In Saturday’s Guardian, Richard Dawkins explained “Why I want all our children to read the King James Bible.” The stimulus for his piece was, as many of us know, Education Secretary Michael Gove’s plan to place a copy of the King James Bible in every state school in Britain. The initiative will cost £375,000 and the government is seeking private support. I doubt that they’ll have much trouble given the willingness of private organizations to distribute Bibles willy-nilly.
We’ve long known that Richard regards the King James Bible as a touchstone of literature and Western culture. And indeed it is: I agree with him that anybody who pretends to be educated in our culture should have read the thing. So many allusions (and illusions), and so much of what we hear, derive from that singular work of fiction. (Note that it’s the King James version that should be read; other versions are small beer compared. Much of the literary beauty of that Bible, of course, is added value from the committee convened by King James I in 1604, just as the beauties of Omar Khayyam come largely from Edward FitzGerald’s translation of the Rubiyat. For a wonderful account of how the King James version came about, do read God’s Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible by Adam Nicholson.)
As Richard says:
Ecclesiastes, in the 1611 translation, is one of the glories of English literature (I’m told it’s pretty good in the original Hebrew, too). The whole King James Bible is littered with literary allusions, almost as many as Shakespeare (to quote that distinguished authority Anon, the trouble with Hamlet is it’s so full of clichés). In The God Delusion I have a section called “Religious education as a part of literary culture” in which I list 129 biblical phrases which any cultivated English speaker will instantly recognise and many use without knowing their provenance: the salt of the earth; go the extra mile; I wash my hands of it; filthy lucre; through a glass darkly; wolf in sheep’s clothing; hide your light under a bushel; no peace for the wicked; how are the mighty fallen.
A native speaker of English who has never read a word of the King James Bible is verging on the barbarian. In the week after the 2011 census, my UK Foundation commissioned Ipsos MORI to poll those who had ticked the Christian box. Among other things, we asked them to identify the first book of the New Testament from a choice of Matthew, Genesis, Acts of the Apostles, Psalms, “Don’t know” and “Prefer not to say”. Only 35% chose Matthew and 39% chose “Don’t know” (and 1%, mysteriously, chose “Prefer not to say”). These figures, to repeat, don’t refer to British people at large but only to those who self-identified, in the census, as Christians.
It’s a very good piece, and of course ends with Richard adding that acquaintance with the Bible teaches a darker lesson: its morality is either dubious, despicable, or derived from earlier cultures; and the central lesson of the New Testament ludicrous.
But is the Bible really great literature? Well, in parts. I did read it cover to cover a long time ago, fighting my way through the early “begats” to get to the good stuff—only to find that the good stuff was thin on the ground. When we hear about what great literature the Bible is, we hear about the same parts again and again: some of the Psalms, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Solomon, the Proverbs, and so on. Yes, many expressions in English parlance come from that book. But much more of it is the tedious recounting of boring stories, and a slog to get through unless you’re a believer. In that light, I judge the Bible as a literary curate’s egg: it’s good in parts.
How does it rank as a whole? I discussed this recently with literary critic James Wood, who agrees with Richard (and me) that the Bible is a must-read touchstone of Western culture, purveying valuable insights into human life. (It also, of course, portrays wickedness and sin in the guise of piety.) But how does it stand as a work of fiction? That is, as I asked James, if a critic came across the Bible in a world that had never been Christian, and were to rank it as a work of fiction, how would it stand up? As far as I know (and I may be wrong), that has never been done. Even in a Christian world, one could take the Bible purely on its literary merits and deficits. If Wood, say, were to review it in The New Yorker, how would he rank it? I suspect he’d find it ineffably beautiful in places and boring and stupid in others—in other words, uneven.
If someone wanted to place a single book in all schools that has not only literary value but a tremendous influence in our culture, let it be Shakespeare—preferably the complete works as compiled in The Riverside Shakespeare. The Bible is already in most schools, reposing unread in the library; why not ensure that every school also has a copy of Shakespeare’s great works? They have all the beauty and humanity of the Bible with none of the stupidity and superstition. (I suspect that Shakespeare has added as many phrases to our language as has the King James Bible).
By all means have the Bible in schools, but let’s not pretend it’s a uniform literary masterpiece. It’s should be there as a book that was influential in our world, both for good and ill. If you want the Bible as literature, why not redact it, pulling out just the good parts and serving them up as wonderful prose fiction? I can see it now: The Literary Bible, Expunged of the Boring and Invidious Bits.
“just the good parts”. I thought Jefferson had already created such a bible.
I second the Jefferson version. Leave out the disgusting parts.
Jefferson went farther than that — He left out all the “God” bits.
Those are also the disgusting parts 🙂
Sheet of A4 then!
Jefferson’s blade was guided by the desire to get rid of the supernatural stuff. Poorly written but perfectly reasonable content would survive the cut.
A decent literary version would still probably have lots of supernatural stuff in it but these bits would be written with interesting style and perhaps a bit of character development.
Hmmmm. Dawkins’ appreciation and command of English is far above mine, so I will defer. However, I have always thought that if you purged the bible of its thous, verilys, and other archaic language, it would be a dull read, and not half as appealing to the mystics.
I think that’s why JAC says to read the KJV and refers to other versions as “small beer.” Its the archaic language that gives it (in places) a nice tempo and roll-off-the-tongue feel.
I don’t know. IMO, great literature, like great music, should shine through any transcription, translation or retelling.
When I was in college, I was assigned to read Crime and Punishment. Naturally, like most students, I turned to the Cliff Notes version. Even with that hatchet job, the novel was so compelling that I was motivated to read the book (English translation), which of course was much better than the Notes. I am told it is even better in Russian.
“Sheer bloody poetry.”
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Anyone who thinks the Bible as a whole is great literature should be forced to read Deuteronomy ten times over.
However, I do think reading the whole thing is a great idea. I have read every one of the “why I am an atheist” postings on Pharyngula, and I am struck by how many of those authors said they became atheists after reading the whole Bible. L
Some say a repeated reading of Deuteronomy (say a consecutive five times) will gradually reveal the essence of Judaism and the mindset of the Jews.
That we’re nitpicky, repetitive, tribal, and contradictory?
Thinking back, that’s actually not a bad characterization of the religion, or, frankly, all religions.
I think the essence and mindset would be far better understood by reading about the evolution and contents of the Talmud.
The Talmud (Mishnah & Gemara) is about a thousand years younger than the written Torah. Almost another thousand years later the Kabbalah was completed. Each of these books can be considered a response to the hardships of the particular age it was developed in, and served as a supportive framework for the Jews to be able to live in a community. I think the mentality of a modern faithful Jew is largely influenced by the combined effect of these three books.
I do not share your view as to the influence of Kabbalah. I think its influence on the mentality (my own, for example) is far less than for written Torah and Talmud. Interestingly, Kabbalah has acquired a certain popularity outside Judaism in a way that would be unthinkable for Talmud.
