/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.7273612]

Memes and spirituality asides, is this a great work of literature? I'm really curious to know your opinion.

[Anonymous No.7273644]

>>7273612
Which translation?

[Anonymous No.7273652]

>>7273612
pretty interesting but nothing great

[Anonymous No.7273666]

>>7273612
I have read it many times (I am catholic) and as a story, its meh, I like to interpret the meaning behind them and get the message, I then use it to make my life better, but remember, it was cultural appropriation of (either messages of god, or something else)

Try not to take it too literally, but it does have some entertaining bits in it.

[Anonymous No.7273665]

>>7273644
ur fav one

[Anonymous No.7273678]

>>7273612
Not fully read it, but:
Ecclesiastes = a good read
Esther = a good read

[Anonymous No.7273694]

Which books have you read in full? Be honest, /lit/

As for me,

Genesis
Exodus
Leviticus
Job
Ecclesiastes
Matthew
Mark
Luke

[Thomas No.7273700]

KJV is undoubtedly a great work of literature, any English professor who isn't fedora in the utmost extreme will tell you as much. There are other good translations too.

[Anonymous No.7273715]

>>7273694
the mid part til the end of Genesis was a very difficult read

[Anonymous No.7273719]

>>7273715
After getting through Leviticus, I didn't read the Bible for a very long time.

[Anonymous No.7273749]

>>7273719
Didn't read it yet. Tell me about Leviticus

[Anonymous No.7273771]

>>7273694
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Job, Ecclesiastes, all of the Samuels and Kings (I think), Song of Solomon, a lot of if not all the Psalms, Malachi, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, too many of Paul's letters to remember or name (at the very least Romans, all the Corinthians, all the Timothys, and all the Johns), Revelations

No hate but if you've read all the gospels but John you gotta read John man, it's the best one. KJV translation is beautiful

[Anonymous No.7273780]

>>7273771
Do you believe in God?

[Anonymous No.7273789]

the narrative parts are

the rest... :/

[Anonymous No.7273830]

>>7273694
>enoch

[Anonymous No.7273835]

>>7273749
Lots of law and how to properly sacrifice animals.

It was not very captivating for teenage me.

>>7273771
Actually, I just finished Luke an hour or so ago. I plan to start on John soon.

[Anonymous No.7273849]

>>7273835
>how to properly sacrifice animals.
this will trigger me

[Anonymous No.7273851]

No. It's narratively, structurally, aesthetically a cobbled together piece of shit on every level. KJV is a horrible translation that should just die already. Still should read it for its influence and to feel superior to christards.

[Anonymous No.7273857]

>only decent translation in 400 years

What went wrong?

[Anonymous No.7273861]

>>7273849
Leviticus 1:5
>You are to slaughter the young bull before the Lord, and then Aaron’s sons the priests shall bring the blood and splash it against the sides of the altar at the entrance to the tent of meeting. 6 You are to skin the burnt offering and cut it into pieces.

Be triggered.

[Anonymous No.7273869]

Yes, very much so when analyzed properly. rather than like an illiterate literalist high schooler.
>>7273851
>he thinks its a single work

[Anonymous No.7273915]

>>7273780
Eh, kinda. Hard to answer that question easily with a yes or no. I would say that I consider myself Catholic but don't personally feel that the actual literal existence of an omnipotent being that reacts to and controls my life is terribly important in my own belief system

[Anonymous No.7273943]

>>7273861
>And he that killeth a beast shall make it good; beast for beast.
>If you kill an animal I should kill you
I'm good with that :^)

[Anonymous No.7273971]

>>7273943
That is just referring to equivalent excahnge. Eye for an eye, etc.

If we're both ancient desert Jews, and I kill your ferret, you are given reason to kill my ferret. You do not have reason to kill me. My life is greater than that of a ferret.

[Anonymous No.7273989]

>>7273971
I'm a ferret and I disapprove

[Anonymous No.7274005]

Ecclesiastes was good enough for Orwell to request for his funeral service. He was an atheist, as you well know.

As with most anthological works featuring multiple writers, there are some big problems in overall structure. That said, if you're into poetic beauty and powerful imagery is your thing, there's a lot of shit worse than the KJV.

