Product Description

There is no book more important for our culture than the Bible, and it is fundamental to the study of English literature and language.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #576269 in Books
• Published on: 1999-05-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 368 pages

Review
"The three introductory essays they provide are approachable, authoritative and full of meat. The selections from scripture are annotated freshly and stirringly; the commentaries which introduce the literary extracts are models of compression, expanding at a later stage in the mind of the reader, as good teaching should" Julian Thompson, Tutor in English, RPC Oxford

"Each biblical passage is carefully introduced, and there is a bibliography for each section. An excellent book!" International Review of Biblical Studies

"A welcome addition to our resources at a time when there is an increasing emphasis on literary reading and narrative theology." Journal for the Study of the Old Testament

International Review of Biblical Studies
"Each biblical passage is carefully introduced, and there is a bibliography for each section. An excellent book!"

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament
A welcome addition to our resources at a time when there is an increasing emphasis on literary reading and narrative theology.

Customer Reviews

The Bible and Literature
The target audience is teachers of English who have grown up without the basic Bible knowledge expected of every educated person a couple of generations ago. A secondary market must be biblical scholars and teachers who suffer similar deficiencies when it come to English literature.

Familiar Bible passages and relevant extracts from English literature therefore find themselves side by side without any attempt to relate the one to the other, thus providing a resource of considerable value to both parties. In each case we have a few pages of commentary on the biblical passages with a brief explanation as to why each of the liteary passages was chosen, followed by a selection of literary material without commentary. Literary sources include Milton, Chaucer, Augustine, Kirkegaard, T S Eliot, D H Lawrence, C S Lewis, Gerald Manley Hopkins, Dylan Thomas, Bunyanm, Dryden, Shakespeare, Umberto Eco, Oscar Wilde, Shaw, Wordsworth, James Joyce and Derrida.

Two meanings of the Bible in literature are differentiated: the one which treats the Bible simply as a collection of secular writings and the other which sees a literary understanding of the Bible not as a subsititute for its religious content but as an adjunct to it.