General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsFrom a literary standpoint, The Bible is the most important work of Western Literature.
Seriously, you could never understand Milton's Paradise Lost without the basis of The Bible.
The Bible is incredibly important in understanding Dante Alighieri's Divina Commedia.
So much of Western Literature is absolutely dependent upon that work.
HERVEPA
(6,107 posts)MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)Note the key term.
Literature.
Rex
(65,616 posts)But some people don't know history well enough to believe anything came before the Bible.
Sad really.
Journeyman
(15,001 posts)Boccaccio, Calderón, Lord Bacon, Shakespeare and Milton
had never lived we would experience worse wars, usury,
more oppressive fraud, malfeasance and servitude.
I doubt it. I think they functioned as entertainers
who taught nothing. I submit the continuation of
everything they abhorred substantiates my argument.
Evan S. Connell, Points for a Compass Rose
MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)So many people are unable to accept The Bible as literature.
Just like any other works of mythology are literary works.
waddirum
(976 posts)How many people have actually read the bible like a book, cover to cover, left to right (or right to left if in Hebrew)? Not that many I would guess.
Large portions are just mind-numbingly boring. This one begat that one. And so on ad infinitum.
I don't consider it great "literature" since it has such a poor narrative arc.
Multiple times in several translations. My favorite was the Student's Edition of the Jerusalem Bible.
Journeyman
(15,001 posts)I've no doubt a substantial number of people have read the bible in full, either cover to cover (as I did with the KJV), selectively while skipping about, or while following a guided plan to read it in a single year (there are many of those available).
To dismiss it as a simple litany of "begats" betrays an ignorance detrimental to intelligent disdain.
Be more selective in your reading. Ecclesiastes is useful, in large measure, as are the "Beatitudes." There's still plenty to criticize, much to hold as worthless, but you'll not be so quick to betray your illiteracy.
waddirum
(976 posts)I just don't waste my time reading unreadable crap. Sorry if that sounds harsh.
Journeyman
(15,001 posts)If you don't "waste (your) time reading unreadable crap," why do you bother commenting on its literary merits?
ChazII
(6,198 posts)A queen says no so she has to go (Vashti). Enter Esther who foils a plot to wipe out the Jews and Haman is impaled. Queen Esther's hubby, King Xeres is the one who declared the holiday, Purim.
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)And it has caused more deaths, war, torture, corruption, bigotry, and brainwashing than any other piece of literary fiction in history. If thats your standard for important literature, then go with it.
defacto7
(13,485 posts)n/t
Quixote1818
(28,903 posts)LostOne4Ever
(9,267 posts)A majority of western literature is inspired by, at least, some of the bible. Therefore, the bible is the most important work in western Literature.
If that is true, then since some of the Bible was based upon the Epic of Gilgamesh.....doesn't that make the epic of Gilgamesh the most important work in western Literature?
MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)As a single piece of influence, the Bible has had more of an effect than any other work in Western Literature.
One can understand Western Literature without a good understanding of the Epic of Gilgamesh, but not without a good understanding of The Bible (as literature) and its effect upon Western Literature.
Remember, we are talking about literature.
LuvNewcastle
(16,820 posts)but it isn't THE MOST important book. It's no more important than the works of Plato, Aristotle, or any of the other Pagan authors. It's no more important than Greek or Norse mythology. I think your view is centered on the traditions of Judeo-Christian religion and culture. Sure, you couldn't understand Paradise Lost or the Divine Comedy without knowledge of the Bible, but you couldn't understand those works without knowledge of Pagan Western religions either. The Bible is only a part of a greater whole, and it isn't the most important. There is no most important part.
MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)It's had a bigger effect on Western Literature than any other work you'd care to name.
This doesn't diminish the importance of the other works, but it is by far the single most important work of literature in the West.
LuvNewcastle
(16,820 posts)Taken as a group, the works of Shakespeare are just as important. In fact, our theater is directly descended from Greco-Roman plays and culture. I don't know where there are any plays in the Bible, and plays are very significant in Western literature. I have to go to work now on the the graveyard shift, but I wish I could carry on the conversation further. I don't agree with your premise, but it's an interesting discussion, nonetheless.
