Why is the Bible So Badly Written?

[edhopper]

https://valerietarico.com/2018/01/28/why-is-the-bible-so-badly-written/

Millions of Evangelicals and other Christian fundamentalists believe that the Bible was essentially dictated by God to men who acted as human channelers. Each phrase is considered so perfect that it merits careful linguistic analysis to determine His precise meaning.

If that were the case, one would have to conclude that God is a terrible writer. Although some passages in the Bible are lyrical and gripping, many would get kicked back by any competent editor or writing professor— kicked back with a lot of red ink.

Interesting article

[beachbum bob]

1. god never wrote the bible for starters

[TreasonousBastard]

2. Nothing new there, but she puts it together nicely.

[edhopper]

6. That is what I thought too

[safeinOhio]

3. If clearly written, then there

would not be 10s of thousands of different sects that disagree on Bible.

[onlyadream]

4. Great article.

Why so many Christians think the Bible is 100% the word of God, and yet it has contradictions, is mind boggling.

[DBoon]

5. easy

logic is a weapon of satan, designed to test your faith.

If your faith is strong, you will believe all the contradictions without question.

[atreides1]

29. If you believe all contradictions without question

It's not faith, it's insanity!!!

[Nitram]

7. The bible is a compendium of oral history told by many different people, and

written down hundreds of years later by many other people. It includes genealogy, cosmology, law, dietary advice, history, legend, myth, politics, humor, poetry, hallucinations, theories, dreams, and a great deal more besides. It is not a novel, nor is it a pice of non-fiction. It my seem "badly written" if you expect it conform to modern literary standards of a unitary theme, but parts of it are brilliant, many are boring, and many are just good stories. It has as many points of view as the many "authors" whose versions ended up in the King James translation. Take it for what it is, unless you are an evangelical Christian, in which case every word was dictated by their god.

[tonyt53]

8. Ya know, it is also odd how they left out a few "books".

Known fact that all are not in the KJ version.

[Nitram]

17. All Jewish people are quite aware of that. Gnostics, too.

Every "edition" has had political edits through the ages.

[Lordquinton]

19. I think you mean divinely inspired edits

[Nitram]

21. I don't believe a single word of the bible is divinely inspired in the Evangelical sense of the

phrase. Political means having a mundane origin, not a supernatual one.

[Lordquinton]

22. There in lies the joke

The edits were as divinely inspired as the original authors.

[Major Nikon]

46. So why hasn't it been delegated to the ash heap of history like so many other badly written pieces?

The reason is because so many view it as a fax from the almighty. The fact that it's so full of fuckups betrays that notion, yet here we are.

[edhopper]

56. The majority of Christians through out history

including ones today, never read the whole Bible.

[MineralMan]

58. The Vast Majority...

[Permanut]

67. You're supposed to sign up first, then maybe read it later. nt

[edhopper]

68. reading the Bible

made me an atheist.

[Permanut]

69. See there, you did it backwards.

[Ferrets are Cool]

80. The Church doesn't care if you read it

as long as you put money in the donation plate.

[thucythucy]

9. I like this writer

and agree with everything she says in this article.

I'd maybe add one more reason to the general confusion that is much of the Bible.

People in all cultures have religious experiences. These can be interpreted as hallucinations, drug frenzies, the result of "extreme states of consciousness" brought on by fasting, sleep deprivation, self mutilation or whatever, or as genuine experiences of some sort of divinity.

The point is that most of these experiences are understood within the cultural framework of the individual having the experience. And so a devout Catholic might have a vision of the Virgin Mary, a devout Jew of Elijah, a devout Hindu of Krishna, etc.

The same was probably true of the various prophets of the various texts now collected as the Bible. Those who had religious experiences, however we might now define them, understood them in their own cultural context. A cultural context which may well have vanished in the time that has passed between then and now.

She does make a point something along these lines, but I just thought I'd add my own little extrapolation to hers.

