The Bible
The Bible comes in for a lot of abuse from the average atheist. Too often, s/he seems to simply dismiss it as a "book of fairy tales."
I wouldn't deny that the Bible does contain some stories that could fairly be characterized as fairy tales. But it also contains much, much more than that.
The Bible is of course an anthology of ancient works written at widely different times by different people. The Old Testament (mostly written between about 900 and 500 BCE) includes works whose literary value matches almost anything produced during the same period by other cultures. As for the New Testament, from a literary standpoint it's widely agreed to be greatly inferior in quality to the OT. It is, however, fascinating from a historical perspective, since it includes hints of everyday life in the ancient Near East that can't be found in any other primary sources we have.
"Official" Bible translations typically homogenize everything and thus give a poor sense of the Bible's literary merits. To get a sense of the literary qualities of the OT, I recommend A Poet's Bible, which consists of terrific translations by David Rosenberg. (It's inexplicably out of print, but lots of used editions are available.) I also recommend The Book of J, which contains Rosenberg's translation of the portions of the Pentateuch believed to have been written by a single author referred to as "J" (short for the "Jahwist" or "Yahwist"). If you read the reviews on Amazon, you'll find a lot of quibbles with Rosenberg's work, mainly because, in an effort to bring the ancient texts to life, he takes liberties with the literal meanings. But he has tried to do something really unique and significant in rescuing the Bible from ritualism.
The Bible comes in for a lot of abuse from the average atheist. Too often, s/he seems to simply dismiss it as a "book of fairy tales."
I wouldn't deny that the Bible does contain some stories that could fairly be characterized as fairy tales. But it also contains much, much more than that.
The Bible is of course an anthology of ancient works written at widely different times by different people. The Old Testament (mostly written between about 900 and 500 BCE) includes works whose literary value matches almost anything produced during the same period by other cultures. As for the New Testament, from a literary standpoint it's widely agreed to be greatly inferior in quality to the OT. It is, however, fascinating from a historical perspective, since it includes hints of everyday life in the ancient Near East that can't be found in any other primary sources we have.
"Official" Bible translations typically homogenize everything and thus give a poor sense of the Bible's literary merits. To get a sense of the literary qualities of the OT, I recommend A Poet's Bible, which consists of terrific translations by David Rosenberg. (It's inexplicably out of print, but lots of used editions are available.) I also recommend The Book of J, which contains Rosenberg's translation of the portions of the Pentateuch believed to have been written by a single author referred to as "J" (short for the "Jahwist" or "Yahwist"). If you read the reviews on Amazon, you'll find a lot of quibbles with Rosenberg's work, mainly because, in an effort to bring the ancient texts to life, he takes liberties with the literal meanings. But he has tried to do something really unique and significant in rescuing the Bible from ritualism.
posted by iohannes | 9:18 AM
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