It is a collection of writings containing some of the oldest recorded human stories, poetry and philosophy, law, history, and myth. Reading it is no more a waste of time than reading the Iliad or Plato.
The Iliad is both entertaining and well written, while Plato is intellectually stimulating where he's not just wrong. The Bible is not remotely as well written as the Iliad, nor is it comparable as a work of philosophy to Plato.
I'm in the middle of a philosophy 101 class. I had been meaning to read the works of Plato, but until now I was busy learning other stuff.
I have to say that surprisingly, I have lost all respect for Plato after reading Crito (It's Plato's take on what Socrates' reasons for not escaping his execution.) It contains the most illogical, oversimplified, flat-out erroneous thought processes I've ever encountered. If Crito is an accurate representation of Socrates' philosophy, I have to question the intelligence of anyone who felt that he was "wise."
I was pretty dissapointed by this, because I enjoyed some of Plato's other writings.
I do happen to agree that the Iliad is far superior to the quality of writing found in the bible.
I'm not sure why you were expecting to respect Plato for everything he wrote about. Plato may have been one of the brilliant minds of all times and have produced some of the most valuable bits of Western culture, history and philosophy, but even for his own time the guy had some seriously disturbing ideas about what the world should look like. The Republic for example has been a great inspiration for fascist ideas or the promotion of human inequality.
I didn't expect to agree with him on everything, but I did expect the quality of his writing to be pretty consistent. Crito is often used to illustrate logical reasoning, yet the arguments it presents are so ridiculous that no reasonable, logical person would agree with them.
You may be interested in Diogenes the Cynic, a contemporary of Plato. He hated Plato, he accused him of entirely misunderstanding Socrates and regularly interrupted Plato's lectures to ridicule him.
Considering the bible is not even a cohesive work with a single style, language, or even writer, it really never stood a chance of standing next to the Illiad as a work of literature. It's importance, besides the obvious importance of a particular translation itself, is solely historic, cultural.
This is so tendentious a thing to say as to just be weird. Do Northrop Frye, Harold Bloom, M. H. Abrams, and pretty much every other scholar who has written about it, not know what literature is?
If they think it stands on it's own literary merits, then they are deluded. The Iliad is far more sophisticated.
If we want to talk about importance then that is another story, but merely on the quality of writing there is hardly a comparison between the two.
"The Bible" is a curated though disorganized collection of confused and contradictory prose and poetry, many of which were evolved rather than written, filled with massive sections of irrelevant tedium (Have you read Numbers? I mean honestly...). Together it only forms a cohesive work with logic-defying "interpretation".
The King James translation has literary importance for it's influence on the English language, and the collection in general obviously has immense historic importance, but other than that? Yeah... no.
On the other-hand the Iliad is a masterpiece of epic poetry and a fine example of writing by all standards. No excuses need to be made for it, and that really is the most telling thing to realize.
Thanks for expanding. But doesn't this boil down to hair-splitting over the definition of "literature"? Does folklore count as literature? Many scholars would say yes, and have given it serious literary study, yet it doesn't even exist as a canonical text.
The Song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes are the shit, though.
But honestly, yeah, the Bible is the poorest written fiction I've ever not finished reading. It's not even worth the paper as a religious reference, surprisingly. Maybe reading something like Norman Cohn's "The Pursuit of the Millenium" would be more useful for someone wanting to understand (more deeper) christianity, though it's quite a heavyweight. And I understand Feuerbach's "Essence of Christianity" is a classic, though I'm yet to read it.
If you're going to read the Bible for pure enjoyment, please avoid the King James. Versions exist which are indeed enjoyable to read, yet faithful enough to the original texts that you get something interesting out of them.
I think my favorite anecdote about the importance of translation comes from Jack Miles and is about the Book of Job. Translated the King James way, at the end of Job God reveals himself and Job says something like, "I know that you can do all things, and that I am an ignorant muddler before you. Now that I can see you truly, I despise myself and repent." So the story ends, basically, with Job saying that God is too big and awesome for him to comprehend, and that he is not worthy, he is not worthy!
But Miles argues that the original passage is cleverer and more word-play-y than the popular translation gives it credit for. He puts forth a far more fascinating translation, which paraphrased is something like: "You know you can do anything. Nobody can stop you. You think I'm ignorant, and scold me for talking of things beyond my comprehension. But now that I have seen you for myself, I shudder in sorrow for mortal clay." He judges God and finds him wanting. And God restores his money and good health, and then for the rest of the Old Testament, he falls silent. Nobody else speaks with God throughout that chronological narrative.
When God does show up again, it's as Jesus – a vessel through which God can experience human suffering for himself and try to redeem it, rather than merely judging it. And as Christ he allows himself to undergo even worse pain than he inflicted upon Job, in the hopes that mankind might one day rise above that suffering.
The Bible is a much smarter and better book than it's given credit for, both by atheists and Christians alike. In the hands of somebody insightful and informed, it is wise as fuck, and thought-provoking as anything. (It's no Bhagavad Gita, but then nothing's as wonderful as the Bhagavad Gita.) In the hands of somebody either trying to read it as a narrative that will somehow explain the existence of God, or, worse, as a series of rules for living that God gave us, it's dull and ponderous, but don't let the yahoos ruin a good thing. The day we respect the Bible as the slippery and subtle book that it is is the day religious fundamentalism will no longer have an excuse for being.
Really? The King James Version of the Bible has the most beautiful language of the batch and will help you understand much about modern literature. Compare that to something like the somewhat-more-accurate but dry-as-dust New Revised Standard Version, or the informal horrorshow of things like The Message - neither of which has anything like your Jack Miles anecdote. What version would you recommend?
I'm a little biased here, but if you want to explore the religious content of the Bible, just chuck out the Bible and go to Jewish commentaries on the Torah and Tanakh. Plaut's 'The Torah: A Modern Commentary' and Lieber's 'Etz Hayim' are good places to start.
So how can that be? That those presumably derivative texts know more about Christianity than the authoritative text, which you say is not worth the paper? Here, I'll guess: They're making stuff up. Rationalizing, trying to put a chaotic mess into some sort of order, but in the process injecting a lot of themselves.
So it comes down to, read your favorite author and believe what you want. Which is not going to go down well with a lot of people.
Whether you like it or not, if you intend to acquaint yourself with "the classics", you won't understand half of the allusions made without first reading the bible.
It's like watching Futurama without a pop science level of familiarity with physics, maths and so on.
