The Literary Value of the Bible and Koran

[Yasna]

From a religious and historical perspective, the eminence of the Bible and Koran can't be denied. How do things look from the literary perspective? If the Abrahamic religions hadn't been so successful, would people still read the Bible and Koran for their value as works of literature?

[johntm]

Keep in mind I'm no literature expert, far from it.

How do things look from the literary perspective?

Dunno about the Koran, but the Bible is pretty significant in Western lit. I remember reading a book about how to read literature for high school (think it was called How to Read Literature Like a Professor or something) and the author emphasized knowing about the Bible as well as Shakespeare because there's references to both of those in TONS of literature, as well as everyday speech. Having absolutely no source for this, I'd say that religious references are probably MUCH more prevalent in older literature; I don't think that's too radical a statement.

If the Abrahamic religions hadn't been so successful, would people still read the Bible and Koran for their value as works of literature?

Hard to say...I'd think they would, simply because there are many parables and stories that emphasize traits that most societies/cultures view as positive traits (e.g. the Good Samaritan).

[ceid donn]

Do people still read Beowulf, Gilgamesh, the Vedas, the ancient Greek playwrights and other ancient folk lore and classical literaure? All human literature is of value to human culture. It tells us who we are as a civilization, regardless of whether our beliefs agree or disagree with the cultures or religions that produced that literature.

[linguoboy]

Do people still read Beowulf, Gilgamesh, the Vedas, the ancient Greek playwrights and other ancient folk lore and classical literaure? All human literature is of value to human culture. It tells us who we are as a civilization, regardless of whether our beliefs agree or disagree with the cultures or religions that produced that literature.

The Vedas are the sacred scriptures of a major living religion, y'know. A better hypothetical might be: Who still reads the Gnostic gospels? And the answer is: not many, apart from specialists in the history of religion.

You're right that all surviving texts are valuable in some way, but whether they're valuable as literature is another question. The Psalms, for sure, but Leviticus?

Dunno about the Koran, but the Bible is pretty significant in Western lit.

If the Abrahamic religions hadn't been so successful

You're missing the whole point of the question, John. If the West hadn't been overwhelmingly converted to Christianity, our literature wouldn't be shot through with Biblical references. instead it would be Classical references right and left, along with a bunch of Germanic heroes we've completely forgotten about these days.

[johntm]

You're missing the whole point of the question, John. If the West hadn't been overwhelmingly converted to Christianity, our literature wouldn't be shot through with Biblical references. instead it would be Classical references right and left, along with a bunch of Germanic heroes we've completely forgotten about these days.

Did you read my whole post? I answered them as two separate questions, which probably wasn't how it was intended, but I was tired. The end of my post is directed toward "if Abrahamic religions hadn't been so successful".

[linguoboy]

Did you read my whole post? I answered them as two separate questions, which probably wasn't how it was intended, but I was tired. The end of my post is directed toward "if Abrahamic religions hadn't been so successful".

I don't think it's a very successful answer in any case. If it's really true that Biblical parables "emphasize traits that most societies/cultures view as positive traits", you would expect to find equivalent stories in those societies and cultures. (To the extant that you don't, I think it's due to the fact that Christian values aren't nearly as universal as they've been portrayed.) You can find numerous examples of parallel narratives in the Buddhist tradition (to name one other religious tradition with a strong emphasis on mercy and altruism).

[dkatbena]

It is their freedom. let the believers use the Holy scriptures and let non believers invent or make their own stories.

[linguoboy]

It is their freedom. let the believers use the Holy scriptures and let non believers invent or make their own stories.

I'm not sure what this comment is doing here. Who in this thread has been talking about curtailing anyone's freedom?

[dkatbena]

I read the question on the 1st part of this thread that if abrahamic teachings had not become succesful, other people will still read them? so i wrote this answer.

[Dormouse559]

But how did the question say anything about religious freedom?

[dkatbena]

as their value in the works of their literature. I mean if they know that their values agree with the values written in the ancient writings so there is no bias with their works in literatures using these books.

[linguoboy]

as their value in the works of their literature. I mean if they know that their values agree with the values written in the ancient writings so there is no bias with their works in literatures using these books.

Um...what?

[Hoogstwaarschijnlijk]

It is their freedom. let the believers use the Holy scriptures and let non believers invent or make their own stories.