Do you think Kabbalah’s lesser influence may be attributed to its being more complicated to understand, compared to the other two?
Yes, I’m sure that’s part of it, not that I would claim that Talmud is always easy to understand.
Moving back towards the idea of just reading the bible, there is a brief story in Talmud which illustrates the (perceived) dangers of the study of mysticism by recounting what happened to four men who went down that path. One died, one went mad, one developed heretical views and one “came and went in peace.”
It’s interesting that of all the reactions to bible reading that people have recounted on this website “heresy” is probably the most common one with death (by boredom) coming a close second.
When I began reading the Bible from cover to cover back in college, I was a believing Catholic. By the time I was half-way through, I had one foot in the atheist camp. By the time I read the last sentence in Revelation, I was a confirmed atheist. So, yes, reading the Bible is what did it for me. I think Dawkins is on to something here. I remember the exact phrase that ran through my head as I was reading: If God wrote this, then he’s an idiot.
And Jerry’s right: if you’re looking for great literature, you can do a whole lot better than the Bible. However, it’s worth mentioning that, in terms of literary quality, the Bible looks like Shakespeare, Chaucer and Milton combined when compared to the Koran. The Koran may just be the worst written book ever in the history of literature.
Actually, that’s a very important question: does great literature in Arabic rely on the Koran to the degree that great literature in English relies on the Bible?
The bad literature does.
Forget Deuteronomy 10 times (at least you can cringe at how horrible and useless a lawmaker “God” is for an “omniscient being of love and justice”), try Numbers once.
I remember trying to squeeze some meaning out of that endlessly tedious genealogy crap for Bible studies and devotions, and just being bored to tears even when I was a hardcore Christian.
Son of so and so, who was son of that guy, who was married to that lady…eyes blurring…mind foggy…passing out…GAAAAARGH.
Yeah, Numbers and Leviticus are the worst. Deuteronomy is the revised, much improved and easy-to-read version.
And my atheism comes largely from reading the Bible, too.
Doesn’t the same type of listing occur in Beowulf and the Odyssey?
It seems to be a pretty standard part of ancient literature. I guess when you don’t have 24/7 television and millions of books, you end up with greater appreciation for what us moderns would consider filler. Sort of like “desert island books,’ only every single person in the world was on the equivalent of a literary island. Under such circumstances, you probably appreciate the ‘long version’ a lot more.
I don’t know about Beowulf but I don’t think anything as boring occurs in Odyssey. Now in Iliad there is this long catalog of ships which is quite boring but that’s a small part (roughly 300 verses out of 16,000).
Homer is a better read than most of the Hebrew Bible, although The Iliad has a similar amount of carnage.
I seem to remember that the Iliad is somewhat more gory with many descriptions of Greek and Trojan soldiers having various internal organs ruptured by invading spears. The language of Homer is much richer than Biblical Hebrew and it’s written according to a strict meter.
I remember I used to love Deuteronomy, after I slogged through the second half of Exodux, the retarded Leviticus (if you have mold on your house take three birds to a priest and have him sprinkle your house with cow blood) and the extremely boring genealogy of Numbers, I’d get to Deuteronomy and rejoice that the painful experience is lessening.
The two books I hated most though were always Chronicles, I just got through reading all of these stories in Samuels and Kings now I have to have a rehashed genealogy, I don’t know if I’ve ever actually did more than scan the pages of chronicles.
The Bible reminds me a lot of Lord of the Rings. The Battle of Pelanor Fields, which took like… 2 hours of the movie takes place in only 3 pages. And this is after hundreds of pages of aimless wandering around the wilderness. Likewise in the Bible, David and Goliath, the Flood, the parting of the Red Sea… even the fun parables of Jesus are all really short compared to the legalistic BS, the specifics about who walked where and talked to what son of Zebedee. And its because the emphasis is not on the parts that are ‘cinematic’ to us today, its meant to make a lot of specific theological points, a lot of which aren’t necessarily explicit in the big action scenes.
That’s why everything refers back to Genesis, which abounds in cinematic stuff, to borrow a bit of colour.
Of course, when you consider those cinematic episodes in turn – Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, Lot, and so on – they are the exact opposite of edifying or morally uplifting.
When I read nearly all of it (tho’ not all in the KJV), the only book I thought worth keeping was Ecclesiastes. And parts of that are a bit dodgy.
I’d certainly leave in the Song of Songs as well. Not as beautiful as Ecclesiastes but quite entertaining.
I don’t think any bible can ve described as good literature, the whole thing is so repetitive its almost impossible to read for enjoyment and seeing as its a translation from various writers in different languages (none of which were the original) I fail to see how it can be regarded as either accurate or ‘great’. It may be an important collection of books to read for its content but there are also plenty of scientific papers which are certainly not literature yet contain important information pertaining to a subject matter.
I’m all for the R. Crumb book of Genesis in every parochial school in the land. Would serve the bastids right. Might encourage Crumb to do the rest of the babble, too.
I second the choice of this version.
Yes!
I liked it, although it is extremely faithful to the text, begats and all. Only, illustrated. Come to think of it, one may alternatively direct the students to the online Brick Testament.
Crumb actually made the begats not dull – by putting faces to them. Gives you more of a feel of why people would bother reciting “begat” lists as part of their mythology.
I think maybe the ‘begats’ started off as a way to remember what family someone belonged to. For example, in New Zealand, I believe it is custom on some formal Maori occasions to recite ones ‘whakapapa’ – ones ancestry – which establishes ones standing to speak on a tribal matter. (Note I am NOT an expert on Maori!)
On my wife’s Pacific island, ones family ties established entitlement to family land etc (just as it did with inheritance in old Europe, come to that), and certain people were entrusted to memorise family trees for generations back. This was in pre-literate days.
So maybe the ‘begats’ were something similar, and then somebody wrote them down.
According to today’s entry in the great Forgotten English day calendar[
http://www.forgottenenglish.com ]
Pope (birthday today)said of Shakespeare, “one may look upon his works in comparison with those that are more finished and regular, as upon an ancient majestick piece of Gothick architecture compared with a neat modern building. The latter is more elegant and glaring, but the former is more strong and more solemn…”
To Shakespeare are attributed numerous coinages such as break the ice, elbow room, gnarled, negotiate, quarrelsome, flawed; however I would contend that, as with the King James translation, many of those are merely first attested in those written sources and would have been in use. Impossible to prove either way.
The proof is statistical – when comparing words and phrases first found in Shakespeare and in other writing of his era, it is found that WS is hugely innovative.
I do not doubt that – as he would have mixed with all strata of society, he would have been innovative, but I bet he used a lot of these terms & phrases that he heard, whereas perhaps other writers were less liberal in their use of language as they were more traditional.
I haven’t read the KJB so can’t compare it to the New World Translation which I was raised on.
How does the Bible rank overall? It should be compulsory bed-time reading for all teenagers, to help them nod off.