[left-of-center2012]

10. There are also contradictions, as I recall

The Bible has several versions of 'Creation',
'Ten Commandments', etc.

Couldn't God remember?

[Pope George Ringo II]

13. They plagiarized a few older religions.

It's one of the reasons the Jehovah Monster does bonkers stuff like giving the same plot of land to the same family three different times.

[Nitram]

18. IMO the contradictions are one of the strengths of the bible, not as a holy work, but a

record of thoughts and views over the ages. Frankly I'm surprised they didn't clean it up to present just one point of view. As it is the bible runs the gamut from a psychotic, paranoid, and vengeful god to the mercy and compassion expressed by Jesus in parts of the New Testament.

[Major Nikon]

47. They did exactly that

The most contradictory parts of it were burned and banished throughout the western world on pain of death. Yet still much of it remains which goes a long way towards explaining why it was kept under lock and key for centuries.

There's other historical documents that do a much better job of providing record to thoughts and views. The difference is nobody takes the mythology seriously anymore.

[Nitram]

55. The whole point of the OP was the contradictions in the bible.

[Major Nikon]

70. There were several points listed

[guillaumeb]

11. A random internet blogger with a Wordpress site.

There is a difference between "dictated by" and "inspired by", and that is just one reason to laugh at this piece.

[MineralMan]

12. As compared to a random poster on a discussion forum,

with no website at all? From whence comes your authority?

Irony is a funny thing.

However, you might look here to see her credentials: https://valerietarico.com/about/

So, do you have an equivalent place we can look to find yours?

[guillaumeb]

24. Yes, she has a degree, and likes to write.

I also have a degree, and like to write.

This article is silly, and my objection was noted.


From one random poster to another,

G

[edhopper]

31. Actually she quotes a number of biblical sholars throughtout the piece.

But I guess you have superior knowledge to them as well.

As to your "inspired by" bs. So God inspires man to write down his ideas, and then sits back while know one can agree on what that inspiration means, and even sits idly by while people kill over this Godly inspiration. It really doesn't make it better.

And since it is merely "inspired by" and not dictated, I guess we can throw out every word supposedly said by Jesus as a fabrication of "inspired" writers.

[guillaumeb]

33. I make no claim of superior knowledge.

And one can find scholars on every side of every issue, so it is merely a matter of looking for something to support what one wishes to write.

[edhopper]

37. You claim the Bible

is "divinely inspired".

The article and reason show how questionable that is.

[guillaumeb]

71. The article expresses a viewpoint.

Reason is involved only in the writing.

[marylandblue]

42. As far as scholarship is concerned, nothing factual she said is outside scholarly consensus

Excluding literalist scholars that is. But her opinion supported by the facts is that it makes for a "bad" book as would normally be understood in almost any age. And that would seem to suggest it is not in fact in any way meaningfully connected to a single Divine source.

Arguing that is actually "inspired" by God doesn't solve anything. What does "inspired," mean? It could be anything. Authors are "inspired" by other authors, they are also "inspired" by their romantic partners. Does it mean that the source of inspiration actually has anything to do with the book, outside the imagining of the author's own mind?

[guillaumeb]

72. Scholars can be found to support both sides.

[marylandblue]

73. Both sides of which issues?

I couldn't find anything she said that any modern scholar would disagree with and that affects the substance of her argument. Excluding literalist scholars, of course.

[guillaumeb]

74. Her post is essentially literary criticism.

And she has the right to her opinion.

[marylandblue]

75. Please explain your assertions in posts 33 and 72

regarding scholarship. What scholarly issue do you believe has two sides and how does it affect her point?

[guillaumeb]

78. Here is an outright error, or misstatement if you prefer:

Scholars estimate that the earliest of the Bible’s writers lived and wrote about 800 years before the Christian era, and the most recent lived and wrote almost a century after any historical Jesus would have lived.

