Yes, andave_ya, that is all true, and moreso each time one reads it. Amen.
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Yes, andave_ya, that is all true, and moreso each time one reads it. Amen.
Well, on a short note; I think there is poetry in the KJV. After all, the psalms were meant to be sung....right? (OK, maybe in Hebrew)
This might be of interest in regards to the "Old Testament", it's poetry and translations:
http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/23_parallel.html
http://www.cresourcei.org/parallel.html
http://www.bible-researcher.com/hebrew-poetry.html
i think the bible is very readable. the only exceptions are genealogies, but they only occur in the 'history' books and are not so frequent as to destroy the flow of the story.
my favourite parts of the bible are Job, Exodus, 1 Samuel, Mark, Revelation and maybe also Song of Songs. Ecclesiastes is good, along with Wisodm and Ecclesiasticus, both found in the Catholic Bible.
You must bear in mind when reading the Bible that such conceptions as genre, 'readability' and audience appreciation were not necessarily the powerful filters they are today in writing. it is a much more subtle and dificult form of literature that takes perseverance. it is also not a novel so dont expect to read it all straight through in the way you would war and peace for example.
the thing that ultimately makes the bible readable for me is that it is the basis of billions of people's faith, and the questions that can therefore arise from engaging with such a text are many.
however for those of you wishing to appreciate biblical literature, i would point you ini the direction of the following scholars who may shed light onto the topic for anyone wishing to enjoy the bible as art...
robert alter
j cheryl exum
david clines
david gunn and danna fewell
meir sternberg
laurence turner
jan fokkelman
these may be a good start.
I cringe and a little part of me dies inside whenever you compare Shakespeare to Cormac McCarthy or Blood Meridian to Moby Dick.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
Heh, you seem to have misread Eliot - he very much was using the common speech, in contrast to models like Tennyson, who were deliberately periphrastic. Eliot himself tried to establish himself as using a more common speech - I believe he phrased it as the language of conversation.
Periphrasis comes and goes with tastes - it was surely in fashion during Shakespeare's time, and the influence of John Lyly on his work - you can trace the development of his style too, from the pun crazy, rhetoric loving pentameters of Romeo and Juliet to the more loose highly enjambed verse rich with metaphor and imagery in The Winter's Tale.
The KVJ never was, and never will be spoken language - written and spoken English didn't really collide from my knowledge until later - the actual people's speak is generally different - take American fiction now, for instance - only drama is written in the vernacular - the literary diction is modeled after British trends, which too don't reflect the spoken language.
The Bible was meant to emulate the sort of archaic tones of the Old Testament in its translation - that's the reason for the language - it has nothing to do with spoken language, as, quite simply, literacy at that time was pitifully low anyway.
Isnt exactly this argument what gave birth to Coleridge's Suspension of Disbelief reggard Wordsworth Lyrical Ballads poems? And I think Eliot may use more comum language than writers who are under influence of Shakespeare, Chaucer, Milton, etc... but the daily speaker of english would sundenly say "We are the white man. Alas!" while talking with each other in the streets during the first part of XX century? I would find it funny...
Anyways, if you study the language of oral storytellers, the most popular and closer to popular vocabulary and semantics, you will notice even them present some degree of stylization of language when storytelling; the form they build the sentences, link it, the words used to streess a momment in the narrative. This happens in the most casual and simple anedocte. So, accusing a literary work to be "not like people" talked makes no sense at all and just points why the option of JKV (never seen obviously, only read the bible in portuguese, except a few online parts)...
As the bible aesthetical merits, any body of text that spawns a methology of interpretation like the hebrew texts did (fully aware the bible is just part of it) is obviously full of aesthetical merit and if anything, ultra-readable. The NT is so well crafted that Jesus is basically a prototype of Scherazade, framing stories within stories...
I cringe and a little part of me dies inside whenever you compare Shakespeare to Cormac McCarthy or Blood Meridian to Moby Dick.
No qualitative comparison... just noting that major writers across a vast spectrum of time and space have written in a manner which in no way mimics the spoken word.