Best read in conjunction with some proper critical commentary, like Robert Graves’ Hebrew Myths for Genesis (if you can find it), or God and the gods: myths of the Bible by Walter Beltz (who also wrote, I see, Die Mythen des Koran in 1980 – not sure it that is in English but I would get it if it were.
That’s a form of cruel and unusual punishment! (takes notes)
The most useful Bible commentary is still “Asimov’s Guide to the Bible.” Is it still in print?
That’s a good one, yes. There’s been considerable Biblical and historical scholarship of the actually supportable by evidence variety in the decades since it was published – how is it in terms of being up to date?
It should be compulsory bed-time reading for all teenagers, to help them nod off.
Or made into an audio-book read by Ben Stein 😀
Now that’s just mean. You want them to sleep, not fall into a coma.
“He… that is wounded… in the stones… or hath his… privy member cut off… … … …shall not… enter into… the congregation… of the Lord. …wow.”
First I thin I think the post is a bit English centric. I understand a lot of the puns and poetry are lost in the Hebrew to English translation. Other languages may have their own favorite translation(s).
Those mentioning the Jefferson Bible should remember it only contains extracts of the gospels. Nothing from the Hebrew Scriptures (or the rest of the New Testament). Among others it omits Ecclesiastes.
I do think the proposed initiative is a publicity stunt since most school libraries probably have a King James Version. Is the version they are sending providing added value (e.g., definitions of now obscure words, essays on scholarly research on the history of the Bible, etc.)?
I tried to read the entire bible many years ago but gave up. Couldn’t justify the time it was taking while there were so many other more rewarding tasks in the queue. Maybe a talking book could finish the job – let some other poor sap do the reading but even then, life’s too short. Being honest about it, who begat whom is never going to matter to me. Leviticus and Mathew were obviously inspired by deeply troubled minds and the book of Job pretty much polished off any dregs of faith I might have had. I hope every school has the complete work of Dickens however. Time with Dickens is time well spent.
Bob
Likewise. Worst thing I ever read. I even skipped to some of the supposed good parts but found them pretty much worthless. Guess I’m a barbarian.
Why must we read the book to understand the literary allusions? I know that Flannery O’Connor giving the initials J.C. to a character, or stranding characters in the desert, is biblical allusion. I am familiar with all the stories that lead to Jewish holidays, and the tales that crop up in modern story telling. but I have never read the Bible in any translation cover to cover and I never will. I didn’t need to read the Bible to become an atheist. I only needed to see the difference between wanting believe something and having evidence to support that belief. (Perhaps it was being raised a Red Sox fan that lead me away from the church….)
There’s a pretty good version of the New Testament read by James Earl Jones. Hearing Darth Vader read the Sermon on the Mount is really entertaining. Unfortunately I don’t think he’s recorded the Old Testament which is disappointing.
I’ve read the Bible through, it was pretty necessary as a history major to know it and have one handy for references to understand a lot of European history since the Church was so entwined in it all. Certainly not something I’d suggest doing for fun but it was necessary (especially if the version in question is the Oxford Study Bible with all it’s annotations).
I’ve read the bible 4 times, three as a christian and once as an agnostic (I’m getting ready to listen to an audio version for time #5, but I’m now gone from a 50% convinced agnostic deist to 90% convinced agnostic non-theist so I might abhor it this time).
I think the bible is somewhere in the middle. The bible is full of some great parts and its worth reading at least once, but its also full of some really boring repetitive parts (especially the second half of Exodus-Leviticus-Numbers which is among the most boring stuff you can imagine).
I think part of the bible are on par with some other ancient literature like Gilgamesh (although Gilgamesh is more interesting overall).
Anyways, I’d like to see a quality readers version which cuts out about 70% of the boring parts.
Gove’s initiative is a dog-whistle to the old Tory base. It costs almost nothing as the few hundred thousand quid is being paid out the pockets of individual donors.
Dawkins’ point (with which I agree, as do rather more illustrious figures such as Hitchens and Mencken) is that you cannot be highly literate in English unless you know your KJV, because so many allusions and phrases are straight out of it. Same reason you have to know your Shakespeare and your Greek mythology. You can get away without it (and its bad bits are just awful stuff), but you will miss a lot of allusion and so forth.
Nevertheless – Jason Rosenhouse’s opinion: “If you want literary depth Znd moral force, you will do much better with Sakespdeare, Hugo or Dostoevsky than you will with the Bible.” I agree with Jason.
Typos galore! ‘and’, and Shakespeare’
I totally disagree with Dawkins. The Bible is mostly unreadable drivel, punctuated by the occasional nicely-written passage or pithy phrase. It’s an *important* book, so by all means teach it in schools in comparative religion classes, but to claim that it represents “great literature” and that anyone who hasn’t read is “bordering on the barbaric” is laughable.
I can only assume that Dawkins’ literary accommodationism stems from some form of childhood indoctrination.
Goethe (in the original German) is unreadable to me, but that says more about me than about Goethe.
Excellent Post, especially the reference to Adam Nicolson’s God’s Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible.
Re-Claiming the Bible for a Non-Religous World, the latest from John Shelby Spong, may be of interest to those interested in how contemporary progressive Christian scholarship sees the Bible as non-literal.
The notion that Spong is a Christian is risible. He does not believe any of the silly, supernatural stories. At most, he is a deist; and I am not even sure about that – I suspect the word god in his vocabulary is a metaphor for the better aspects of nature, specifically our nature.
As the Episcopal Bishop of Newark (retired) he has been quite clear on his progression as a Christian. Whether he is or is not must be between the two of you. As for what defines a Christian, that’s open for discussion. None of the Christians I know believe in the virgin birth or the miracles or the physical resurrection or so much of the other baggage that seems to have been included after the destruction of the Second Temple around 70 CE.
My suggestion is to consider reading his latest book… that’s all.
Not really.
The only way xians have found to define a Christian is violence and warfare. The loser always ends up as the heretic. No point in discussing an unanswerable question, when you can fire up the tanks and launch a squad of jet fighters.
There is no xian central and who is a xian and who is not, always ends up being someone’s opinion. According to the fundies, most xians, especially the Catholics who make up half of all “xians” aren’t really…xians. A lot of cults claim 99% of all xians are Fake Xians.
Spong IMO, is an intelligent, educated, modern xian and far more honest than most. He’s gone where the data and evidence lead him and tried to reconcile that with his faith. I’d call him a xian Deist and a xian mystic.
I did the same thing but ended up in a different place. Among other things, as an anti-xian and anti-religion.
Most of those (in the UK, at least) who self-identify as Christians seem to be “cafeteria Christians”, picking and choosing just the bits they like. This view is supported by the RDF Ipsos/MORI poll.
But I’ve always struggled with this — maybe having been brought up as a Roman Catholic – that you can reject Christ’s virgin birth and resurrection and still be a Christian.