Eeeh, are you saying that non-christans shouldn't read the Bible and non-muslims the Koran? Because that doesn't make sense at all. How can you (a non-believing person) form an opinion about a book that you have never read? Of course non-christians should be able to read the Bible, there are very nice stories and sentences up there, it influenced our culture very much, it's a very important book, not only because of what it means for the religion, but also what it has meant for literature.

If the West hadn't been overwhelmingly converted to Christianity, our literature wouldn't be shot through with Biblical references. instead it would be Classical references right and left, along with a bunch of Germanic heroes we've completely forgotten about these days.

What's the use of being hypothetical here? The West has been overwhelmingly converted to Christianity, so our literature (& language) is shot through with Biblical references. Of course that is one of the reasons why the Bible can be considered as (canonical) literature and why it is read also by people who aren't Christians at all. Or do you only consider it as counting as literature when it makes use of literary styles? Well, the Bible uses a lot of them too, with the parabels and the repetitions and stuff like that. I don't remember it all very clearly but man, we've got a whole subject about it on university.

[BezierCurve]

I think the question here is really about how much of universal values (that is, important from any given human being's point of view) we can find in these scriptures when we strip them down from their religious clothes.

I realize there might be no clear answer to it, especially for people who for example look at ethics solely in the light of religion (God and religion being the source of any value they cherish).

As Linguoboy pointed out, different parts of it have different contents. Leviticus having mostly rules and liturgical stuff in it will be obviously less interesting from that "universal" point of view than Psalms.

Personally I'd say that the Song of Songs is the part that I value most (in the literal aspect). Maybe because its narration differs from the monotonous style in "action" parts (Genesis, Judges, etc.). Maybe because it's talking about something closer to my own experience than love to God emphasized in Psalms (and yes, I know how the Song of Songs is usually interpreted in religious context, I don't mind).

I tried to read Koran. Many times. I guess it's just something about its constantly repeating harsh judgements that repel me, probably taking away the possibility to appreciate its literal value.

[Hoogstwaarschijnlijk]

I tried to read Koran. Many times. I guess it's just something about its constantly repeating harsh judgements that repel me, probably taking away the possibility to appreciate its literal value.

I guess that has something to do with that the Koran wasn't really written, it's more like the Ilias, at first it just needed to be remembered, hence all the repeating. But that has literary value too, just the fact that it took some time before it actually was written down is interesting enough to study in Literary Sciences.

[edit] (Then again, I think every text could be studied in Literary Science, every text is interesting in its own way.

[Nooj]

You're right that all surviving texts are valuable in some way, but whether they're valuable as literature is another question. The Psalms, for sure, but Leviticus?

Why not? It's an example of Ancient Near-Easten ritual literature, it tells us about how they acted or would have liked to act and it tells us about their society. Why is Psalms more valuable literature than Leviticus?

[linguoboy]

You're right that all surviving texts are valuable in some way, but whether they're valuable as literature is another question. The Psalms, for sure, but Leviticus?

Why not? It's an example of Ancient Near-Easten ritual literature, it tells us about how they acted or would have liked to act and it tells us about their society. Why is Psalms more valuable literature than Leviticus?

Because it's poetry as opposed to a dry inventory of ritual instructions.

It seems to me there are two definitions of "literature" floating around this thread. One of these is synonymous with "written text" and that's the one which makes the statement "all literature is equally valuable" valid. Whether it's a hymn or a bill of sale, it tells you something about the language and the society in which it was spoken. But this definition makes the OP's question moot: if all literature is valuable, then of course religious texts will be read for their value as "literature".

This is why I understood "literature" in this context as having a different, narrower definition, namely creative fiction read on the basis of its aesthetic merits. Hundreds of thousands of people living today have read the Epic of Gilgamesh, either in whole or in part. The number who have read ancient grammatical instruction texts or law codes in Sumerian? Far fewer.

So I'm thinking back over the books of the Bible I've read (which is most of them) trying to think which stand out as works of creative fiction on a par with contemporaneous texts, such as the Bhagavad Gita or the History of the Peloponnesian War. And, frankly, I'm not coming up with much of that calibre. Particularly for the New Testament--perhaps parts of the Gospel of John and Revelations and that's about it.