Personally, I look at it like a Shakespeare-lite. Titus Andronicus might be a steaming pile of shit, but it's got some damn fine passages, and so does the Bible.

[Anonymous No.7274042]

>>7273666
>is Catholic
>doesn't take the bible literally

[Anonymous No.7274046]

>>7274042
m8 did you miss the point of the reformation?

[Anonymous No.7274054]

There are some gems, such as Ecclesiastes and the Book of Job, but mainly it's just desert people laws and myths that wouldn't interest anyone if it didn't became part of the world's main religions.

[Anonymous No.7274056]

>>7273694
why didnt you read numbers and deuteronomy?

[Anonymous No.7274063]

>>7274054
>that wouldn't interest anyone if it didn't became part of the world's main religions.
Please learn to think

[Anonymous No.7274064]

song of songs transcends memes

[Anonymous No.7274066]

>>7273869
>if you squint at it really hard it's great
Is not a strong endorsement to anyone who isn't dead set on being a contrarian.

[Anonymous No.7274084]

>>7274063
Please avoid passing judgement until you've actually thought about it. Do you really think religions rely on good writing to survive?

Try thinking about the Book of Mormon, moron.

[Anonymous No.7274088]

>>7274084
>moron
Well that's rude

[Anonymous No.7274089]

>>7274056

When I was about 16 or so, I planned to read the entire Bible. I read Genesis and Exodus without much trouble. Then I reached Leviticus and it was an absolute slog to get through, but I did get through it. I then decided to take a break from the Bible.

I'm 22 now. When I'm done with the New Testament, or at least the Gospels, I'll start back into the Old Testament, but I doubt that I'll read the books in order.

[Anonymous No.7274091]

>>7273612
Yeah, it's got some awesome myths.

Tower of Babel is one of my all-time fav myths of any mythology.

[Anonymous No.7274099]

If you're interested in middle eastern mythology, the book of Genesis is a good read. Most of it is etiology for israelite/canaanite tension.

[Anonymous No.7274104]

>>7274084
did you think that people were making allusions to the bible throughout history because they were fans of christianity not poetry? please say yes because i would find your interpretations of some writers hilarious in that light.

[Anonymous No.7274108]

>>7274066
Some abstract art looks like complete garbage when viewed without context, but is incredibly significant when viewed as a 'response', 'throwback', 'cheeky nod towards' other works in the field.

If you don't possess the knowledge to understand them, you won't really 'get' the maximum artistic value of the piece. I never studied Art History, but my friends who did constantly amaze me with the historical allusions in a lot of visual art.

It's one thing to say it's not your cup of tea - it's another to completely deny any validity of its artistic merit.

[Anonymous No.7274111]

>>7274099
>If you're interested in middle eastern mythology, the book of Genesis is a good read
Nice bait. Genesis is basically sons of sons of sons of sons and so on and so on

[Anonymous No.7274118]

>>7273612
myths are always great

[Anonymous No.7274125]

>>7274104
It doesn't bother me one iota if you interpret various writers and their works a certain way.

Anyone who's spent time in the Bible Belt would readily admit that people quote and reference the Bible because of their religious faith, more so than any poetic merit to the work.

Go on, though, tell me all about how many writers would be interpreted hilariously with this viewpoint. I'll wait.

[Anonymous No.7274136]

Meh. So many inconsistencies and favoritism bullshit throughout, but required reading if you are a true reader of Western literature,.. just as important as knowing your Greek mythology.

>>7273694
I read most of the Bible... in a summer term 1 Bible as Lit college course. It was like 100+ pages of reading per day... I think he just assumed everyone there was a Bible study, which was true for everyone but me. Surprise surprise, we didn't actually look at the Bible as literature, only on the most respectful, surface level interpretation. Was shit.

[Anonymous No.7274153]

>>7274125
This. So many people have read the bible it isn't funny and yet it's mostly just used to claim God supports your opinion.

>>7274108
I've studied art history, literature and the bible in both church and an academic setting, and my opinion stands that it takes some serious reaching and wishful thinking to find the bible and most of its component books beautiful and elegant.

Even the damn proverbs get styled on by Roman and Greek writers.

[Anonymous No.7274156]

>>7274104
Here, I'll trace the argument, point for point, so you can understand where you went wrong.