The Nicene Creed seems to me what defines a Christian. If you don’t believe that but still call yourself a Christian, because you “follow Jesus” in some vague ecumenical way, it just seems like an egregious misappropriation of the term.
But then I doubt we can expect logical consistency from faith-heads.
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One difference between science and Christianity is the significance of proofs. As Ashley Montagu wrote so clearly in his foreword to Science and Creationism nearly thirty years ago, and I paraphrase as my copy is exactly where it is, but I know not where, “Science is proof without certainty and bigotry (creationism) is certainty without proof.”
Since there are no proofs for Christian views (beliefs?) those who hold the Bible as fact cannot be dissuaded by logic.
The question as to the significance of the non-rational written word goes to its meaning, not its accuracy.
Joseph Campbell’s tidy line, “If it’s doing you some good, go with it. If it’s not, don’t.” is a valid prescription for how to deal with the subjective.
Within Christianity today there are lifeloong scholars and theologians of every theist stripe: theist, atheist, agnostic. The latter two myght be better labeled as Jesusians, but that’s cumbersome and demands constant definition.
He does have a rather Pythonesque name.
“Mousebat, Follicle, Goosecreature, Ampersand,
Spong, Wapcaplet, Looseliver, Vendetta and Prang.”
I think Spong is the future pluperfect of Spring. Of course, Shelby is something else.
Just rewrite the Brick Testament with the verses from KJV, then compile it (complete with photos) into a book and distribute that.
Don’t forget many of the best bits were already there in Tyndale, and the changes in James VI/I from Tyndale are sometimes for the worse.
As literature its all over the place, a bit like Tristram Shandy.
I think that’s the first time I’ve ever seen the phrase “curate’s egg” used by anyone other than a cricket writer or commentator (in the same way that “aplomb” only ever gets used in football commentary).
Actually I remember David Nobbs used “aplomb” in Second From Last in the Sack Race”, but admittedly it wasn’t in dialogue so maybe that doesn’t count…
Put in his thumb & pulled out aplomb?
According to Wikipedia, “Within his immediate family, the Tyndales were also known at that period as Hychyns (Hitchins), and it was as William Hychyns that Tyndale was educated at Magdalen College School, Oxford.”
There you go – Hitchens blood!
“Hychyns”? Why does that look so Ukrainian?
I have always taken “curate’s egg” to imply that the bad parts make the good parts useless, so I am not sure it applies to the KJB. The fact that Ecclesiastes is bound in the same book as Numbers does not make it useless. [But alas, I have seen it reported somewhere that “curate’s egg” now is frequently used just to mean “part good, part bad”, without the “spoiling the whole thing” implication. First “Beg the question”, now “curate’s egg” – when will the carnage end?]
I agree 100% Curate’s egg always gets my goat when wrongly used. It’s from an old Punch cartoon, I think, and the downtrodden curate who has been given a bad egg at breakfast in the parsonage tries to avoid appearing critical.
Overrated, the bible.
People have heard all that about the bible for so long, by simple repetition, they assume it must be true.
To take one example, Genesis is just a kludgy, incoherent mess. Why is that talking snake in the garden. Where did it come from anyway. Why is the tree of knowledge there. Why did god tell two certified morons, devoid of knowledge of right or wrong, to not eat the apple. And BTW, isn’t he supposed to be omniscient and know everything that will happen? Where did Cain get his wife. Why is there two contradictory creation stories. Who are those other gods that the chapter keeps talking about. Why is god afraid of humans.
Genesis would be a good chapter to teach critical thinking. And of course, any public school that did would be torched by a mob of xian pitchfork wielding citizens.
You could teach all the idioms and literary allusions in an hour or two and find something better to learn about. Such as the evidence for the Big Bang of which we have a huge amount.
Literal truth is not the test of great literature. Nor even credibility. Try watching, or reading, The Comedy of Errors, or Macbeth for that matter (witches?) or Julius Caesar (soothsayers? ghosts?)
If you think you could cover all the idioms and allusions in an hour or two you’re fooling yourself.
I didn’t say anything about literal truth in my above comment. I take it you are another of the serial killers that roam the internet. A serial killer of strawpeople.
I pointed out that Genesis is an incoherent and contradictory mess. If you actually try to make sense of it and follow the plot line, you can’t do it.
It is rather obvious that you don’t have to consider fiction as real to read it.
But it does have to be coherent all the way through.
The bible is such great literature that even the vast majority of xians don’t bother to read it and have no idea what is in it.
If you ever get interested in tne Bible you’ll discover that the Torah/Pentateuch has at lest 5 different authors – the Jahwist, the Elohist, the Deuteronomic author, the Priestly source and the poor Redactor who tried to give fair weight to each of his revered sources. That’s why there are two Adam stories, two names for God, two Noah stories (interleaved almost verse by verse), etc.
If you ask WHY is there a magic tree, WHY is there an evil talking serpent, WHY a first man and woman who… etc, then you’ll hate creation myths. (Why Iggdrasil? Why Pandora?) If your complaint is not about the fictionality of myth but about the failure to follow an infinite regress to first causes, then I can’t help; but I see why you like the Big Bang.
Your point about the multiple authorship doesn’t excuse the consistency problem, though. Your second paragraph seems just a way to gloss over that failure.
Really? 5+ authors collecting and writing oral tales in 5-6 BCE, than having that book hand-scribed for 2 millennia is not a good excuse for some inconsistency?
Your standards are ridiculously high.
Might be a good way to explain why it is so inconsistent. But that doesn’t make it easier to read, especially “straight through”. I suppose if one had a reorganized version that tried to reconstruct more source-by-source that might be easier. But that’s not any (usual) bible then.
It may be a good excuse for inconsistency, but that doesn’t make it either readable or great literature. Judge it by ordinary literary standards (however you like to define them) and it fails miserably.
Finding fault with Genesis for lacking plot is like saying “The Charge of the Light Brigade” is the worst haiku ever. You are judging it on criteria irrelevant to its genre, deliberately ignoring factors in oral to written tradition that would have two different creation stories, for instance. Generally this tells me not that the Bible is poorly written, but that you are not a fan of myths, folk tales or ancient literature*.
*The same problems with linear plots can be found in The Brother’s Grimm, Gilgamesh, Native American tales, The Poetic Edda, Kojiki, the Vedas, the Iliad and the Odyssey, Anansi tales…
I haven’t read all of those. But many of them.
They are far more coherent and entertaining than Genesis. The Iliad and the Odyssey, at least as old as the bible, hold together as stories even today. Same for Gilgamesh which is much older.
My quarrel with Genesis is that if you try to make sense of it, even as a story, you can’t do it. There are too many things that don’t make sense and whatever point there is to the story doesn’t make much sense either.
Humans are evil because someone ate an apple? Clearly between the talking snake, the tree which should be on Jupiter out of harm’s way, and the two original morons, they were setup. Someone is evil or at least astonishingly incompetent in that story and it’s not the humans or the snake.
