ideas are central to an understanding of physics, and are a totally unavoidable element in any serious course of physics. So if physics students don't have to read Newton why should literature students have to read the Bible?

[kiki1982]

As a physics graduate I know, through experience, that "serious students of physics" do not have to read a word of Newton's Principia. But Newton's ideas are central to an understanding of physics, and are a totally unavoidable element in any serious course of physics. So if physics students don't have to read Newton why should literature students have to read the Bible?

Because Newton's principles are absolute, like Physics is absolute. They have been improved, but still they stand. And if they are improved, it is because they are proven to be (partly) wrong.

Literature is not an exact science, so Physics and Literature are not comparable. Physics is about absolute ideas, Literature is about feelings mainly. Footnotes help, but they only explain where the allusion comes from, they do not tell you what feeling there is amongst the original text the author who alluded to it obviously pairs up with his own story.

Essentially, Newton's works were proof for what he thought, through experiments and the like. Still, only his theory (that he or others have proven) actually is the important bit. The rest is ballast, useless to read because the same theory does not have to be proven twenty times over or as many times as students maybe want to read it. It stands, full stop. It is right.

Literature is not about having a theory and then proving it after which it is true and considered clearly 'the right way'. It is about a certain way of reading something and understanding it in that light. That is why 19th century books, and Shakespeare and more of them are still being interpreted in new lights. Physics cannot be interpreted in the feminist light ;).

What does this have to do with the bible? The bible also conveys feelings. Mostly though, the stories should be read, but also seen in the light of the day the author is writing in. Explanation that people got about it, or how people thought about it.

And yes, there is so much more to read, but five minutes I don't find that bad.

[stlukesguild]

Actually DeQuincy deals directly with this question... using Newton's Principia as an example of the difference between literature and other forms of writing in his essay The Literature of Knowledge and the Literature of Power.

[mal4mac]

Literature is about feelings mainly. Footnotes help, but they only explain where the allusion comes from, they do not tell you what feeling there is amongst the original text the author who alluded to it obviously pairs up with his own story.

Good point. I'm caught in a vicious circle really:

1. I read quotes from the KJV Job & Ecclesiastes that reach the emotional/intellectual heights that footnotes can never reach and decide I must read the whole KJV Bible to encounter more of this kind of thing. Then I remember the many previous attempts that failed, and resist for a while, until eventually, having built up another head of steam, and having forgotten the pain, I:
2. Read the Bible and give up well before Job & Ecclesiastes because the emotions I'm feeling are extreme boredom and excessive confusion.
3. Back to 1.

Maybe I need to learn how to skip?

[kiki1982]

And why not read Ecclesiastes and Job on its own? Those books are not in chronological order, you know. They don't have a plot.

They are seperate entities, so no problem doing that.

I guess in my time of (forced church-going, I have had enugh of the gospel (although recently I read The Sermon on the Mount several times concerning The Count of Monte Cristo), also The Song of Songs because I encountered it when going through Proverbs in search of a quote for something. I read the Book of Esther a while back for Jane Eyre.

I have read Cain and Abel (very short) for info on Byron's Cain. It didn't help much, but in the end I have read it. Joshua. Adam and Eve and the forbidden fruit (the rest I knew already properly).

A part of Leviticus concerning 'an eye for an eye' also for Monte Cristo, as well as the part where Moses comes from the mountain of Sinai as the jews are honouring the golden calf.

They all only take five minutes. Why should one read that thing all in one go? Just read the bit that concerns you. Unless you really need to know everything, but who says that?

[Medtner]

Well thankyou to everyones interest and replies, i think i will probably end up reading just the main passages of the bible, as well as making it one of my long term books to read.

Thankyou!

[Dinkleberry2010]

xxxxx