The Bible as a Novel

I love watching the change...the initial reaction...the walking around the lion nervously distrusting...poking a little to see if it is alive...getting more comfortable that it isn't going to harm...and eventually taking selfies...
 
Thomas said:
I would say books like the Bible, the Mahābhārata, The Pali Canon, the Tao Te Ching, all the world's great sacra doctrina are regarded in a class of their own, above the standard critiques and classifications applied to common texts.

The trouble is, generally, people reach for simple classifications. So if we're calling something 'fiction', then people will put it in the same class as (the execrable) Dan Brown or E.L. James. Or at best as 'literary fiction' — Margaret Atwood, Kazuo Ishiguro or James Joyce.

Ostensibly, it's an historical account of the People of Israel, from the beginning on the world until a foretelling of the End Times.
But is it simply a history?

Yes, it contains elements that are fictive, but only inasmuch as those elements serve as vehicles to address big questions, like the nature of humanity, the nature of a deity, of suffering, of goodness, of vice and virtue.

Big subjects that have been addresssed in the world's great works of fiction, and yet no-one would put such fictions, by the like of Fodor Dostoevsky or Graham Greene or Philip K Dick, on a par with the world's sacra doctrina, if only because their own lexicon and inspiration draws on those sources, whereas those sources seem to draw on Revelation.
Click to expand...

I wonder what is it that supposedly exempts sacra doctrina from standard critiques? What is this hierarchy or class distinction of literature really based on, and why does it render texts such as the bible supposedly untouchable?

Am I to understand, Thomas, that you have personally read the works of both Brown and James, or are you simply going off the elitist opinions of others in dismissing their writing as 'execrable'?

What if I told you that if it weren't for EL James I might never have even considered reading the bible as anything other than a reference book? What if I told you that the 'literary' format of James' novels, in my opinion, challenge the very notion that writing style or literary quality directly relates to a text's ability to address 'big questions'?

Just because readers struggle to articulate what it is about a text that resonates with them on a deeper level, does that mean it has nothing of value to offer a discerning reader with an open mind? Someone who can look past what may be regarded as 'offensive', inferior or even confronting at face value and glimpse a profound 'truth' within?
 
Namaste Jesus said:
Now I'm thinking, perhaps the verse numbers are the problem. The reason people think individual verses can stand alone...
Click to expand...
It's horses for courses, I think ... as ever, I tend to think its the people who are the problem ...
 
possibility said:
I wonder what is it that supposedly exempts sacra doctrina from standard critiques?
Click to expand...
I'm not saying exempt, I'm saying they're a class apart.

A lot of really interesting scholarship has and is still being done using standard critique methodology.

possibility said:
Am I to understand, Thomas, that you have personally read the works of both Brown and James...
Click to expand...
Brown yes, James no, but I have plenty of comments from critics I value. No-one proclaims either for their literary style, quite the opposite. Whether or not they're 'elitist' is a subjective opinion. Just because a book is a best-seller does not make it good literature. If that makes me a snob then fine.

possibility said:
Someone who can look past what may be regarded as 'offensive', inferior or even confronting at face value and glimpse a profound 'truth' within?
Click to expand...
You think a literary critic, often themselves authors of books acclaimed for touching on 'profound truths', and indeed in some cases regarded as 'offensive', are incapable of reading beyond the literal text?
 
Well, my package arrived from the US in one piece.

And a very fine version it is, too.

I think I shall make reading this Bible a Lenten Challenge.
 
Positive acts? I grew up with the "giving something up" for lent.... That is what was taught in every church I attended as a kid...be it candy, or meat, or something...and then after the 40 days of 'fasting' of something to prove you could...you went right back to it.

More recently a church taught to use lent as a springboard for permanent change.... giving up a negative food for losing wieight....giving up negative attitudes, or smoking, or drinking, or being judgemental...all with the goal of not picking it up again, but the thought if you can do it for 40 days you can continue... Reading the history of lent years ago was interesting...how the time steadily grew over time.

I have not heard it as a challenge or as positive acts from more conventional church tradition...hence my question.

Although I am interested in hearing how the challenge goes...How far thomas gets, and his thoughts on the difference of reading this 'novel' bible!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top