Another view:

Scientists have discovered the earliest known Hebrew writing — an inscription dating from the 10th century B.C., during the period of King David's reign.
The breakthrough could mean that portions of the Bible were written centuries earlier than previously thought. (The Bible's Old Testament is thought to have been first written down in an ancient form of Hebrew.)
Until now, many scholars have held that the Hebrew Bible originated in the 6th century B.C., because Hebrew writing was thought to stretch back no further. But the newly deciphered Hebrew text is about four centuries older, scientists announced this month.

https://www.livescience.com/8008-bible-possibly-written-centuries-earlier-text-suggests.html

There is a difference between 800BCE and 1000BCE. Agreed?

[marylandblue]

82. Not sure if your dates are typos

She said "about 800 BC," which puts it in the middle if the 6th century date and the 10th century date, so I don't see a problem and it doesn't change the substance of her article either.

[guillaumeb]

79. And.......

This table summarises the chronology of the main tables and serves as a guide to the historical periods mentioned. Much of the Hebrew Bible or the Protocanonical Old Testament may have been assembled in the 5th century BCE.[1] The New Testament books were composed largely in the second half of the 1st century CE.[2] The Deuterocanonical books fall largely in between.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dating_the_Bible

[marylandblue]

84. Don't see a problem here either

She said the most recent books of the NT were "almost a century" after Jesus' death, and the table at the link lists the latest books as 110 CE or about 80 years after his death. 80 or "almost" 100 years does not change the substance of the article.

[Mariana]

14. Lots of Fundies do believe it was dictated.

As the very popular bumper sticker says, "God said it, I believe it, that settles it."

[MineralMan]

15. "The God-Given Scriptures"

While some may not see it that way, a helluva lot of people do. They think the Bible is God speaking directly and infallibly.

To deny that is folly.

[Mariana]

59. "God-breathed"

2 Timothy 3 : 16 - All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.

[MineralMan]

60. Yes. So it was written.

Or translated, at least. Of course, the wording varies from translation to translation. See here:

https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/2%20Timothy%203:16

[MineralMan]

16. I understand that's your opinion.

[Lordquinton]

20. Do you consider what you said dialogue?

[MineralMan]

23. Apparently so.

[Lordquinton]

38. Better person to ask, do you consider that post to be dialogue?

If we're going to properly mirror things here.

[MineralMan]

39. Nope. It's just an insult, directed at an author

That person does not know. It questions that author's credentials from no position to even know. I found it sad and presumptuous.

[guillaumeb]

25. I do.

And I gave a specific objection.

[Permanut]

40. I understand your need to discount the author..

rather than discuss the content.

[Voltaire2]

43. How did your gods inspire the authors?

Please explain what you mean by that.

[trotsky]

49. So the question for believers in a god (and its associated holy text) becomes...

why WASN'T it dictated by your god, so as to remove all confusion?

By "inspiring" writers, your god introduces fuzziness where there should be clarity - like it's deliberately trying to trick you and make you fight.

Do you all worship Loki or something?

[no_hypocrisy]

26. So many translations by non-experts that it's hard to know what the

original text was.

[wasupaloopa]

27. Lost in translation

[True Dough]

28. I blame poor handwriting

Calligraphy skills weren't valued enough by the education system B.C. either.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

30. I wouldn't call it "badly written" because that presumes a single author

always writing in the same language (for us, English). The Bible is just a collection of legends, myths, histories, poems and other odds and ends that were written in various languages or versions of those languages and collected and translated over many centuries - and for some reason assembled into a single volume (or two volumes if you divide it into the Old and New Testaments) that is supposed to represent the word of God as delivered to humans. Even the books that are included in it aren't consistent among Christian denominations. Some parts were written in Hebrew, some in Aramaic, some in Greek, then translated into Latin and then English. Some parts are translations of translations. There is magnificent, although archaic, writing in the King James Bible, but the translations it contains are claimed to be somewhat inaccurate. There are many modern, more accurate translations but in those versions the writing is often pedestrian and dumbed down. While I think it's dumb to regard the Bible, which is full of contradictions, as the inerrant word of God, I also I think it's dumb to call it badly written. As with any writing that is translated from another language, especially an ancient one, a translator sometimes has to choose between poetry and accuracy.