And that’s without even considering the two distinct stories of creation in the first two chapters. Reading the Bible straight through is a way of laying bare how distinct each book could be from each other, and how some parts of the same book are distinct from one another.
I’m curious about how people felt doing a read through of the NT, and reading M, M, L, and J through as individual books rather than how I was taught them as a Christian, hacked up into one single story. Did it seem weird that there were basically 4 different versions of the Jesus story, and did those differences rankle?
Well, basically 2 versions. John is the wild card but quite possibly the most authentic. But thete are lots of other even less consistent Gospels – Thomas, Hebrews, Judas… I can’t remember them all. It was such an embarrassment to the early church that, after a couple of centuries, at Nicea they voted which ones to keep. Some basis for divine revelation! Still, I stopped expecting wall-to-wall fact when I reached the first Angel. The Bible is a library not a single narrative.
“John is the wild card but quite possibly the most authentic.”
In what sense? It’s clearly the latest of the canonical four, and appears to be a reimagining of the Mark/Luke/Matthew story as a superhero epic.
Davidgerard – Yes, I should have said more. The Synoptic Gospels are generally reckoned to have been written after 50AD, and there is little scholarly support for the tradition that they were written by their supposed authors. John, on the other hand, is usually (not always) dated later because of the more developed (and more supernatural) dogma included; but it shows layers of composition. If it was finished after 80AD, the earlier layers were perhaps much ealier, and the Gospel claims to be written by “the disciple whom Jesus loved”, reckoned to be John. There is widespread agreement that the early content is consistent with authorship by John, so only in the sense that parts of the gospel may be eyewitness accounts, or very early accounts, John is “quite possibly [but only possibly rather than probably] the most authentic.
To take one example, Genesis is just a kludgy, incoherent mess. Why is that talking snake in the garden. Where did it come from anyway. Why is the tree of knowledge there. Why did god tell two certified morons, devoid of knowledge of right or wrong, to not eat the apple. And BTW, isn’t he supposed to be omniscient and know everything that will happen? Where did Cain get his wife. Why is there two contradictory creation stories. Who are those other gods that the chapter keeps talking about. Why is god afraid of humans.
Those things are only important if you’re a fundamentalist who thinks that the stories in Genesis are supposed to be some kind of history, instead of a story.
Complaints like this are like reading Aesop and saying “why is there a talking fox? Why would the fox want to eat grapes anyway? What kind of turtle would challenge a rabbit to a race?”
The two creation stories in Genesis are actually really kind of neat as far as mythology goes – certainly better than similar stories that have been preserved from, say, the Classical period.
And, more to the point as far as this thread goes, if you want to understand Western Literature you pretty much need to understand a lot of the Bible, especially Genesis. Because a lot of allusions and metaphors in Western Lit come from the Bible, especially Genesis.
I read Aesop (the Project Gutenberg version) recently, and it also suffers a bit from the multiplicity-of-authors thing. However, the overall level of coherence and rationality is way higher than most of the bible, and the use of animal characters and characteristics (often stereotyped, but often not anthropomorphised) demonstrates some interest in and familiarity with the natural world – there is bugger-all natural history in the bible, of course. A lot of the Aesop stories are about conflict among unequal powers, and there’s a lot of common ground with Sun Tzu or Macchiavelli.
(Foxes are omnivorous, btw. They would definitely eat grapes.)
Your reference to the garden story is an excellent test of biblical interpretation. Taken literally it makes no sense, but read as metaphor, it evokes what any good myth must do and has done to you… causes you to wonder, even if “WTF?”
Try to find a comprehensive assessment of the passage, “Eat not the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil for when you eat of it you shall surely die.” I have searched and found none that seem convincing.
First, it’s not the tree of knowledge, it’s the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (bad in the JPS English translation of Torah). It’s one tree of many, which includes the tree of life and others, unnamed, possibly a tree of knowledge, too.
The Bible is like every other text in that it’s good if it helps you think and not if it doesn’t. As for being factual, that’s not what people prefer. Check any popular best seller list or the attendance at documentaries versus storied movies.
I recommend the Amazon reviews of the KJV.
I quote a snippet of a 5 star review.
“This Comedy-Fantasy is one of my favorites to read when I’m having a bad day, along with the Monty Python and the Holy Grail transcript! King James is a comedic genius rivaling Ricky Gervais and will surely be remembered as such for generations to come.
The plot follows the antagonistic character God, an angsty old man hungry for power, who becomes bored in his isolation and so creates a magical world where he places a naked man and a woman, but neglects to tell them the difference between right and wrong.”
I wish I’d written that.
David B
Revelation is good for a laugh though.
Another incoherent mess.
The odd thing about Revelation is that it is a list of future events. None of which ever happened or have happened yet.
The end timers use their imagination and fiction writing skills to decide that we are all going to die in the next few months. Or the months after that, ad infinitum.
Revelation, like Orwell’s 1984, is largely a comment on the (author’s) present masquerading as a tale of the future. Of course it’s also about the imminent end of the world the author expected. My mother used to waylay unsuspecting Christians who tried to save her soul on the doorstep by asking them how she could get to heaven when only 10,000 male virgins could be admitted. “I know you may have trouble making up the numbers, but I’m disqualified on two counts.”
It’s 144,000 Jewish male virgins. 12,000 from each of the 12 tribes, 10 or 11 of which haven’t even existed for several thousand years.
For all the xians claims that the bible is inerrant, they have no hesitation about just rewriting parts of it and making up stuff about what it says.
Quote mining, cherry picking, and “proof texting” are standard. It’s like the I-Ching without yarrow sticks.
Thanks – 144,000. They’ll have even more trouble filling the list; and my Mum’s out on three counts.
But, but, but…
*Right after* the 144,000 male virgins who are sealed (Rev 7:4-8) comes this:
“After this I looked, and there before me was *a great multitude that no one could count*, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice:
“Salvation belongs to our God,
who sits on the throne,
and to the Lamb.””
So maybe your mum is safe after all, Logicophilosophicus?
Oh dear. Gove is just engaging in a bit of self promotion. They even have in gold letters on the spine that it is a gift from the Education Secretary. It is just self aggrandising.
There is only to be one copy per school – that is of absolutely no use as an educational aid – it will simply sit in a glass covered book case, like some trophy.
Moreover, state schools have bibles – stacks of them; they are used in Religious Education classes, which are compulsory.
As for the Bible’s literary merits – it does not have any, as a book, as a whole. And even the books that are supposedly literary, such as Ecclesiastes, are only so if you ignore the whole and focus only on the odd phrase or too.
The Bible was written by a bunch of ignoramuses and it shows: it drips off every page: they knew nothing of the nature of world and even less about morality. It is a dreadful book.
As for Shakespeare – his works are seriously over-rated – but his works are studied in every state school in England.
