Why such poor writers?

[Zzyzx]

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If the Bible was "God breathed" (or inspired or whatever is claimed) and if God is taken to be all-wise, why wouldn't "he" have chosen better writers – people with ability to convey information clearly without ambiguities, contradictions, errors, and need for "interpretation"?

Compared to some of the world's great writers, Bible writers "come in third in a two-horse race." There may be some kernels of wisdom (or "diamonds among the dung" as Thomas Paine said). However, the vast bulk of the 800,000 words or so of the bible are intelligible, inapplicable, incredible, fluff that convey no wisdom or guidance to modern people.

Here is a list of the top twenty best writers of all time (from a list of the top one hundred).

William Shakespeare
Charles Dickens
Fyodor Dostoevsky
J.R.R. Tolkien
Leo Tolstoy
Ernest Hemingway
Jane Austen
George Orwell
John Steinbeck
Mark Twain
James Joyce
C.S. Lewis
Alexandre Dumas
Edgar Allan Poe
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Oscar Wilde
Kurt Vonnegut
Franz Kafka
J.K. Rowling
William Faulkner
http://www.thebest100lists.com/best100authors/

A supposedly omniscient God would have (by definition) known that the Bible would be variously transcribed, translated, edited, revised, altered, etc since it is so poorly written -- and choose (or "inspire") some of the likes of the above to produce a better product.

[dio9]

I beg to differ with the OP. Genesis and 1&2 Samuel for example have been read by and inspired billions of people for the last 2-3 thousand years. These are among the most influential stories in western civilization .

[Elijah John]

Much of the ambiguities and contradictions arise from the fact that the scriptures were written by many different people for varying purposes, not to mention for audiences of cultures very different from today. Since they were written long ago, errors are not surprising.

Most of the works of the authors on the top 100 list also convey no wisdom or guidance to modern people. They range from high art to just plain entertainment. J.K. Rowling is #19! Surely Harry Potter is inapplicable fluff.

The purpose of the scriptures was to hold communities together. For the Jews, it was rules on how to live and thereby be a Jew, various stories invented whole or co-opted to illustrate Hebrew theology or embellishments of history to amplify the sense of a Jewish community. For the early Christians, it was explaining why Jesus had to die and building a proto-orthodox conceptual framework for it, dealing with the unexpected delay in the eschaton and otherwise establishing a sense of community. The perceived need for interpretation is often due to a misunderstanding of what the NT authors really thought and meant.

Except for the 613 mitzvot for the Jews and occasional useful rules of thumb for proper living in the NT, the Bible is not a guide to living, despite the claims of some. It is literature. And like any literature from other times and places it is sometimes not easily understood by present day readers.

I would put Nathaniel Hawthorne above J K Rowling, no doubt.


I agree with most of the post, except for your conclusion. I think the Bible is both, literature as well as a guide to living.

In addition to the mitzvot, the Proverbs and even the Psalms contain practical advice, and many have found the maxims of the Sermon on the Mount to be not only useful but indispensable. Then again, one needs to be a Theist in order to fully appreciate Jesus' maxims. Not that non-Theists find them incomprehensable, but rather irrelevant and impractical.

Spreaking of guides for living,( in this case for living the Christian life) the Didache was writen for that primary purpose. And it echoes the Sermon on the Mount.

[Ancient of Years]

Much of the ambiguities and contradictions arise from the fact that the scriptures were written by many different people for varying purposes, not to mention for audiences of cultures very different from today. Since they were written long ago, errors are not surprising.

Most of the works of the authors on the top 100 list also convey no wisdom or guidance to modern people. They range from high art to just plain entertainment. J.K. Rowling is #19! Surely Harry Potter is inapplicable fluff.

The purpose of the scriptures was to hold communities together. For the Jews, it was rules on how to live and thereby be a Jew, various stories invented whole or co-opted to illustrate Hebrew theology or embellishments of history to amplify the sense of a Jewish community. For the early Christians, it was explaining why Jesus had to die and building a proto-orthodox conceptual framework for it, dealing with the unexpected delay in the eschaton and otherwise establishing a sense of community. The perceived need for interpretation is often due to a misunderstanding of what the NT authors really thought and meant.

Except for the 613 mitzvot for the Jews and occasional useful rules of thumb for proper living in the NT, the Bible is not a guide to living, despite the claims of some. It is literature. And like any literature from other times and places it is sometimes not easily understood by present day readers.

I would put Nathaniel Hawthorne above J K Rowling, no doubt.