[Voltaire2]

44. You seem to be making two claims.

1. Multiple authors.
2. Translated from the original.
And from those claims you conclude somehow that it is “dumb to call it badly written”.

Your conclusion doesn’t follow from the facts asserted, neither of which are in doubt.

Do other books with multiple authors gain immunity from criticism as badly written?

Many books are translated, and the results are routinely criticized. Is it your claim that a better translation would rescue the texts from their current dubious quality?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

45. My point was that it doesn't make sense to call this particular "book" badly written

when it's not really a book at all but merely a collection of stories, myths and legends written down by many different people over many centuries, and then translated from different languages at different times by different people. It's like reviewing an anthology of American literature that contains works of Ernest Hemingway, Mark Twain, William Faulkner, L. Ron Hubbard, Ann Coulter and Nicholas Sparks and then calling the whole anthology badly written because there's some bad writing in it. In other words, when something is criticized for being "badly written" I take that as a criticism of the literary or artistic quality of the writing, not the substance.

Is the Bible just a compendium of items of superstitious nonsense? Maybe, if that's the way you roll theologically. But there are parts of it in some translations that are beautifully, even magnificently written, although a great deal of it is really boring. By way of example, I consider George Will to be full of shit most of the time (although he's seen the light at least as to Trump), but he's a terrific writer. So was the late Charles Krauthammer. He wrote bullshit but he wrote it well. On the other hand there are writers with whom I agree wholeheartedly as to substance but whose prose is cringe-inducing (the over-the-top bombast of Keith Olbermann comes to mind). If you're an atheist you might regard the entire Bible as bullshit, but that's a criticism of substance, not form; I'm talking about form, not substance.

Here's a literary criticism (in which the author opines that the Bible, over all, is not a very good read) that makes my point a lot better than I did:

...I'm aware that saying the Bible is crap rather a crude statement. So, let me introduce a few points to qualify my basic assertion.

...Most importantly in terms of such an artistic judgement of the Bible,I'm not denying that some absolutely wonderful manipulations of the English language can be found in the King James version. I also wouldn't dream of suggesting that this translation hasn't been profound influence on English literature. What I would say, however, is that the most important word in the previous sentence is translation. The committee of remarkable talent that put together this version performed a miracle (in the strictly non-divine sense of the word). It was an incredible achievement to transform the sow's ear of the New Testament's rough koine Greek into the silk purse that has resounded so strongly in our culture ever since.

Finally, I'm willing to concede that there are a few passages of extraordinary power and beauty in the Bible. The Song Of Solomon for instance is a blast. There's also no more striking example of random and bizarre sadism in literature than God's decision to turn Lot's wife into a pillar of salt and then make the luckless widower have sex with his daughters in a cave. The book of Revelation, meanwhile, is a hallucinogenic head-trip without parallel from start to finish: exhilarating, unsettling, and gloriously mad.

However, these are rare flashes of light in 1,000 plus pages of opaque, dull, greyness.... In short, does anyone sincerely believe that the vast majority of the Bible is anything other than crashingly dull? Personally, and with pun fully intended, I doubt it.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2007/aug/13/thebiblesliterarysins

[edhopper]

57. We can dismiss those beautiful bits of translation

as having anything to do with the original text and everything to do with the great writers assembled by King James and others.