I've often wondered just how true this is about the Elizabethan/Jacobean era as a whole. In England anyhow. In Wales English would have been a second language (as it still is in parts of North Wales), & the Welsh literary tradition predates the English. Arthur Golding's translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses into English (1565-67) was a huge seller. Shakespeare would have been familiar with both that & the original. There were many pirated editions of Shakespeare's plays (much to his chagrin) around. Although plays weren't exactly considered literature at the time. I don't know how many people actually were literate or semi-literate in an overall population of about six million. Much of the yeomanry were literate as they were the principle fee payers for Oxbridge. The reason behind the tradition for long summer holidays was that the sons of the yeomanry & other farmers/landowners could help with the harvest. They tried to send at least their eldest sons to university. I will need to research this more.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
I think it is safe to say, right off the top - virtually all women were illiterate, and the rest of the population was hardly literate at all - basic literacy came much later - even in the 19th century literacy wasn't that high - in truth, I doubt it was at a very high standard up through the 20th century - the virtual lack of illiteracy we see today is a new phenomenon - I'm not an expert, but I gaurentee you that this so called literacy was reserved for certain classes - better to ask Petrarch's love, she can give an accurate statistic. The actual literary output shows nothing about literacy, as, quite simply, theatre and poetry didn't require literacy for distribution.Quote:
Originally Posted by Red-Headed
That sounds about right for the lower & lower middle classes.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
I suppose most journeymen & day-labourers were illiterate but I am not so sure about the middle classes. The son of the farmer who owned the farm next to Shakespeare's father's farm regularly sent letters back to his family from university in fluent Latin (see William Shakespeare ~ Anthony Holden). That doesn't seem like illiteracy to me.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
Again, in a population of around 30 million I wonder how many were actually literate, or at least semi-literate? I think it is an assumption to believe that the vast majority were totally illiterate. 99% of the peasantry probably were, but there is evidence that even in the Elizabethan era literacy among the yeomanry & higher classes was relatively high (among males anyway).Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
Ermmm... that was my 'so called' point, I thought.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
I'm still not so sure... ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
According to this roughly 30% of men and 10% of women were literate in Tudor England.
http://www.bibliomania.com/1/7/333/2.../frameset.html
I bet that's a stretch too. I bet for most of those who are claimed to be literate, it's probably around third grade level.
Literacy, actually, at that time was defined by the ability to sign one's own name - so, in essence, 20% of people could sign their own name - how many could read the bible, written in a literary language though?Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
That sounds like a good figure.Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
I'm not sure what 3rd grade level is but this was my original point. When I said that literacy may have been higher than many people originally believed, I wouldn't have thought that it was particularly advanced.
Remember that Shakespeare had quite a good Grammar school education & these institutions were certainly not on the decline in his time.
Anything can generate a lot of texts. There are lots of texts on 1960s council housing. But few would argue such housing has much in the way of aesthetic merits...Quote:
Originally Posted by JCamilo
Maybe the Bible is like the architecture of modern cities, mostly cobbled together dross, with some amazing features here and there... I need a tour guide :-)
Council housing are not going to spawn lots of texts like the bible is doing for 3000 years. But I was refering to Kabalah; which only the hebrewing books generated.
Here you go. This should be easier.Quote:
Originally Posted by mal4mac
http://www.thebricktestament.com/
That's what I meant by unreadable :-) Of course you can read it, but who, except Bible scholars, would want to? Which brings another question - who would want to be a Bible scholar? Why not be a scholar of something readable - like Shakespeare? I guess at universities you can't choose:Quote:
Originally Posted by andave_ya
"Sorry, Jeff, we already have a Shakespeare expert if you want tenure you need to be our Bible expert." Jeff slinks off looking grim but determined...
I guess those brought up to be Christians also get the necessary steely determination. They are prepared to suffer, in the same way that Hindu fakirs stick pointed sticks through their flesh for their religion. Christians read Numbers instead...
Harold Bloom does stress, along with Nietzsche, that many of the greatest writers make painful demands on the reader's abilities and patience, in the cause of a higher pleasure. But how much pain? Shakespeare is fine. The small pain of reading the notes in the RSC Complete Shakespeare is worth the ultimate pleasure.
Even the storm of names & repetition in the unabridged Iliad is worth slogging through once for the reasonably frequent dramatic scenes of the highest calibre -- and it puts the equally violent Old Testament to shame in its far superior depiction of violence and its consequences. I read through some of the most violent books of the OT and the "Iliad" at the same time, and the difference was palpable.
"Testament" which Harold Bloom has said contains everything of the "highest literary interest" from the Bible is 1/3 the length of the complete Bible. So at least 2/3 of the Bible is not worth reading! (But even then I still found "Testament" unreadable! Still too much tedium was left in. Maybe another reduction by half needed?)
Christians are doing a very bad job, then, in getting their message across to the modern, non-Christian reader of literature. Imagine if Shakespeare had made the first 600 000 words of his complete works unreadable! The playhouses would have been empty. The puritans would not have needed to close them by force. The Bible usually gets into lists of canonical literature, but has to share equal billing with Shakespeare, Dickens, and another dozen or say great writers. Who on Earth would read the Bible, cover to cover, when they could read Shakespeare instead...Quote:
Originally Posted by andave_ya
P.S. I'm still reading the "100 minute Bible". Even that's a bit tedious - but I can manage a page a day, so should finish it before Xmas...
