The Bible as literature

{{Biblenav}}
'''The Bible as literature''' is a course commonly taught in the humanities in universities and colleges. Because of the enormous role that the [[Bible]], including its stories, characters, tropes, and language, have played in [[Western world|western civilization and culture]], the idea is to study the Bible in the same way one might study [[Shakespeare]] or other classic [[literature]], looking at areas including [[language]], form, genre, and allusion.<ref>[https://www.jstor.org/stable/814192 The Bible and Literature], Peter Bracher, ''The English Journal'', Vol. 61, No. 8 (Nov., 1972), pp. 1170-1175</ref> This sort of satisfies people who want to keep western culture at the apex of the pile (because [[King James Only|the Bible was written in English]], it's typically seen as a work of the western canon along with Shakespeare, Dickens, etc, in addition to being important for understanding Biblical references in Milton, Shakespeare, and many other writers); study of the Bible as literature has been done by some of the most respected and cited 20<sup>th</sup>-century critics including {{wpl|Northrop Frye}} and {{wpl|Frank Kermode||,}} as well as by people with links to both literature and [[theology]] such as [[CS Lewis]]. It slightly annoys some [[Christian]]s who can see that people are still reading the Bible, but they're not reading it ''properly'', although many Christians recognize it as valuable for attempts at understanding the Bible.

It is also sometimes known as '''Literary Study of the Bible'''.<ref>[https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-1-4020-8265-8_1386 Bible as Literature], Encyclopedia of Sciences and Religions, Springer, 2013</ref> It contrasts with [[Biblical criticism]], which focuses on topics such as establishing authoritative texts and identifying authorship, sources, dates, language, place of composition, etc.

==History==
The subject goes back to the mid-20<sup>th</sup> century as an organised discipline. But before then, many people discussed the Bible's literary qualities including St [[Augustine of Hippo]] and [[Martin Luther]].<ref name=crossway>[https://www.crossway.org/articles/10-things-you-should-know-about-the-bible-as-literature/ 10 Things You Should Know about the Bible as Literature], Crossway, Feb 10, 2017</ref> It should be uncontroversial that some parts of the Bible have literary merit, as the Bible is a work that combines many genres including poetry ([[Song of Solomon]] most notably), sophisticated [[myth]] ([[Book of Job]]), arguably tragedy ([[Samson]]), as well as the boring unliterary bits such as lists of rules ([[Book of Leviticus]]), lists of kings ([[Books of Kings]]), and lists of begettings ([[Book of Genesis]]). As early as 1888, William E Chancellor published an essay, "The Literary Study of the Bible: Its Methods and Purposes Illustrated in a Criticism of the Book of Amos".<ref>[https://www.jstor.org/stable/3156626 The Literary Study of the Bible: Its Methods and Purposes Illustrated in a Criticism of the Book of Amos], Wm. E. Chancellor, ''The Old Testament Student'', Vol. 8, No. 1 (Sep., 1888), pp. 10-19 (10 pages)</ref>

Landmark figures include the critic Northrop Frye and Thomas Rice Henn.<ref name=gunn/> The literary critic Frye reportedly started teaching a course on the Bible because his literature students were unable to get the Biblical references in Milton's ''Paradise Lost'' and other texts.<ref>[http://www.openculture.com/2014/09/critic-northrop-frye-teaches-the-bible-and-english-literature.html Literary Critic Northrop Frye Teaches “The Bible and English Literature”: All 25 Lectures Free Online], Open Culture, Sept 2014</ref> He wrote about the Bible in books such as ''The Great Code: the Bible and Literature'' (1981), and ''Words With Power: Being a Second Study of "The Bible and Literature"'' (1990). Frye came to the Bible from studies of literature and myth, influenced by figures including [[Giambattista Vico]], [[James Frazer]], [[Carl Jung]], and [[Joseph Campbell]]. ''The Great Code'' considered the Bible as a single work of literature, not a medley of different texts, and Frye analysed it as having basically a comic or U-shaped form where things first go to shit, and then recover; he saw this U-shape as being reflected in many smaller-scale stories within the Bible. In ''Words With Power'' he focused on what he considered a distinctive feature of the Bible, what he called "kerygmatic" language, i.e. the words spoken by [[God]], while considering issues such as human beings' creative potential and the power inherent in human society.<ref>[http://cola.calpoly.edu/~smarx/Publications/frye.html Northrop Frye's Bible], Steven Marx, ''The Journal of the American Academy of Religion'' (JAAR), Winter 1994</ref>

Henn, an expert on Shakespeare and WB Yeats, wrote ''The Bible as Literature'', published in 1970. Another landmark text was ''The Literary Guide to the Bible'' published in 1987, edited by Frank Kermode (a very eminent English literary critic often mistaken for an [[Old Testament]] prophet) and Robert Alter (a professor of [[Hebrew]] and comparative literature). Covering most of the [[Protestant]] Bible, it includes essays on topics such as the relationship between the [[New Testament]] and Greco-Roman literature; ancient Hebrew poetry; and the construction of the [[canon]].<ref name=gunn>[https://www.religion-online.org/article/approach-and-avoidance-the-bible-as-literature/ Approach and Avoidance: The Bible as Literature], Giles Gunn, ''Christian Century'', May 18-25, 1988.</ref>