Jesus in the original Greek (do we really believe that anybody noted down his actual Aramaic words) is nowhere near as lyrical as the KJV.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

61. Exactly!

Those of us who are not Biblical scholars familiar with Hebrew or 1st c. Greek (which is most of us) know the Bible only through the various translations into English or another modern language. Some of the translations are wonderful and poetic, but since we don't know the original languages we can't critique the originals as literature. My guess is that many of the original versions were not especially artful since for the most part they were merely attempts to write down stories from oral traditions. But we have to distinguish "art" from content. If you think the Bible is a collection of primitive Middle Eastern myths and superstitions, or if you think it's the received and infallible word of God, you won't care whether it or any part of it is well-written. But if you're considering only the quality of the writing (more accurately, the translation) regardless of its content - either myth or God's word - you will.

(We can be sure Shakespeare also totally made up Henry V's "Band of Brothers" speech before the Battle of Agincourt 300 years previously, but it was great writing anyhow.)

[edhopper]

62. and we can assume

that the writers who wrote the KJV did not actually translate 3rd century Greek, but worked with scholars who did.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

63. Actually, they did. The committee that translated the KJV consisted of 47 scholars,

clergymen who knew Greek, Latin and Hebrew, who were assigned various sections. They consulted and compared earlier translations (the post-Reformation Wycliffe, Tyndale and Geneva Bibles) with their own translations, making sure that their spin on their translations was Protestant and not too Catholic. The translators were the writers, and it is known which of them translated/wrote each book.

[edhopper]

64. I had thought it is suspected

that writers like Bacon, Marlowe and even Shakespeare contributed.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

65. Rumored for many years; no actual evidence exists.

All three were educated men but they weren't scholars fluent in Greek and Hebrew like the KJV translators. The names of the actual translators are known and there's no record beyond unsupported rumors of any involvement by others.

[edhopper]

66. Thanks

[Thomas Hurt]

32. God is divine, all powerful, all knowing, God's wisdom is beyond human kin...

and yet God gave his words to the fallible sinners of the world.

Sounds like the whole inspired or channeled by God idea is hoisted on it own divinity.

Any fallible sinner would be unable to understand fully God's word much less write it correctly yes?

If God condescended to communicate it is still in the flawed communications of human kind.

[edhopper]

36. And God has no problem

when his garbled communication results in untold death and suffering.

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”

[Igel]

34. Where to start?

It's like "history" in the Bible. What we think of as history is not what was thought of as history 500 years ago or 2000 years ago. Standards change.

Most Nobel Prize winners for literature these days would be considered talentless hacks, if not insane, if their works were transported back 100 years, much less 200 or 500 or 2000 years. I think Mayakovsky is a horrible writer when I transition to him after reading Gumilyov, and Gumilyov is sketchy after reading Pushkin. Man may be the measure of all things, but neither you nor I count as "man" (or, if you want to be anachronistic and revise a saying because the language has changed and we refuse to accommodate other era's definitions, "humankind is the measure of everything," but it lacks the ring of the original Modern English).

What's true for literature is true for most other forms of written communication--there are literary elements even to expository prose.

We're also accustomed to a set number of forms. We don't do acrostics. We don't do repetition as a literary device. And, to be honest, a lot of the allusions are really quite opaque until you sort out what's going on. The whole waw-consecutive thing tended to confuse translators, what with aspect shifts.

However, there's also a point to be made in brevity. The 60+ books in the Bible were written at different times, by different people. A number of them are easily best interpreted, even on their own terms, as compilations and recensions of pre-existing documents. In any event, they were handwritten and had to be short. Take Ezra and Nehemiah: They're too long for one scroll and fell apart into two books because they formed two scrolls. (That's one likely explanation.) Many of the books were on shorter scrolls and amalgamated into longer scrolls--and in the copying mistakes could happen.

It also pays to remember what the orthography was like: First remove most of the vowels. Only long vowels count. Next, remove spacing and punctuation. Whatslftiskindfdffclttoread. Now, in English it's actually not too bad (remove all the vowels and it's hell tfgrtwhtsntndd ... 'to figure out what's intended'). But in Hebrew and Aramaic it's worse because of the structure of the language.