GusBob
(7,286 posts)MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)Prophet 451
(9,796 posts)It's had a massive impact, that's for sure. But can it be honestly said that it's had a greater impact on literature than the works of Shakespeare or Caesar's war memoirs or Plato's dialogues? I'm not convinced that case can be made.
alp227
(31,959 posts)Rex
(65,616 posts)LeftyMom
(49,212 posts)We get a lot more of our ideas about narrative structure from Homer, for example. In terms of references, Shakespeare's just about got the bible beat and that's with the bible having a millennia and change of head start. And most of the bible's influence on English has as much or more to do with phrasing in Tyndale and the KJV than with the historical text itself.
If the bible was a big influence on how we use language we'd be much bigger users of allegory, lists and repetition. And we probably wouldn't be having this conversation in English. (If you want to make a case for a text dominating a language's development- and thus a culture- there's a much better case to be made for Arabic and the Koran.)
Of course many of the pillars of "Western Literature" predate or are roughly contemporary with parts of the bible, and "western culture" as we now understand it is largely a product of the rediscovery of those classical texts in the Renaissance.
Long story short: No. History, you fail it.
ancianita
(35,812 posts)helps in each case. Milton's story is only lightly referred to in the NT, being actually a story that Genesis doesn't chronicle and was to have happened before "The Fall of Man" in Genesis, anyway.
The Inferno of Divina Commedia is based on church history of struggles against heresies, papal corruption and the retributions meted out to Alighieri's real world political foes, pre-Christian and non-Christian populations. The rest of the Commedia is based upon Church concepts of grace, sin, love and lost souls. Limbo? Purgatory? Mortal sin? Venial sin? Supernatural grace? Catholic Church constructs. Not in the bible. Weightings of sins and sinners cast throughout levels of hell? Hell as frozen? Purely Alighieri constructs.
I taught World Literature for twenty years. My students got on pretty well without reading "The Bible As Literature." Were there religious concepts to grasp in order to understand some parts of the readings? Sure. But identical exposures were needed from The Koran, Tao Te Ching, Book(s) of the Dead and the Vedas. Because Western Literature had to 'go global' over twenty years ago as part of World Literature.
This claim overestimates the bible's importance in Western Lit.
HeiressofBickworth
(2,682 posts)If one is a Christian, one may be disposed to think that the written basis of his/her own religion is THE most important literary work ever. If one is a different religion, then that religion's literary work is the most important. For others (like me) who have no inherent attachment to a specific religious work, there are many sources of inspiration for literary works throughout history. Like building blocks -- one forms the basis for the next, going back to the invention of written language. It's pure ego that says that one can't appreciate other literary works without first reading their preferred religious text.
whatchamacallit
(15,558 posts)Last edited Tue Jun 17, 2014, 09:21 AM - Edit history (1)
nomorenomore08
(13,324 posts)Maybe if you're going by the greatest number of references/allusions, then you could make the case. But when one considers Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Hesiod, Sophocles - and those are just the Greeks - it would be hard to say that the Bible dwarfs all of them combined, though perhaps it does each of them individually .
liberal_at_heart
(12,081 posts)defacto7
(13,485 posts)let alone most important. It's a disjointed mishmash of mostly badly translated and hacked over crib notes from more writers and re-writers and medicinal fixers than any other work in history. In that, it is the most important example of bad literature ever. As far as influence, it can't be denied that such horribly written literature would have a great effect on centuries of societies that had either no choice but to use it under duress, use it as prime allegory for public response, or as a compass toward the non-divine.
From a literary standpoint, the Bible just may be the most interruptive conglomeration of anonymous writing that has caused so much anti-intellectualism over nonsense of all Western Literature.
Quixote1818
(28,903 posts)cali
(114,904 posts)Quixote1818
(28,903 posts)The Bible kept civilization stagnant for a very long time.