I can appreciate Hawthorne academically as a master at portraying certain aspects of the human condition in great depth with remarkably few words. I also appreciate that he does not feel the need to anchor his tales in hard realism as for example Stephen Crane did, making it a sort of impressionist approach (to continue the metaphor). However I find his portraits to be painted in darker colors than I really care for. I am glad to have read The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables. They are important works in American literary history. But I would not read them a second time. My taste in 19th century American Literature is more in the line of Melville.

But that is getting way OT.

I agree with most of the post, except for your conclusion. I think the Bible is both, literature as well as a guide to living.

In addition to the mitzvot, the Proverbs and even the Psalms contain practical advice, and many have found the maxims of the Sermon on the Mount to be not only useful but indispensable. Then again, one needs to be a Theist in order to fully appreciate Jesus' maxims.

Speaking of guides for living,( in this case for living the Christian life) the Didache was written for that primary purpose. And it echoes the Sermon on the Mount.

Perhaps my phrase “occasional useful rules of thumb for proper living� was a bit strong. There are the Matthean antitheses in the Sermon on the Mount, the stress on the action commandments in Matthew 19 and corresponding passages in Mark and Luke, the emphasis on charity in Matthew 25, Luke’s Good Samaritan story and maybe some others. But the bulk of the NT is about other things.

The Didache is an interesting work, showing the evolution of early Christianity from an originally Jewish basis. It is a rare instance of an early Christian tradition that does not appear to have passed through the Gospels at least in its early form, although it clearly leans on Paul.

[Elijah John]

[Replying to post 13 by Ancient of Years]

I see very little of Paul in the Didache, can you elaborate? How so? The talk of the "two ways" not only echoes the book of Proverbs but the Sermon on the Mount's broad and narrow paths...That theme, the of the way of life vs the way of death is present all through the Sermon.

Interesting comments on Hawthorne, but don't you think Melville was a little dark too?

[marco]

[Replying to Ancient of Years]

Because J.K. Rowling concerns herself with the interests of the young should not exclude her from the table of great writers. Her style is crisp and refreshingly draws from classical streams yet gives obvious delight to vast armies of children. An enviable talent! "Suffer little children to come unto me," she might well have said. Her Latin scholarship adds magic to her craft.

But she would not perhaps have led the angels ex caelis as a biblical narrator. I like to believe that enlightenment best comes from the humblest sources. That God might work his marvels through an illiterate shepherd or through a wicked Pope is - for me - a nice idea. Christ's encounters with simple fishermen were probably not from chance; the man knew what he was after.

My Catholic upbringing may take issue with God, but it still holds on to some of the good aspects of a wonderful mythology - especially today. Merry Christmas!

[Ancient of Years]

[Replying to post 13 by Ancient of Years]

I see very little of Paul in the Didache, can you elaborate? How so? The talk of the "two ways" not only echoes the book of Proverbs but the Sermon on the Mount's broad and narrow paths...That theme, the of the way of life vs the way of death is present all through the Sermon.

I am getting senile I think. I meant to elaborate on the early Didache being influenced by (leaning on) Matthew but not Luke or John, that is, through a Jewish-Christian community rather than what would become proto-orthodoxy. (Matthew used Mark of course). Plus despite the usual claims, I definitely see Paul here and there in the Didache, things like not eating sacrificed meat to avoid giving bad impression, submission to authority, the communal aspect of breaking bread on the Lord’s day with no Last Supper framework, and elsewhere. I edited the post several times then started over in Word. Then I got interrupted in the middle and somehow posted the lobotomized version in the text box and not the version in Word, which I stupidly discarded.

In other words: I know you think you understand what you thought I said but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant. (Often attributed to Greenspan but I had it on a poster decades before that.)

(Don’t get old, kids.)

Interesting comments on Hawthorne, but don't you think Melville was a little dark too?

A good chunk of 19th century English language literature was dark in one way or another. Melville was far less concerned with socially sanctioned morality. Typee is all about ‘not society’. Moby Dick digs deep into primal images, leaving society behind as land is left behind. In Billy Budd it is the letter of the law social rules that are the villain in persecuting and killing the ‘angel of God’.

[Ancient of Years]

[Replying to Ancient of Years]

Because J.K. Rowling concerns herself with the interests of the young should not exclude her from the table of great writers. Her style is crisp and refreshingly draws from classical streams yet gives obvious delight to vast armies of children. An enviable talent! "Suffer little children to come unto me," she might well have said. Her Latin scholarship adds magic to her craft.

But she would not perhaps have led the angels ex caelis as a biblical narrator. I like to believe that enlightenment best comes from the humblest sources. That God might work his marvels through an illiterate shepherd or through a wicked Pope is - for me - a nice idea. Christ's encounters with simple fishermen were probably not from chance; the man knew what he was after.

My Catholic upbringing may take issue with God, but it still holds on to some of the good aspects of a wonderful mythology - especially today. Merry Christmas!