However, there is one thing I find puzzling about Michael Gove: he has a reputation as an intellectual, but I cannot understand why. He is after all the guy who lectured senior educationalists on the need to teach children Newton’s Laws of Thermodynamics. But here’s the thing, although it is well advertised that he studied English at Oxford University for three years, nowhere can I find any mention of him having been awarded a degree.
“He is after all the guy who lectured senior educationalists on the need to teach children Newton’s Laws of Thermodynamics.”
This is extraordinary, and it’s in the Grauniad. I did see that he read English at LMH, so perhaps that’s where he studied Newtonian Thermodynamics. He appears to have been there for 3 years which suggests that he must at least have passed his prelims (if that’s what they still call the first set of exams). To find out about the degree, you could look in the books that are held at the Bodleian Library and which show the names of all students at all colleges who ever received a degree. When I went back many years after graduation to renew my library card, they looked me up in one of the books to make sure I wasn’t an impostor.
You are a Philistine.
Oh dear, were you at LMH?
No, strictly redbrick. My reply was to Steve H, who can’t detect ANY literary merit in the AV, nor very advanced morality for their date in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, and feels competent to judge Shakepeare as SERIOUSLY over-rated. The world disagrees – let’s just say extraordinary claims require xtraordinary evidence.
Your own reply to SH didn’t concern me, though I’d be interested to know why you suspect Gove has no degree. The Tories – like New Labour, mostly PPE types – reckon Gove’s is a formidable intellect (can’t see it myself).
Yes, I suspected it wasn’t intended for me after I sent my message. Anyway, I have no evidence to suggest that Gove has no degree and I was just pointing out that there is a way to find out by going to official records kept by Oxford University if somebody really wanted to know. As I haven’t lived in England for quite a few years, I’m not all that familiar with what Gove has been saying recently.
I share your appreciation of Shakespeare. The ability to quote him at the right time and place without seeming like a smart-arse is a great skill, no doubt giving pleasure to the listener as well as the quoter.
Racist.
‘You are a Philistine.’ Hardly. They no longer exist. I wonder why?
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/philistine
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Philistine
etc
Yeah. There aren’t any.
By the way, etymologically, Philistine means enemy of Yahweh: which is ironic, as only a religious fruitcake would think someone could be the enemy of a fictional character, who plays a minor role of a book that is devoid of sense, and especially moral sense.
You appear to have read as deeply into these definitions as you have into the Bible or Shakespeare – a dozen words, perhaps. Philistine is reckoned to be an ethnic name, Peleset in the earlier Egyptian documents, probably from the same root as Pelasgian. Nothin to do with Yahweh.
2 Samuel 23:11.
My word – I wonder who pissed on stevehayes13’s
Cornflakes this morning. I am 8 time zones away from him – must have been awful.
🙂
Two Points
1) Understanding Biblical allusions is actually necessary to understand some works of !*atheist*! literature most notably Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick” which is highly anti-Christian and abounds in Biblical references.
2) Occasionally, reworkings of the Bible by other artists are arguably an improvement. Thomas Mann’s “Joseph and his Brothers” is a lot more engaging than the original story.
You’re right there. There are some great Biblical references buried in Hume’s Of Miracles and Clifford’s The Ethics of Belief, especially the latter. Mostly these are missed by even religious readers these days, I think.
Well they could hardly be worse, could they? 😉
Damn. Try again.
“Occasionally, reworkings of the Bible by other artists are arguably an improvement.”
Well, they could hardly be worse, could they?
😉
Don’t worry this will get nowhere. Gove is a self important “little Englander” prig (although he’s actually Scots!) As with others similarly minded he yearns for a mythical country situated somewhere in the mid 50’s – post rationing and pre Suez.
The era of Churchill and the Austin A30.
Out of interest I wonder if you can make an American analogy – post Korea and pre sputnik?
” he’s actually Scots!”
What, he’s a Germanic language spoken by a small percentage of people in lowland Scotland and part of Ulster?
Scots as in Scotsman: same as English as in Englishman. You would not wish me to call him Scotch, would you?
I agree with Richard Dawkins absolutely on the literary merits of the King James Bible (or the corrected RSV). I have read the Bible cover to cover. The language is glorious. It is contemporaneous with Shakespeare, and shares many qualities with his work.
The content is fascinating. The Books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes are beautiful moral writing, with a surprising sparseness of God references.
I love the history from Judges through Samuel, Kings and Chronicles – as interesting for its distortions and contradictions as for its (dubious) factual content.
If you want to annoy “fundamentalist” use ne Bible. Read what Jesus had to say about prayer – don’t do it in public, don’t repeat formulas, only ask for as much forgiveness as you are prepared to give, and limit your requests to your daily bread.
Great book.
The Lord of the Rings is better, far more coherent and readable.
I haven’t read Harry Potter yet but people claim it is good.
But it has the immense benefit of having had approximately one author and only a small number of people advising on editing the manuscript. Compare the comparatively ropy unevenness of Tolkein’s son’s work on the various Book of Lost Tales / Lays of Beleriand etc ad nauseam Tolkein Jr isn’t the writer his father was (and to be fair, he knows it).
But it has the immense benefit of having had approximately one author and only a small number of people advising on editing the manuscript.
(Both author counts are approximate, because both were drawing upon grab-bags of older folk tales etc. And were/ are rightly unashamed about it.)
“The content is fascinating. The Books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes are beautiful moral writing”
Again I have to disagree. Only *some* bits are good moral writings.
Take for example
Prov 19:18 “Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying.”
Prov 20:30 “The blueness of a wound cleanseth away evil: so do stripes the inward parts of the belly.”
Prov 29:19 “A servant will not be corrected by words: for though he understand he will not answer.”
prov 10:13 “”A rod is for the back of him that is void of understanding.”
Beat the people who don’t understand with a rod.”
For example. There are also contradictions with other parts of the bible.
Please don’t expect everyone to share your appreciation of this work
I mostly agree with all of this — although I’m inclined to heap a little less praise on even the good parts. Devoid of cultural context, the Bible is almost entirely crap, with a few gems scattered here and there. And even the gems are mostly just “good” and not “great”. In context, though, it’s a very important and historical book, and while I certainly wouldn’t demand that everyone read it cover to cover, everyone at least ought to be familiar with it.
Putting one in every school? I dunno… especially in the US, y’know, the wingnuts will use any opening they can to sneak in religious education. That’s why I oppose religious studies classes in high school, even though all other things being equal I would be massively in favor of them. But all other things are not equal, are they?
I will out-Philistine all of you and recommend Grayling’s Good Book.
The bible certainly deserves interest because it is a unique compilation of ancient texts of great cultural importance.
