Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature

Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature

That which we call 'The Bible' has the outward appearance of a book: in reality it iswhat the word 'bible' implies in the original Greeka whole library. More than fifty books, the production of a large number of different authors, representing periods of time extending over many centuries, are all comprehended between the covers of a single volume. There is no greater monument of the power of printing to diffuse thought than this fact, that the whole classic literature of one of the world's greatest peoples can be carried about in the hand or the pocket. But there is another side to the matter. A high price has been paid for this feat of manufacturing a portable literature: no less a price than the effacement from the books of the Bible of their whole literary structure. Where the literature is dramatic, there are (except in one book) no names of speakers nor divisions of speeches; there are no titles to essays or poems, nor anything to mark where one poem or discourse ends and another begins; not only is there nothing to reflect finer rhythmic distinctions in poetry, but (in King James's version) there is not even a distinction made between poetry and prose. [vi] It is as if the whole were printed 'solid,' like a newspaper without the newspaper headings. The most familiar English literature treated in this fashion would lose a great part of its literary interest; the writings of the Hebrews suffer still more through our unfamiliarity with many of the literary forms in which they are cast. Even this statement does not fully represent the injury done to the literature of the Bible by the traditional shape in which it is presented to us. Between the Biblical writers and our own times have intervened ages in which all interest in literary beauty was lost, and philosophic activity took the form of protracted discussions of brief sayings or 'texts.' Accordingly this solidified matter of Hebrew literature has been divided up into single sentences or 'verses,' numbered mechanically one, two, three, etc., and thus the original literary form has still further been obscured. It is not surprising that to most readers the Bible has become, not a literature, but simply a storehouse of pious 'texts.' ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 27510
Author: Moulton, Richard G. (Richard Green)
Release Date: Dec 12, 2008
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Editor: Moulton, Richard G. (Richard Green), 1849-1924