This is true for nearly every Semitic text of any great time depth. Many of the problems show up in the translation of older non-Semitic texts, too. Even if a work was considered sophisticated in 2500 or 1500 or 500 BC, we tend to think of them as kludgy now.

Western Indo-European texts are, oddly, still more accessible. But many these days wouldn't judge Cicero or Ovid to be great poets ... Again, because "great" means "what I like today," with no nuance or willingness to step outside the self. "Each person is the measure of all things" suits the current Zeitgeist.

[marylandblue]

41. Your partly make and partly miss the article's point

The author of the article would agree with you on much of this. But her point is what the Bible ISN'T -- It's not something written by an omniscient, omnipotent being who would be able to create something that would be a model of perfect writing for all generations. Instead, it's exactly what you and she said it is - a multi-author hodgepodge written in various styles at various times for various purposes.

This may not seem like a big deal to any modern atheist or liberal religionist, but she was raised an evangelical Christian where that would be pure heresy. So she's really commenting on her own journey away from Biblical literalism towards modern Biblical scholarship.

[mn9driver]

35. As an historical document, it is fascinating.

By that I mean the history of the document, not the literal accuracy of it.

The oldest Old Testament texts can be traced back thousands of years to oral histories that were repeated before writing even existed.

This is an accessible textbook, written by a Paulist professor of theology, who does a great job of digging into the origins and evolution of the thing:

https://www.amazon.com/Reading-Old-Testament-Introduction-Second/dp/0809147807?keywords=reading+the+old+testament&qid=1532300130&sr=8-1&ref=mp_s_a_1_1

Don’t be put off by the fact the author is a priest; he is remarkably clear eyed about it. The history of the New Testament is also interesting, but it’s really impossible to compare the two. Their origins are completely different.

[Major Nikon]

48. Their origins are basically the same

Both come from oral traditions from people who used organized religion to manipulate other people.

The biggest difference is the so-called "Old Testament" was derived from oral traditions from a time when written ones were basically non-existent. What makes the so-called "New Testament" so much different is you have this guy allegedly traveling around allegedly saying important things and nobody finds him important enough to write anything down he says for decades if not centuries after during a time in which at least a decent portion of the population was literate. Meanwhile we have the works of poets, historians, philosophers, and other assorted authors fully enshrined in written form during their lifetimes which predates Christ. Very telling that.

[MineralMan]

50. It's all marketing. Once the Romans adopted Christianity and canonized the Bible,

they had something they could market. Christianity is a marketing story, and an insanely successful story.

An easy path to eternal life is definitely a marketable concept to fearful people who live only a few decades. It remains a highly marketable product, which doesn't even need to be real to sell.

[Locrian]

53. yes - and like all good marketing departments

when confronted with competition that gave direct access to the "divine state" (ie mushroom gods of central and s America) they crushed them.

[MineralMan]

54. Yup.

[underpants]

51. Marking to read later

[malchickiwick]

52. Don't blame Shakespeare...he only wrote one Psalm!!

Some theorists have suggested William Shakespeare placed his mark on the translated text of Psalm 46 that appears in the King James Bible, although other scholars view this as unlikely:
The 46th word from the beginning of Psalm 46 is "shake" and the 46th word from the end (omitting the liturgical mark "Selah&quot is "spear" ("speare" in the original spelling). Shakespeare was in King James' service during the preparation of the King James Bible, and was generally considered to be 46 years old in 1611 when the translation was completed.

[Freethinker65]

76. Authors got paid by the word?

[edhopper]

77. you win the thread

[Bok_Tukalo]

81. "Meaningless! Meaningless!"

…


says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”



3
What do people gain from all their labors
at which they toil under the sun?

4
Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.

5
The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.

6
The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.

7
All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.

8
All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.

9
What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.

10
Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.

11
No one remembers the former generations,
and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow them.








I get that literature is subjective but seriously, that is fucking awesome!

[edhopper]

83. from the article

"No question, the Bible contains beautiful and timeless bits. But why, overall, does it so fail to meet this mark?"