>>7274054
>The Bible is mostly boring, it's just desert people laws and myths that wouldn't interest anyone if it wasn't part of a popular religion.

Then you say
>>7274063
>"It wouldn't interest anyone if it wasn't part of a popular religion"?
>Please learn to think.

I'm going to interpret this as saying "If it's part of a popular religion, it would obviously interest people from a literary point of view because popular religions would naturally have good religious literature."

Finally, you say
>>7274104
>"Did you think people were making [religious] allusions because they were fans of Christianity, not poetry?"

The answer is pretty simple. Yeah, I do, and I stand by that statement. People don't repeat "Spare the rod and spoil the child" or "Hail, Mary, full of Grace" because they think it's good literature, they repeat them because it's part of their religious dogma.

[Anonymous No.7274180]

>>7274156
I'm only >>7274104 Anon is not all one person (in fact we're legion like those pigs in the bible) and your opinion is retarded because several nonreligious and even atheist authors have said they are repeating them as poetry, and they have much higher standing in literary criticism than you do. Further, translations of religious poetry from outside the culture norms of religion have often found their champions in poets and authors and linguists. I'm duly laffin.

[Anonymous No.7274181]

>>7274153
I agree (both of your replies were to my posts), it's hard to describe the overall book as elegant. I'm a big fan of small chunks, though - Ecclesiastes is just full of humanistic passion.

[Anonymous No.7274184]

>>7274156
>"If it's part of a popular religion, it would obviously interest people from a literary point of view because popular religions would naturally have good religious literature."
No, it wasn't a religion before people found interest in the Bible. People made it a popular religion.

[Anonymous No.7274197]

>>7274184
I'm afraid that's incorrect - a belief in the God of Abraham existed before any part of the Bible was written. Oral teachings were widespread long before a written corpus was produced, and all of this was long before the birth of Christ; the Old Testament was finished roughly 500 years before the earliest scholarly estimates of Jesus's purported birth.

[Anonymous No.7274209]

>>7274180
That's nice that you can say "other people say differently", but that doesn't really concern me. You still haven't answered the question, and you're rambling about translations of religious poetry?

Tighten your writing, it'll make people actually read your posts, even if you haven't replied to them.

[Anonymous No.7274213]

>>7274197
For those curious, the deleted post reads:


">"If it's part of a popular religion, it would obviously interest people from a literary point of view because popular religions would naturally have good religious literature."
No, it wasn't a religion before people found interest in the Bible. People made it a popular religion.

[Anonymous No.7274217]

>>7274209
oh honey, there's no way to save face as an anon, and no way to gain it as a retard if you trip. i'd just lurk until you're not retarded if you don't want to be called on that.

[Anonymous No.7274241]

>>7274217
Doesn't bother me. You're on /lit/, if you're not concerned about your writing you hardly belong here. Good to know you're too afraid to continue a civil, rational discourse on the internet, though. If you're like this when you're anonymous and can take as long as you want to write a post, you must be a real charmer in person.

But I digress.

>>7274197
This sounds right, but I'm not 100% on the Old Testament dates insofar as anyone can be.

[Anonymous No.7274247]

>>7274217
>not actually replying to my post

Nice. Always feels great when you have someone else at a loss for words.

[Anonymous No.7274258]

>>7274197
You might be right my man

[Anonymous No.7274270]

>>7274241
>You're on /lit/, if you're not concerned about your writing you hardly belong here.
It's not /writers/ it's literature. I really like books, but your butthurt is you think I'm going to tell you apart from the retard three threads over who likes Ayn Rand. You're just another shitty posts with no literary backing as far as I'm concerned. If you really want to ego battle, go somewhere with names, you're on the wrong website to not be called retarded.

[Anonymous No.7274274]

>>7274247
>>7274241
wow, you totally die a little inside when nobody comments on your facebook photo.

[Anonymous No.7274275]

>>7274270
I don't give a shit if you call me retarded. I've been called worse things by better people.

All I see is that I have my argument laid out, and you are incapable of intelligently responding to it, politely or otherwise. You literally add nothing to the thread but a pseudo-downvote. Go to reddit if that's all you're good for, because here, nobody actually gets mad at insults.