But on average I find it quite a dissapointing read, and I do not see any reason to put it on a pedestal. Okay, parts of it (of the Old Testament)are quite
fascinating, like the Story of Job, and some texts are really beautiful, like the Song of Songs. And of course one can read as much wisdom as one wants into some of the Proverbs… But in terms of beauty and poetry, and of human and literary quality, I prefer by far other ancient books, such as Homers Illiad and Odyssey (I recommend the English translation of Robert Fagles), or the wonderful poems of Sappho.
This. Yes.
As great literature, it is a hard slog for little gain. I’d rather read LOTR, science fiction, or fantasy.
As an ancient document that provides a window on the ancient human mind and condition, it is absolutely fascinating.
Reading the bible is boring and trying to make sense out of something senseless is futile. Reading the analysis, commentary, history, and higher criticism is much more interesting and illuminating.
At no point in either the bibble or shakespeare does it mention, let alone emphasise, the central importance of always keeping your towel within arm’s reach.
I think the repetition of references to both works is an indictment of the (continuing) feudal brutality of our culture and neither has any merit whatsoever.
Interesting (at least to me as a former high school librarian)is the fact that the bible was one of the three books most often stolen from the library. The other two kinds most frequently stolen were books on cars and books about sex. Maybe the thieves were the same individuals reading up on how to “do it” in cars while looking up ways to express their ecstasy.
I went to a nominally-religious school. The Bibles were popular to hollow out and hide cigarettes in.
In the Sixties bible-paper was popular among students for making cannabis joints.
s/Sixties/Eighties/
I sometimes had the occasion to observe christians reading their bible (before or after dinner), and several times I got the impression that they were nor really reading or listening or understanding what they read or heard. I have the impression that reading the bible is for many believers a mindless activity (or a bahavioral pattern) similar to turning prayer wheels or chanting rosaries.
I think Christians are damned if they do, and damned if they don’t. If they just read these things mechanically and magically, they are really just quoting things at random out of context and expecting it to be enlightening, because they expect the whole book to be enlightening. If they read the whole book, and get the whole context, its usually a let down… the “prophecies” in the Old Testament that are supposed to mention Jesus are usually fulfilled in a paragraph, and the stories are much uglier and bloodier than they are when they’re quote minded.
I’m another “uneducated” one who has never managed to make it through the whole thing.
The prospect of not knowing the origins of some literary allusions is one I can live with. I don’t intend to read every issue of Marvel Comics’ Thor before seeing The Avengers’ movie, either.
God I hate Shakespeare! (and the KJV) Both tediously unreadable. I also don’t understand my nation’s obsession with Burns either. That’s even less comprehensible. Let’s acknowledge it had influence and move on
“God I hate Shakespeare!”
I hate Formula 1, but that’s just me.
I’ve just reread all these replies, and I have to say a lot of posters here are missing out. I liked the “pissed in his cornflakes” comment – what’s everyone else’s reason for being so bitter about literature?Possibly shite English teachers had something to do with it? Michael Gove would sympathise with you there…
It’s instructive that some give as an alternative and worthier literary offering “The Lord of the Rings” or “Harry Potter” or just SF. That’s a bit of a leap. Were Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and the Brontës unreadable too, etc, etc?
“Were Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and the Brontës unreadable too, etc, etc?” They were when they were being force-fed to me at school. It was only when I was older and perhaps a little more mature that I realized they weren’t crap after all and I have had many pleasurable hours of reading since then.
I also found bible study to be depressingly dull at that time of my life, but there was a pay-off. For a year, we had bible classes in a room which had a large periodic table stuck on the wall. I memorized the whole thing in order to break the tedium, and I’ve never forgotten it.
Mysterious are the ways of the lord.
“I hate Formula 1, but that’s just me.”
No, that’s not just you.
“what’s everyone else’s reason for being so bitter about literature?”
You would have to ask them. Strongly disliking a particular set of books does not make one bitter to literature in general though.
Having something written in style no one speaks at school could have something to do with it. I don’t recall which version of the bible was forced on us at school though – just remember thinking “what a load of mouldy hairy swingers!”
You should have gone off piste, and then you wouldn’t have been so pissec off. When the class were learning the Sermon on the Mount and the Loaves and Fishes I was reading the Book of Judges – what lad wouldn’t enjoy reading about Ehud and Eglon, or Jael and Sisera – which, in their little odd details seem likely to be true stories from 3,000 years ago. Stirring stuff, and that led into I and II Samuel, and I and II Kings. A great story.
It is great watching all the butthurt go around when people actually admit that they do not find Shakespeare or the Bible to be good literature.
It’s as if people had *gasps* personal tastes, or something.
Maybe an out campaign is needed for those of us with a negative opinion of Shakespeare 🙂
I bow in respect to all those who could get through the entire Bible, of whatever version. After suffering through “begats” and the tedious sacrifice requirements of Leviticus I had no more patience left. I skipped to the end in a vain hope that it was going somewhere and was more entertained by Revelations, but still generally unimpressed.
I was in middle school at the time, but it was enough to make me an atheist.
The great cartoonist Jules Feiffer once showed a guy presenting a book review of the Bible. He praised it for its “almost epic quality” and ended by saying that he looked forward to the next work by this author.
The Book of Mormon is generally considered a disappointment, if not a downright failure.
The bible is just an Iron Age marketing campaign (scam) by power factions — pretending to be something other than a slick ad campaign.
Very effective though. Great ad and marketing campaign more like it.
I found in a post on a discussion some years ago the entire text of Jules Feiffer’s (character’s) book review of the Bible:
“Todays book is a rather bulky but promising first attempt by author or authors unknown. its called the bible. It is written in a narrative rather than introspective style which may perhaps make for quicker reading, but leaves something to be desired on the level of character motivation. It purports to be a theological and historical document, and while this reviewer does not question its sincerity, he can only regret the publishers failure to include a bibliography. But these are minor criticisms.
One cannot deny the power and sweeping range of the subject matter (one might even call it epic -). the subtle allegorical nuances touched, at times, with what seems to be an almost metaphysical insight! It will undoubtedly cause controversy in the literary field. But the authors, while writing in a quasi-journalistic form show occasional flourishes of stylistic daring which makes one impatient to view their later efforts.
I shall await their second book with great interest.”
I love it. When Hollywood turned to the Bible there was some speculation about possible sequels if the theme should prove to be a moneyspinner. Someone suggested a trilogy: “God”, “The Son of God” and “The Return of the Son of God”. Nowadays I suppose you could add “God 4: Judgement Day”.
There was also talk of a prequel, but some studio execs insisted that audiences wouldn’t buy it. Something about uncaused causes.
Mr. Deity has done the prequel already.
I think the collected poems of W.B. Yeats is a better investment.
