/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.9309152]

The Holy Bible is a fictional historical epic with elements of fantasy, and the supernatural in general. Epic is a word not out of place here, for the Holy Bible is indeed a very hefty read. There are actually various versions of the texts, the Hebrew and the Christian. I will talk about the Christian edition here, so when I say Holy Bible I will refer to it.

The Holy Bible is primarily divided into two big chapters; the first is called the Old Testament, and the other the New Testament. Each of the two Testaments has its own subchapters, with the latter in reality being a spin-off of the former. The Bible does not have a plot, in the real sense of the word. In fact, it is much like Tolkien's "Silmarillion" which could be basically seen as an improved, and definitely more interesting version of the Bible.

The central character in the Old Testament is a supernatural being referred to as God, or Yahweh. It is set in an alternate reality where he creates the world and humanity. What we basically follow are the lives of various humans and their adventures throughout a long span of time, in which God plays an active part.

In the spin-off, the New Testament, the main hero becomes a lowly carpenter, and allegedly the son of God, by the name of Jesus. Even though ordinary in appearance, Jesus has magical powers and is in fact himself considered a deity. He decides to travel around the world, gathering disciples, much to the annoyance of the ruling Romans which do not look lightly upon it - they fear this mysterious wizard Jesus that came out of nowhere could be a threat to them. In this part of the Bible, God plays only a minor role, appearing only in specific instances crucial to the advancement of the plot.

Although from the plot summary, it may seem that the Bible is indeed and intrigue-filled and exciting read, it is not. There are so many problems with it I don't know where to begin.

First, and most important of all, the writing style and verbosity are piss-poor. In all honesty, it is style-wise a literal abomination. There are many, many repetitions in the narrative, and the story is conveyed in an almost childish form of sequential expression, like "Character A did this. Then he said: "blah blah". Then character B went there and did something else." Believe me, it gets tedious very, very fast. Not to say, it is at times so convoluted, it'll make your brains hurt.

There is also very little to no character development, let alone character descriptions. People and deities pop out of the blue, enter abruptly, and leave even more so. In addition, about 80% of the characters are total fillers, sons of sons of sons mentioned in name only and holding no relevance to the story. You know a book is bad when all you know about your main hero is his name; you simply cannot connect with him, or any other, for that matter.

[Anonymous No.9309161]

The exact same issues are with locales. Not a word of the surroundings, and basically you have no idea how the world the story takes place looks like.

Besides, there are obvious inconsistencies even within the small amount of development present. For example, it is said that God is an all powerful, merciful supreme being on a higher state of evolution unfathomable to our puny minds. You would assume that if such a being indeed existed, it would have advanced beyond petty human concerns and concepts such as revenge, jealousy, egoism or hate. Well, despite his alleged kindheartedness, all this God does is throw threats at his subjects, and then proceeds to punish them in many painful ways - often condemning whole generations for the supposed sins of one man or woman. He demands unquestionable obedience and even gives an ultimatum - live your life as I command, or forever face eternal torment in a horrendous place called Hell. Basically, God is the ultimate opportunist: he will aid you only if it will somehow benefit him in the future. If not, he won't move a finger (and there is likely a chance he'll put a curse on you for bothering him).

He is also quite bloodthirsty: in the case of two brothers, Cain and Abel, for example, he shunned Cain's tribute consisting of products of the land (fruits and such), while he looked very kindly upon Abel's blood sacrifice in the form of slaughtered animals. As the story develops, God, more or less directly, is responsible for several genocides and other criminal acts.

In the spin-off, the New Testament, there is a blatant occurrence of a shortage of ideas. There, the course of Jesus' life is accounted by four different writers with minimal differences. So, you could say, you get the same event re-told four times. I mean, really, shame on you.

Although there are many battles and action scenes (I said before the book covers a very great time span), they are written no better than the rest of this shlock. Overall, a serious rewrite is needed if this is ever going to become at least a somewhat enjoyable read.

And it is simply mind-boggling, that despite its major flaws, and almost no redeeming quality, this "literary" piece is regarded in such a high esteem. The farce goes even further, and the Bible is officially the world's #1 bestseller of all times, having sold billions of copies worldwide.

[Anonymous No.9309170]

Ok.

[Anonymous No.9309834]

Cool book report, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House?