Cranky and often contrarian literary critic {{wpl|Harold Bloom||,}} notorious for his defence of the white male English literary canon, wrote a commentary on ''[[Torah#The Book of J|The Book of J]]'' (1990); Kermode claimed the Old Testament was largely written by a woman (perhaps a Hebrew princess) around 500 BCE; J is the conventional name for the author of those parts of the Old Testament that refers to God as "Jahweh" or "Yahweh", and whom Bloom claimed to identify. Bloom argued that the text originally had nothing to do with piety, and had more in common with Franz Kafka: it thus becomes a project of stripping away the religion to expose the literary merit.<ref>"[https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-10-13-ca-1844-story.html THE BOOK OF J. Translated from the Hebrew by David Rosenberg; Interpreted by Harold Bloom. Grove Weidenfeld. $21.95; 340 pages]", LA Times, Oct 13, 1990</ref><ref>[http://movies2.nytimes.com/books/98/11/01/specials/bloom-j.html God Speaks Through His Women], Frank Kermode, New York Times, September 23, 1990</ref>

While many students of the Bible as literature haven't been devout Christians, some Christian apologists have defended the necessity of considering the Bible at least partly as literature. [[CS Lewis]] wrote:
<blockquote>Those who talk of reading the Bible 'as literature' sometimes mean, I think, reading it without attending to the main thing it is about; like reading [[Edmund Burke|Burke]] with no interest in [[politics]], or reading the Aeneid with no interest in [[Rome]]. That seems to me to be nonsense. But there is a saner sense in which the Bible, since it is after all literature, cannot properly be read except as literature; and the different parts of it as the different sorts of literature they are.<ref>[http://merecslewis.blogspot.com/2011/04/literary-approach-to-psalms-and-bible.html "Sweeter than Honey"], C.S. Lewis, ''Reflections on the Psalms'' (1958) as republished within C.S. Lewis: ''Selected Books'' (London: HarperCollins, 2002) 310.</ref></blockquote>
Lewis suggested that understanding the Bible as a literary work was essential to understanding its true Christian message.<ref>[https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/encyclopedia-of-the-bible/Bible-as-Literature The Bible as Literature], Encyclopedia of the Bible, Bible Gateway</ref>

Separate to studying the actual Bible, the rewriting of the Bible as literature has also had a long history, with figures such as John Milton (''Paradise Lost'', ''Samson Agonistes'', etc), rewriting parts to give it their own slant. Such texts are often covered in other literature courses. Even recently there have been retellings of Bible stories.

==Criticism==
===From evangelicals===
{{main|Evangelicalism}}
When taught in colleges, the Bible as literature is commonly seen as being if not [[atheistic]] at least theologically liberal. Some Christians have various problems with subjecting the Bible to literary analysis, as though it weakens the Bible's power or message. You may suspect that they're really worried about what people will find if they study the Bible too closely.

Some people view studying the Bible as literature as imputing some new characteristic (literariness) that's not actually in the Bible, which means that the Bible isn't of literary merit until literary critics get their hands on it (yet much structuralist and poststructuralist continental literary theory has sought to question the nature of the "literary", and to study texts regardless of whether they are "literature"). Also, to some critics, there is a suspicion that studying the Bible as literature is tantamount to saying it's fictional (some more-or-less factual things are studied as literature, including [[Julius Caesar|Caesar]]'s ''Gallic Wars'' and many didactic poems).<ref name=crossway/> Likewise, people don't get that literary criticism doesn't necessarily mean saying something is bad (criticism as essentially negative), but means applying critical faculties in analysis, and hence they think it equals saying God was wrong.<ref name=Vreugdenhil/>

Some [[fundamentalists]] believe that since the Bible is the word of God, it cannot be subject to the same judgments and analysis as secular texts. This ignores the fact that it is read and comprehended through similar methods as anything else, and putting aside fundamentalist beliefs about [[Biblical inerrancy]], the mainstream Protestant view is that the Bible was created by God acting through people and it thus carries the character of the people whom God used.<ref name=Vreugdenhil>[https://reformedforum.org/reading-the-bible-as-literature-2/ Reading the Bible as Literature (2)], Arjen Vreugdenhil, Reformed Forum</ref> Another objection is that literary criticism of the Bible isn't focusing on the Bible as religious message but as literary document, and to some extent ignores the truth of the Bible: literary criticism is appropriate for some texts, as nobody would go through ''Gulliver's Travels'' saying "that didn't happen, that didn't happen", but whether you want to do literary criticism or theology depends upon your goal. And anything that gets people reading the Bible is good, yes? Especially if you sell Bibles.

All Biblical study raises questions, and study of the Bible as literature will point not only to the Bible's nature as a bunch of wildly different (and often [[Biblical contradictions|contradictory]]) texts stuck together, but also its relationship to other literary traditions, such as the influence of classical literature on the New Testament. It does not in itself affect the Bible's truth, but maybe people shouldn't study the Bible too much (as the [[Roman Catholic]] church has believed for much of its history, such as when it banned vernacular translations of the Bible).

===From a multicultural perspective===
{{main|Multiculturalism}}
Many of the writers on the Bible as literature have approached it as a defence of the western canon and of a body of literary tradition that must be preserved from philistinism and ignorance: many of the most prominent scholars also write on Shakespeare or Milton.

==References==
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