[Hoogstwaarschijnlijk]

You're right that all surviving texts are valuable in some way, but whether they're valuable as literature is another question. The Psalms, for sure, but Leviticus?

Why not? It's an example of Ancient Near-Easten ritual literature, it tells us about how they acted or would have liked to act and it tells us about their society. Why is Psalms more valuable literature than Leviticus?

Because it's poetry as opposed to a dry inventory of ritual instructions.

It seems to me there are two definitions of "literature" floating around this thread. One of these is synonymous with "written text" and that's the one which makes the statement "all literature is equally valuable" valid. Whether it's a hymn or a bill of sale, it tells you something about the language and the society in which it was spoken. But this definition makes the OP's question moot: if all literature is valuable, then of course religious texts will be read for their value as "literature".

This is why I understood "literature" in this context as having a different, narrower definition, namely creative fiction read on the basis of its aesthetic merits. Hundreds of thousands of people living today have read the Epic of Gilgamesh, either in whole or in part. The number who have read ancient grammatical instruction texts or law codes in Sumerian? Far fewer.

So I'm thinking back over the books of the Bible I've read (which is most of them) trying to think which stand out as works of creative fiction on a par with contemporaneous texts, such as the Bhagavad Gita or the History of the Peloponnesian War. And, frankly, I'm not coming up with much of that calibre. Particularly for the New Testament--perhaps parts of the Gospel of John and Revelations and that's about it.

I agree with the "two definitions in one thread"-thing, but it's just that the second definition is quite difficult to work with. You make it seem like with the second definition it depends on how much people read something. Which isn't a good criterium, I mean, Fifty Shades Grey (or whatever it's called in English) has been read quite a lot, more than the novel by Sylvia Plath, does that make the 50 grey stuff more literary valuable than Plath? I'd say no (according to the narrow definition) and I guess you didn't mean to say that either.

Also, you wrote: "creative fiction read on the basis of its aesthetic merits" and I agree that literature (in the narrow sense of the word at least) is always fiction. This is a bit problematic with the Bible, isn't it? A lot of people wouldn't say it's fiction at all. And how can you say if something is aesthetic or not? One way to do that is to look if it's using literary styles and like I said, they occur in the Bible quite often. But I still don't think that that's as important as the plain fact that the Bible has influenced our culture so much makes it a very important book and one that is belonging to our (canonical) literature. I think we actually agree: the reason that people read the Bible, is mostly not because of the great style or the nice use of language (though there could easily be find examples of it), but mostly for cultural reasons.

You've used the word "moot" and I looked this up. I assumed it to be something like: "irrelevant" or "not interesting" but it meant the opposite and now I'm not quite sure how you meant that sentence.

[Yasna]

Linguoboy is of course right that the definition of "literature" I was working with in the OP is the narrower one.

[linguoboy]

I agree with the "two definitions in one thread"-thing, but it's just that the second definition is quite difficult to work with. You make it seem like with the second definition it depends on how much people read something. Which isn't a good criterium, I mean, Fifty Shades Grey (or whatever it's called in English) has been read quite a lot, more than the novel by Sylvia Plath, does that make the 50 grey stuff more literary valuable than Plath? I'd say no (according to the narrow definition) and I guess you didn't mean to say that either.

That's not my sole criterion by any means, it's just a first approximation. Fifty shades of grey has a lot of readers now, but how many people do you think will be reading it one hundred years from now, let alone 2,500? The fact that people still read Homer and Qu Yuan says volumes more about the literary quality of their works than the fact that people are reading bestsellers published last year.

Also, you wrote: "creative fiction read on the basis of its aesthetic merits" and I agree that literature (in the narrow sense of the word at least) is always fiction. This is a bit problematic with the Bible, isn't it? A lot of people wouldn't say it's fiction at all.

But the entire point of Yasna's question was: Put aside for a moment the fact that these books are believed by hundreds of millions to contain eternal spiritual truths and evaluate them strictly as literature. If, like dkatbena, you're not willing or able to do that, then there's not much you can really contribute to this thread.

And how can you say if something is aesthetic or not?

See: "literary criticism".

You've used the word "moot" and I looked this up. I assumed it to be something like: "irrelevant" or "not interesting" but it meant the opposite and now I'm not quite sure how you meant that sentence.

In this instance, I meant "tautologically moot".