The Bible as literature (moved from the main list)

[Carol]

Carol wrote:

> The Bible, particularly the King James version (however flawed the translation may be in some respects) *is* a work of literature as well as a religious document, and examining it in that way (or examining biblical history in connection with anthropology) in no way makes it less sacred. Our literature, including the HP books, would not be what it is today if not for the Bible, and one reason for studying the Bible as literature is to help us discover and recognize biblical motifs and phrasing in other works of literature.

Potioncat reaponded:
I know I should know this, but is history and biography a part of literature? Maybe what I should have said in an earlier post is that a Bible story was presented as fiction. I don't remember enough of the situation now, to recall the details.

Carol responds:
I can't answer from anyone else's experience, but when I took a course in the Bible as Literature at the university level back in the seventies, history (and, to a lesser degree, biography) was incorporated into the course material and into the "textbook," the Dartmouth Bible, which I highly recommend to anyone interested in this subject. It's essentially the King James Bible with duplicate passages removed and commentary by two scholars, one Jewish and one Christian, and it includes, among other thing, parallel passages from the so-called synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) to compare them with each other and contrast them with the very different Gospel of John, as well as reordering them to present a chronological narrative. It also presents the Prophets in chronological order and includes the Apocrypha, which is omitted from most Protestant Bibles, including the King James version. It includes information from the then recently discovered dead Sea Scrolls. Whether there's an updated version incorporating more recent discoveries, I don't know.

The teacher was a former Episcopal priest, one of the most colorful people I've ever met. (In those days, even his clothes were colorful. He always wore a jumpsuit--red, blue, harvest gold, possibly even green or orange--with sandals and socks. No beard--he wasn't a hippie--but you never knew what he was going to say.) It was a long time ago, but I still recall it as one of the most interesting and important courses I ever took. It combined history and literature with (IIRC) comparative mythology from the perspective of a teacher who saw Jesus very much as a historical person but also as the Son of God. He never preached, but he did try to bring to life a long ago time and a way of thinking that is very different from the modern mind. I had the same teacher for Introduction to Poetry, where he brought in the influence of the King James Bible (and Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer) on English literature.

Potioncat:
That's a good point about studying the Bible as literature in order to
understand motifs in literature. That could be a difficult process as schools present that aspect without being guilty of teaching religion.

Carol:
Thanks. As I said, I studied those things in college (university), not in high school. I'm afraid that even when I was in school, the Bible was a taboo topic in the public (state) schools. I learned about it mostly at church and through my own reading. (I was determined to read the whole Bible word for word, even the Begats, which must be one of the most boring pieces of history/literature ever written. (I don't remember how Dr. Adams, my eccentric Bible as Literature, explained the ages of the biblical patriarchs, for example, Methusaleh, who ostensibly lived to be 969 years old.)

Seriously, though, I don't see how anyone could take a course in, say, American colonial literature, which is mostly religious, or in, say, seventeenth-century English poetry (especially Milton and Donne) without some familiarity with the King James Bible. 

In defense of teaching "Bible stories," better that kids learn about the Garden of Eden or Cain and Abel or David and Goliath or Joseph and the coat of many colors or Moses and the burning bush or Daniel in the lion's den as stories like those of, say, Damon and Pythias (a Greek story of friendship and sacrifice) or Androcles and the Lion (one of Aesop's fables) or "A Christmas Carol" or Grimm's Fairytales than not learn about them at all. They're part of the shared heritage of Western culture, part of the language in which we speak to each other ("Am I my brother's keeper?" "Thou shalt not kill," etc.). Without them, we can't understand our own ancestors. Not to know them is to be culturally impoverished. *Just my opinion.*

Carol, fearing that for many of today's American, Canadian, and European children, this rich cultural heritage has already been lost