There was a review of James Wood book on fiction in the Chronicle of Higher Education that dealt wholly with the issue of the Bible as literature. I ran in 2009. If anyone wants the text I can post it somewhere. Here is the reference info, but the article is behind a paywall. April 10, 2009, The Bible’s Literary Merits,
author: Tod Linafelt
The Guardian also published this opinion piece on the KJB in every schoool kerfuffle by a man who is Not Richard Dawkins (aka David Mitchell) http://tinyurl.com/7hafv6x
George Orwell had a marvelous view on this in his “Politics and the English Language:”
From: http://politicsandlanguage.wordpress.com/2011/06/08/george-orwells-biblical-waggery/
Take a look at The Shadow of a Great Rock. A literary appreciation of the King James Bible by that great Shakespeare scholar Harold Bloom.
(from the blurb) Bloom makes an impassioned and convincing case for rereading KJB as literature, free from dogma and with an appreciation of its enduring aesthetic value.
“If you want the Bible as literature, why not redact it, pulling out just the good parts and serving them up as wonderful prose fiction? I can see it now: The Literary Bible, Expunged of the Boring and Invidious Bits.”
There is such a book, albeit with the plain title of ‘Literature From the Bible’:
http://www.amazon.com/Literature-Bible-Joseph-Frank/dp/0316291811
One of the tells about the bible is how many xians never read it and have no idea what is in it. The vast majority at the least.
If it stood on its own merits as literature, people would read it voluntarily as literature.
Even the xians don’t bother.
No one had to spend a decade trying to get me to read The Lord of the Rings or Dune.
When our kids were small, we read Lord of the Rings together, family-style. They loved it. I can’t imagine having enthralled them with any parts of the Bible, much less reading the whole thing through.
(I did have the good sense not to try The Silmarillion on them, though.)
J.R.R Tolkien is listed as one of the “principal collaborators in translation and literary revision” for The Jerusalem Bible (Catholic) published in 1966.
That was the main reason I tried reading the Jerusalem Bible – I never found LotR or the Silmarillion boring.
Didn’t work. Much less lively than KJV, even if it is a lot more accurate.
I forgive him his trespasses.
Some parts of the Silmarillion are quite tedious (especially the genealogies), but overall it’s still one of my favorite books (more so than LOTR).
But maybe not so interesting for a seven year old.
My only problem with the KJV Bible showing up in schools is when certain teachers end each reading with the addendum, “true story.”
I never could get through the “begats” myself in the OT, and Acts just pissed me off after a weak showing by the MMLJ crew. I was reading the ESV though, I’ll have to give the KJV a try, but Hawking, Gibbons and Feynman have all taken priority in my reading queue at the moment.
The idea of reading the Bible from cover to cover is one of the stupidest ideas I’ve ever heard of. It pretty obviously wasn’t meant to be used that way. It’s as if one were to complain that the Joy of Cooking wasn’t any fun to read from start to finish.
+1
Personally, I’d rather read railway timetables (seriously) – at least they reflect a semblance of reality.
Readers of this blog/website may be interested in a slight different perspective on the story of the UK Dept of Education sending each school in England a facsimile copy of the KJV of the Bible. The DoE, when asked about the wisdom of distributing a book advocating practices that are undoubtedly illegal, provided the following justification: “We recognise that some of the passages in any version of the Bible, including the King James Bible are inconsistent with the laws and customs which apply in today’s society. […] In its story, pupils will find the roots of our history and democracy and will understand its place in our nation’s identity.” [Leona Smith, DoE’s Public Communication Unit].
In my admittedly superficial reading of the KJV I did not come across many references to democracy, unless “slavery” is a poor translation of “democracy” …
Correct.
Democracy isn’t mentioned at all.
Communism is mentioned with approval in Acts, where the early xians share everything.
Mostly, it says, to obey the rulers because they were chosen by god and pay your taxes. In several places no less. The NT was used for nearly two millennia to justify The Divine Right of Kings and Queens.
Whoever says the roots of democracy are in the bible as that spokesperson says, hasn’t read the bible and has no idea what is in it.
The bible is fine with slavery and polygamy. At one point, Jesus gives advice on how to beat your slaves, it seemingly never occurring to him that slavery might not all that great an idea, especially for the slave.
I think this is our “big lie” that politicians seem eager to reiterate, on a par with “the U.S.A. is a Christian nation”, that “British society is based on Christian values”.
Which is close to being correct only if you add a rider like, “that are broadly in accord with Enlightenment notions of liberalism and humanism”.
/@
You are absolutely correct. But the ruling class would rather not acknowledge the fact as the Enlightenment project is still incomplete.
I don’t often disagree with Richard Dawkins but I totally disagree over the Bible. It’s a load of tedious boring garbage. The only virtue of making people read it is so they can realise how nonsensical it is (and that could be conveyed with a lot less pain by an abbreviated summary). I seem to recall there were a few dirty bits in Leviticus, the only entertainment us schoolkids could derive from it.
Although Shakespeare’s language was just as old-fashioned as the KJV, I found his plays entirely readable. Doubtless because (a) they were written to entertain and (b) they were written by one man, hence coherent.
Dickens, OTOH, I found dreary and depressing and full of stuck-up Victorian morality (or Victorian manners – sometimes hard to separate the two).
Has nobody yet posted the obligatory Jesus’n’Mo? It (stripping the holy books down to their bare essentials, to separate the “literature” from the theology) has already been done :
http://www.jesusandmo.net/2012/02/01/dross/
Ah, this one goes by the abbreviation “dross”. And it implies that someone called Jefferson has done this previously for the Bible – would that be the American president?
“If someone wanted to place a single book in all schools that has not only literary value but a tremendous influence in our culture, let it be Shakespeare”
I expect that all state schools already have copies of Shakespeare’s complete works, as he is still on the national curriculum.
One other point, Gove doesn’t plan to send KGV bibles to every state school in Britain, as he’s only the Education Secretary for England. Wales and Scotland will be doing their own thing. And no doubt schools in NI will already have one of two different bibles, depending on their flavour.
See http://skyvington.blogspot.fr/2012/05/is-bible-good-english-literature.html
I completely disagree with Richard’s tactics, which is counter-productive.
In fact as scientists/historians, we should aim to have the most precise translations of the original text, and NOT the King James version. We want the text to reflect what it really means.
I find that Richard expresses a typical Anglo-Saxon viewpoint (not the first time), i.e. his reasoning somewhat fails once transposed to other countries (Spain, France, Italy, Germany), where old translations of the Bible are not especially seen as better than more modern ones. Of course knowing the content of the Bible helps to understand much of history and language.
But Greek and Roman mythology books are equally influential, and because they are rightfully presented as *mythology*, I wish Richard advocated these instead. It is indeed ironic that he is presented as a strident atheist, when I often find him defending Christianity’s influence in society. As a third generation atheist, religion only has historical meaning to me, and thus I find there are many more useful books to read as a child. And that it’s time to stop propagating the myth except as a tool to understand the past.
I thought his purpose was more for knowledge of English than of the Bible. And you definitely need the KJV (or, preferably, a literary study guide to the KJV) rather than any other version.
Exactly right – Dawkins means only that; Gove, one suspects with near certainty, is playing some kind of religion card in a political game.