[Anonymous No.7274278]

>>7274274
>he has facebook

[Anonymous No.7274284]

>>7274275
I explained why I would laugh at you, I didn't expect you to have a nervous breakdown for being wrong when the only reason anyone would know your reaction to being wrong is a tantrum is if you posted it.
>pseudo-downvote
I don't even. Sageru is because my post about how you think we'll develop into 3d personalities here isn't worth the bump. You're legit new, you need to lurk, it's not some special rule we made up for everyone else except you.

[Anonymous No.7274285]

>>7274042
...
Go read some Augustine. Allegory has always been an integral part of biblical exegesis for Catholics. Augustine and Ambrose both readily utilized a certain Neo-Platonic hermeneutic based on Plotinus' philosophy.

[Anonymous No.7274301]

>>7274284
>>7274275
You shall not fight in a Bible thread

[Anonymous No.7274302]

>>7274284
If you talk shit, you should be able to back it up. You obviously can't, or you would have done so by now, because actually knowing what you're talking about is always more impressive than just throwing more insults.

>He thinks people can see if you sage
I don't know why you're trying to impress people with your 'oldfag' knowledge, because it's backfiring painfully.

I'll see if this thread is still up when I'm back, if you decide that you want to present a serious knockdown of my position. Otherwise, bye felicia. It was a nice try, for a kid.

[Anonymous No.7274310]

>>7274301
what if we use some dank numerology and assemble at meggiddo?
>>7274302
>pseudo-downvote
still kekking

[Anonymous No.7274313]

>>7274301
It's interesting what the Bible says about fighting.

“Go and completely destroy those wicked people; make war on them until you have wiped them out."

1 Samuel 15:18

[Anonymous No.7274315]

read Revelation and the darker myths in the old testament

the language in king James and the social interest make it worth it, there is true horror in Revelation that isn't matched in ancient texts, I love it

[Anonymous No.7274321]

>>7274313
who cares about that samuel dude, i only listen to God itself

[Anonymous No.7274326]

>>7274284
Being able to see if someone used sage or noko has been gone for almost two years. Newfag that just read the FAQ detected

>>7274285
Good recommendations, but I would point towards Aquinas as well, depending on your philosophical maturity.

>>7274315
Might as well play the Binding of Isaac.

[Anonymous No.7274339]

>>7274217
>oh honey

I'll take cringeworthy statements in a debate for 1000, Alex.

[Anonymous No.7274343]

>>7274326
>Being able to see if someone used sage or noko has been gone for almost two years. Newfag that just read the FAQ detected
>f5ing has been gone for years
>so has viewing by bump limit
>post number counters too
so, what else was he calling a
>pseudo-downvote
nigga was f5ing like a motherfucker noticed i saged an offtopic post, and thought he was on youtube or some shit. it's hilarious. we should bring back the picture bump tho while i'm rambling OT

[Anonymous No.7274358]

>>7274343
Dude, just stop.

4chan extensions have always let you auto-refresh the page when a new post comes in. The 'downvote' is obviously you saying "ur wrong im laffin" without contributing anything to the thread. You haven't even named any of the authors you're praising as shitting on his viewpoint.

If you're looking for intellectual support, you're not going to find it here. Stay in school.

[Anonymous No.7274374]

>>7274358
I did explain my point: there are many atheists and otherwise non Abrahamic/non Christian writers who say there is great poetry in the Bible, and I think his belief they are using it out of dogma, not poetry like they claim, is laughable. It's not a hard point to explain.

I even added the bonus point that the same can be said of the treatment of other religions' poetry in the Christian world.

The idea that it's only dogma and not one of the more common allusions because of the poetry of the bible is absolutely ludicrous.

You're assuming I'm as young as you are, whippersnapper.

[Anonymous No.7274386]

>>7274374
>words

not gonna bother reading it because it looks like shit

maybe you should have posted this to that first guy instead of being a little bitch about it

have some cheese with your whine

[Anonymous No.7274391]

>>7274386
ok dude you obviously have mental issues so yes, of course, you're completely right, you win, no more responses, nobody's laughing at you, your understanding of the world is perfect.

[Anonymous No.7274400]

>>7274285
>>7274046
It's amazing what can be learnt from blithe shitposting.
Can you guys give me a tl;dr summary? I'm actually not interested enough in theology or the history of to do proper reading but would like to know the basics of what you're referring to.

