INTRODUCTION THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE Scholars and writers have, from the earliest times, studied the Bible, yet very few of them have studied it as literature. The reasons for the lack of appreciation of the Bible as literature are easy to find. Not only did its religious character tend to blind men to its qualities as writing, but until comparatively recent times the form given to it in all the tongues into which it was translated was wholly unliterary. The Semitic original shows specimens of prose, poetry, drama, and essay; yet even in the authorized version all are alike printed in prose. Besides, all was unnaturally broken up into what we have become accustomed to call "verses," in which no attention is given to paragraphing and which at times do not even consist of complete sentences. Professor Moulton, who has done more than any other one man to promote the literary study of the Bible, speaks with such authority on this point that we quote him at length: A man who should peruse a drama under the impression that he was reading an essay would go widely astray as to the significance of what he was reading; this would be an obvious truth were it not that such a thing seems inconceivable. But this is precisely the kind of thing which happens in connection with the Bible. The Hebrew Scriptures go back to an antiquity in which the art of manuscript writing was in an embryonic condition; when manu scripts scarcely divided words and sentences, much less indicated distinctions between prose and verse, between one meter and another, between speeches in dialogue and even the simplest divisions in simple prose. The delicate varieties of biblical literature, however clear they might have been to the ages that first received them, must, for their preservation, be committed to manuscripts of this kind, manuscripts in which all literary forms looked alike. It appears, then, that the form of our modern Bibles has been given to them, not by the sacred writers themselves, but by others who, centuries later, had charge of the scriptures at the time when manuscripts began to indicate differences in form. Now these were rabbinical and medieval commentators: men to whom literary form meant nothing, but who regarded the Bible as material for commentary, each short clause being worthy of a lengthened disquisition. The form such commentators would give to their scriptures would naturally be that of texts for comment. In this form of numbered texts, or verses, it came down to our translators; the most elementary distinction of form, that between prose and verse, was not discovered in relation to the Hebrew Scriptures until more than a century after King James' Version had been completed. The Bibles most commonly circulated among us are these Bibles in medieval form; however correct the translation, they remain a double misrepresentation of the sacred original, as ignoring on the one hand the literary varieties of form, and on the other hand presenting, in their chapters and verses, a structure which is alien to the Bible itself, and is the creation of medieval commentators. Two things are necessary to the realization of the Bible as literature in the truest sense. We must in the first place do for it what is as a matter of course done for all other literature, ancient or modern,—we must print it in its complete literary structure, a structure discovered by internal evidence and literary analysis. Dialogue must appear as dialogue, with distinction of speeches and names of speakers; verse must appear with the proper variations of meter; epic must be distinguished from history, essay from song: such structural presentation goes far toward making commentary superfluous. When the Bible is restored to its full literary structure, it presents itself, not as a book, but as a library—a library of very varied literature, varied in date, in authorship, and in types of literature presented.1 Happily the difficulties pointed out by Professor Moulton are passing away. The various literary editions now being published make it possible for us to get from the reading of the Bible, not only what our ancestors derived from it, but also a vivid sense of its value as song and story and drama. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF BIBLE LITERATURE Literary study of the Bible would not be worth while unless the essential qualities of all great books were present in it. That we may see how abundantly present they are we need but to notice how the Bible meets the ordinary tests of literature. The final rank of any book is largely fixed by its fidelity to life and by its universality. Writings that have attained immortality have stood these tests; they are for all time and for every place. How do the Old Testament narratives stand these tests? As we read them, we do not think of the many centuries that have passed since these old stories were written, nor the vast differences in the manner of living that have come about. We are conscious only of the people, whom we feel that we have always known, and whose actions, though different from ours, seem perfectly natural. They are real men and women and they 1. World Literature: Richard G. Moulton, p. 60. act just as we should expect them to act under the circumstances. Truth to life the Bible possesses in a supreme degree. The other test the Bible answers equally well. Ruskin, whose works, both in their substance and in their style, show a remarkable familiarity with the Bible, points out the incomparable range of subjects treated in the Hebrew history and literature, their universal appeal, and their vitality. He thus summarizes the contents of the Old Testament: "I. The stories of the Fall and of the Flood, the grandest human traditions founded on a true horror of sin. "II. The story of the Patriarchs, of which the effective truth is visible to this day in the polity of the Jewish and Arab races. "'III. The story of Moses, with the results of that tradition in the moral law of all the civilized world. “IV. The story of the Kings-virtually that of all Kinghood, in David, and of all Philosophy, in Solomon: culminating in the Psalms and Proverbs, with the still more close and practical wisdom of Ecclesiasticus and the Son of Sirach. "V. The story of the Prophets-virtually that of the deepest mystery, tragedy, and permanent fate, of national existence. "Think, if you can match that table of contents in any other— I do not say 'book' but 'literature.' Think, so far as it is possible for any of us either adversary or defender of the faith-to extricate his intelligence from the habit and the association of moral sentiment based upon the Bible, what literature could have taken its place, or fulfilled its function, though every library in the world had remained unravaged, and every teacher's truest words had been written down?''1 Coming to matters of detail, we notice the charm of the language of the Bible, a charm amounting to a com 1. From The Bible of Amiens. pelling interest, of which every thoughtful reader is instantly and continually conscious. Even in our English translations much of this charm remains, due largely to the robustly simple and pure English of Wyclif, the Father of the English Bible, and of Tyndale, a later translator of equal note. These scholars, and all subsequent revisers, have succeeded to a remarkable degree in making the vocabulary they use at once sonorous and dignified, and yet simple and direct. The directness and simplicity of the Biblical style are not, however, due solely to the skill of the translator. These qualities are embedded in the original Hebrew. It is now generally conceded that the Old Testament narratives, like all very early literature, probably existed for a long time in the liquid, or oral, form before being written down. Hence, short and simple sentences predominate. Moreover, so difficult was it for the memory to retain the important matters, that all irrelevant and all unessential details were omitted. Abstract terms are not found in the Semitic original; concrete words, since they produce immediate and vivid impressions, suited the purpose of the writers. Modifying words were rarely used. Rhetorical devices are common, but of the most primitive kind, such as appeal to the imagination through readily suggested pictures. We are not merely made conscious that something is being done; we see the scene of action, and, better still, since so much is naïvely suggested we understand the causes and can conjecture the possible results. Interjections are continually used |