To each his own concerning J.K. Rowling.

I was also raised Catholic but left it behind long ago. But I still love Catholic mythology for its clever complexity that ties things up with neat bows. Incense and mirrors! But then I love most mythology with a real soft spot for Greek.

[marco]

[Replying to Ancient of Years]

Because J.K. Rowling concerns herself with the interests of the young should not exclude her from the table of great writers. Her style is crisp and refreshingly draws from classical streams yet gives obvious delight to vast armies of children. An enviable talent! "Suffer little children to come unto me," she might well have said. Her Latin scholarship adds magic to her craft.

But she would not perhaps have led the angels ex caelis as a biblical narrator. I like to believe that enlightenment best comes from the humblest sources. That God might work his marvels through an illiterate shepherd or through a wicked Pope is - for me - a nice idea. Christ's encounters with simple fishermen were probably not from chance; the man knew what he was after.

My Catholic upbringing may take issue with God, but it still holds on to some of the good aspects of a wonderful mythology - especially today. Merry Christmas!

To each his own concerning J.K. Rowling.

I was also raised Catholic but left it behind long ago. But I still love Catholic mythology for its clever complexity that ties things up with neat bows. Incense and mirrors! But then I love most mythology with a real soft spot for Greek.

With J.K. I was simply acting as counsel for the defence.
We have similar interests. Latin, languages, history.... I'm also a mathematician.

As for Catholicism, sing me a Gregorian chant and I lose my apostasy. In Portrait of the Artist Joyce remarks about changing to Protestantism:
"I said that I had lost the faith, Stephen answered, but not that I had lost self-respect. "
Regarding the authorship of the Bible, maybe Joyce could have delivered a message as enigmatic as that in Revelation. He'd have done a wonderful job with Genesis. But I think the chosen writers did what was required of them - literary innovation and cleverness weren't called for though, as I said, some passages are poetically beautiful.

[Ancient of Years]

[Replying to Ancient of Years]

Because J.K. Rowling concerns herself with the interests of the young should not exclude her from the table of great writers. Her style is crisp and refreshingly draws from classical streams yet gives obvious delight to vast armies of children. An enviable talent! "Suffer little children to come unto me," she might well have said. Her Latin scholarship adds magic to her craft.

But she would not perhaps have led the angels ex caelis as a biblical narrator. I like to believe that enlightenment best comes from the humblest sources. That God might work his marvels through an illiterate shepherd or through a wicked Pope is - for me - a nice idea. Christ's encounters with simple fishermen were probably not from chance; the man knew what he was after.

My Catholic upbringing may take issue with God, but it still holds on to some of the good aspects of a wonderful mythology - especially today. Merry Christmas!

To each his own concerning J.K. Rowling.

I was also raised Catholic but left it behind long ago. But I still love Catholic mythology for its clever complexity that ties things up with neat bows. Incense and mirrors! But then I love most mythology with a real soft spot for Greek.

With J.K. I was simply acting as counsel for the defence.
We have similar interests. Latin, languages, history.... I'm also a mathematician.

As for Catholicism, sing me a Gregorian chant and I lose my apostasy. In Portrait of the Artist Joyce remarks about changing to Protestantism:
"I said that I had lost the faith, Stephen answered, but not that I had lost self-respect. "
Regarding the authorship of the Bible, maybe Joyce could have delivered a message as enigmatic as that in Revelation. He'd have done a wonderful job with Genesis. But I think the chosen writers did what was required of them - literary innovation and cleverness weren't called for though, as I said, some passages are poetically beautiful.

I will give J.K. one thing – she got kids reading.

Having done enough differentials and related coding for several lifetimes I tend to avoid math any more difficult than bank and credit card statements now that I no longer have to do it.

IMO Revelation is not at all enigmatic once one recognizes that it consists of explicit references to virtually every apocalyptic passage (or taken to be such) in the Jewish and Christian scriptures, organized into a continuous narrative and with some references recast as ex post facto 'prophecies'.

The Gospels for the most part are very well written pieces, each conveying the specific agenda of the author to the intended audience. Mark is the least literary, not being all that good in Greek and with the seams showing in his 'string of beads' inherited narratives.

[marco]

[Replying to post 19 by Ancient of Years]

If you say Revelation is not enigmatic when you've fought with the symbols and tied them down to some sane meaning I might say that Sumerian is not enigmatic once you recognise the frequently occurring symbol for king or god. To the initiated, what is enigmatic? Am I incorrect in believing that there is great debate over the meaning of the number of the beast, which some, inconclusively, associate with Nero?

But we are in general agreement and your concession on J.K. is a bonus. Here it is past midnight and the choirs of angels have now stopped singing. Ave atque vale.