"Easiness" is not the main requirement. I'm looking for "reasonable aesthetic value". "Brick art" is too derivative and banal. Also, like the original, it "uses too many words": "She gave birth to a second child, Abel, the brother of Cain."Quote:
Originally Posted by FalseReality
Nobody has mentioned The Jefferson Bible. Heavily redacted according to Jefferson's own sensibilities, it might be worth a look for people who want only the "nice" parts and the parts that a more or less modern person could find worthwhile.
So Bloom have published some essential Biblical texts. And? The essential of Keats wont have even near 1/3 of his complete poetry, Dickens even less,Melville will see even Moby Dick butchered for what is essential and only pleasing. No whale anatomy! Even Shakespeare won't have all his work selected. Even Dante, altough this one have the luck to see almost only of his essential alive, thanks to time.
And if you feel pleasure reading Shakespeare, fine. A considerable ammount of people felt pleasure reading the bible or do you think the kind of religious exaltation it can provoke was not pleasant? And dont you think there is people who find reading dramatic verse annoying?
"Testament" is not published, or edited, by Bloom. He reviewed it. I'm reading through the RSC Complete Shakespeare at the moment, and even his most minor play (Merry Wives of Windor!) is at least readable. The same goes for the other authors you mention. I get much pleasure from reading selected parts of the Bible, but there's an awful lot of unpleasant stretches. Have you read all of the Bible and found it all readable?Quote:
Originally Posted by JCamilo
Yeah, but I'm not sure how they came up with those statistics. They may not have taken it from source assumptions (as you seem to be implying) but estimated it through some evalutative method. But neonetheless, that's sort of what I meant to say that the majority considered literate probably wasn't beyond third grade level, which is roughly nine years old.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
Absolutely that most probably could not have read the Bible on their own.
If it's so tedious and you're not a Christian, why do you even care? I'm not sure who is supposed to be getting a message to you, but frankly maybe they don't care about a message to you. Shakespeare and the Bible serve completely different functions, so the comparison is fallacious. And frankly i've heard the same argument (tedious and unreadable) made about Shakespeare.Quote:
Originally Posted by mal4mac
Edited, reviwed, published, schinegans. You are getting Shakespeare, what was already selected about him, and comparing to a collection of books. My complete works of Shakespeare have his will and it no more interesting than any part of the bible.Quote:
Originally Posted by mal4mac
I have read all the bible, I used to read encyclopedias and dictionaries just for fun. The problem is that you define readable as something you give pleasure and you forget that the bible is being read by thousand years and nobody would read them as much if it was boring, annoying, painful. Shakespeare wrote some crap stuff, even him. Without aesthetical merit. Unreadable, boring, annoying.
Now, I have no idea why you are focused in a book that does not please you. The scholars, who are wise enough to opt for a book they enjoy, will have their fun with the bible.
I love 'Windsor'. It is a bit un-PC to keep making 'cheese' jokes about Sir Hugh Evans though. In fact, if you knew anything about Welsh history you would know why it could be be construed to be offensive & bordering on the racist to make references to the Welsh & cheese!Quote:
Originally Posted by mal4mac
It's still a funny play.
The Bible is a literary text, like Shakespeare, from which you can obtain aesthetic value. I've read parts of the Bible - Ecclesiastes, Job... - that have the highest aesthetic value (that is, generate the highest levels of literary pleasure.) So, naturally, I want to find all other parts of similar value. But I don't want to plough through the (estimated) 5/6 of little aesthetic value. I'd like a literary master to do the filleting for me :-) Now you are going to say "Do it yourself!" I might have to end up doing that, but first I thought I'd see if anyone has already done the job for me...Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
Someone recommended "The Jefferson Bible", but it only covers the new testament -- and I don't trust the literary taste of politicians.
I'm not Welsh so it's not "Welsh touchiness" that makes me put the play at the bottom of the list. I agree it's still funny, even "bad" Shakespeare is still worthy of being read. I do not love it though, not like I love "The Tempest" or "Midsummer's Night Dream", and many other plays.Quote:
Originally Posted by Red-Headed
Maybe we should start a Shakespeare v. The Bible thread? Nah. The winner is too obvious. When you go post-Christian (like the Bard) you can't afford to produce 5/6 dross, you don't have the fanatical followers to put up with it...