[Anonymous No.7274406]

>>7274374
I just read the thread. I don't know, seems like there's the main point:

1. "The Bible has some gems, but is mostly shit that only got as popular as it did because it was part of a popular religion".

I think you're saying "Are you saying people made allusions to the bible throughout history ONLY because they were Christians, and not because they liked the poetry in the Bible?"

I mean, you're not incorrect, but you're wrong by making the assumption that whoever posted 1. was saying "Nobody ever quotes the bible unless they're Christian".

Jesus. Now that I think about it, this whole thing is just pathetic and could have been avoided if people actually read the posts instead of making assumptions.


>>7274180
This was just a sad ramble.

[Anonymous No.7274411]

>>7274400
tl;dr- protestants were the ones to start taking the bible literally and it didn't happen til then
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sola_scriptura

[Anonymous No.7274415]

>>7274374
>I think his belief they are using it out of dogma, not poetry like they claim, is laughable

It's...not, though. It's pretty reasonable to say that repetition of the Bible is driven primarily through religious dogma, and only secondarily as a work of art.

Not really hard to understand imo.

[Anonymous No.7274422]

I'm reading this thread since the beginning and I still don't know what we are debatting about

[Anonymous No.7274437]

>>7274422
>some fag says that the bible is shit
>other fag says the bible is obviously interesting without the religion angle
>third fag says religious writing doesn't have to be good
>second fag gets butthurt - why would people quote the bible after all these years if it wasn't good poetry
>second fag gets butthurt - out of all the bible readers, obviously there are more christtards than poetry fans
>they go in circles

They're both fucking retarded, but the secondfag is more to blame. What a waste of time, arguing on 4chan.

[Anonymous No.7274496]

>>7274437
Fags read the Bible of Assfucking, that's it. It's written in shit, semen, blood, and tears.

[Anonymous No.7274499]

>>7274496
Go to home, Ginsberg, you're dead.

[Anonymous No.7274515]

>>7274326

>the binding of Isaac
is that a video game?
not sure what you're getting at

[Anonymous No.7274549]

>>7274515
Yeah, it's a pretty good game, Lots of biblical allusions.

[Anonymous No.7274593]

>>7273612
tbh it's not nearly as powerful or moving as it would have been even a hundred years ago, but that doesn't mean it isn't essential literature

If you want to even begin to think about stepping on the shadow of a building in which a book case holds the Western Canon you should have some cursory knowledge of Christianity and biblical scripture (at the very least the King James translation)

[Anonymous No.7274602]

The bible is mediocre fiction.

[Anonymous No.7275705]

>>7274602
*tips italian hat*

[Anonymous No.7275774]

Is the read of the Bible required to read/understand/appreciate Aquinas' works?

[Anonymous No.7275830]

>>7273612
It was good for the time, but by today's standards not really.

Even lots of Roman era literature is better.

[Anonymous No.7275846]

Not as beautiful as the Qur'an, not as useful as the Tao Te Ching. Also the old testament is a straight rip off of ancient Babylonian teachings. It's shit tbh I don't know how Christians manage to glean such nice messages from archaic bullshit

[Anonymous No.7275872]

>>7275846
The Tao Te Ching is straight up in its own class. You can't lump it in with this shit.

[Anonymous No.7277045]

>>7273694
I started reading my Bible more seriously this year so the only ones still fresh on my mind are John and Acts. But I've also read in the past Matthew, James, Jonah, and Job.

[Anonymous No.7277249]

>>7273612
Parts of it are, yeah. Job and Ecclesiastes are legitimately beautiful even out of context.

[Anonymous No.7277258]

>>7274111
There's only a little genealogy in Genesis. The latter part of it is taken up entirely by a prose narrative with a protagonist (Joseph).

[Anonymous No.7277265]

>>7275872
Ecclesiastes is getting a lot of mentions ITT for a reason m8

[Anonymous No.7277268]

>>7275846
>Not as beautiful as the Qur'an
Just Revelations by itself is more beautiful than the entirety of the Qur'an

[Anonymous No.7277280]

>>7273666
Your satanic trips confirm not taking any bullshit part of The Bible literally is heretic.