Originally Posted by
JBI
As I have said before, you have no goal other than to hear your own voice. Your discussion goes nowhere, as no one is swayed. Your points go nowhere, as they no one seems to really be buying them but yourself, and the bible's value won't go down because of it, as, like you have said, it is so much our culture. The only real response is as follows.
Really, the only thing your doing is showing some opinions are overrated, not Shakespeare, and not the Bible, and that some people are better judges of literature in general.
You forget to address your own assumptions and beliefs, mainly that criticism is about rating. IT is not about rating, it is about exploring texts - any critic will tell you that, Bloom included. In fact, many critics deliberately shy away from valuing and rating texts, because that is not their job, and is not really the job of such scholarship. You won't find much on Google anyway, as it clearly isn't a credible source for anything scholarly. But you will find countless volumes of Bible criticism, as literature, as fact, as fallacy, as anything. The reason for this, is because it is a very dense book, with many possibilities and interpretations. Everyone who knows literature knows the Bible. To say the Bible is overrated is to ignore the fact that if it is overrated, literature itself is overrated, in which case, what business does one such as yourself have talking on a literature board if they are only here to call anyone who likes it Elitist. All decisions of value are elitist, because they aren't made by the majority of the population, who, ironically, would probably vote the Bible the top book, and for most people, the only book (well, in the Arab world, I think the Koran would win). No atheist critic would ignore the Bible, and most would encourage its reading as aesthetic literature. It certainly beats the alternatives.