I read this one some time back - http://books.google.co.in/books?id=O...age&q=&f=false (The Literary guide to the Bible By Robert Alter, Frank Kermode). It's a collection of essays by different people. There must be more out there. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by mal4mac
I read a few chapters of this a while back. I don't think it's what I want.Quote:
Originally Posted by mona amon
What i want is advice on what to skip, and someone who sees it the way I do :-) For example "the story of David" is spread across several books and is very heavy going. What can I skip? I'm looking at books to see how they would recommend tackling David. I like the advice from:
"Words of Delight: A Literary Introduction to the Bible" by Leland Ryken
He recommends skipping all but a few sections and says "what is wrong" with David - it's a fragmented historical account and reads more like a chronical than a literary text.
Well, of course the Bible doen't read like a well-concstructed novel. It is a jumble of stuff from the Israelite experience, including the Jews who spread the Jesus movement. It is mythology, semi-quasi-history, a little actual history, poems, predictions(though not as many as we've been asked to believe) and personal stories.
Reading it straight through like a novel is tedious, indeed. I did it, and it took most of the inspiration right out of it.
We are also led astray by various "Bible as Literature" efforts, which were often devices to get the Bible taught in tax supported and secular schools and colleges. The Bible is of great historical importance in world and American history, but it cannot be taught as a neutral or non-religious text.
It is as religious as they come, which is why I teach it and enjoy reading it. But I can't kid myself about it. If you read history, from Biblical times through the Crusades and into the conquests of peoples and the great wars, sorry tales cling to the Bible for justification.
Enjoy it or not. That's OK, but it can't be ignored. It is a part of us whether we hate it or love it.
Well if 5/6ths of the bible is not of aesthetic value then your first statement was pretty ignorant, it is NOT a literary text. Clearly the Bible was not meant as a literary work.Quote:
Originally Posted by mal4mac
Actually all your carping seems pretty inane. The Bible is the most written about text. Any decent book store has shelves of books explaining the bible. Your criticism of Christians "do a very bad job getting their message acrtoss" is just prejudice.
What makes anything about bible not literary?
Bloom's quote on the back of "Testament" Is: "Everything of the highest *literary* interest has been preserved." So Bloom obviously thinks it is a literary text, to some extent. Even if the originators of the Bible did not want it to be a literary text it doesn't mean we can't treat it as such. Bloom also lists the Bible in his "the Western Canon", which is purely devoted to the *literary* canon. Fadiman also lists it. So the Bible, or part of it, is *surely* literature, if anything is.Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
Could you recommend one?Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
Sure, any written text can be considered literary. Some even claim the phone book. But, let me concede that an element of the Bible, not the primary one but a secondary element, is literary.Quote:
Originally Posted by mal4mac
I just did a search. There are tons of books and I don't want to steer you toward a particularly religiously narrow one from the perspective of one Christian denomination. You can actually start on the internet. Wikipedia has excellent explications of each chapter of the bible. All you have to do is google a chapter, like this, "exudus wikipedia" and it will come up.Quote:
Could you recommend one?
It lacks a plot and is overcrowded with characters that the author has chosen not to develop. Perhaps it is a picaresque novel. :nod:Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
Well, whether it's true that the Bard wrote 'Windsor' in less than a fortnight because Queen Elizabeth wanted to see a new play with the 'funny fat man' in it or not, you can't really compare it with the likes of the 'Tempest' or any of the great plays. I think that it is underestimated as a play & a comedy. It is always very popular in England. I think the English have just taken Falstaff to heart as a character. It probably tells you a lot about us as a race!Quote:
Originally Posted by mal4mac
Shakespeare was definitely funnier...Quote:
Originally Posted by mal4mac
For what purpose are you reading the Bible? I find it interesting and readible.Quote:
Originally Posted by mal4mac
Who exactly? Serious critics, like Howard Bloom, would not count the phone book as literature because it has no aesthetic value.Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
Maybe not the primary one for you, but it is the primary one for me. Who made you the judge to say what the main value of the Bible is for everyone?Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
I've done, and am still doing, all that. But you get lost in the snow of "narrow" texts, and a lot more. It took me an age to find "Testament" in this way, and it almost works for what I want. But I'd like something that works better.Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
To try and be clearer, what I'm looking for is an abridged Bible that retains all the text of literary, aesthetic value with a minimum of the "phone book" & "historical chronicle" elements.
Good picaresque novels do not feel overcrowded with characters and have (at least!) an adequate plot. I've just finished Moll Flanders and it was an excellent read! Recently I completed Don Quixote, an even more enjoyable experience. To call the Bible a picaresque novel is to insult the picaresque novel...Quote:
Originally Posted by NickAdams
Serious critics like Bloom are a pain in the ***, because Scientific Literature is Literature and not because any aesthetic merits.
Well I don't make that claim. It's the New Historicist critics. More contemporary garbage for criticism.Quote:
Originally Posted by NickAdams