My impression is that lots of religiously moderate individuals also didn’t like their Hebrew school/Sunday school etc. so that’s not unique to atheists. At to literary feeling for the Bible, I don’t know how someone who is educated wouldn’t have a fair bit of that other than simple emotional reaction because of the damage that religion has done to society. I’d have to wonder if those people have read Samuel or the first few chapters of Kings or Ruth for example. Maybe tell them to read it as they would read Greek mythology and evaluate the literary merit as if it were from a no longer extant religion?
I think I wasn’t clear enough. My point wasn’t to bash other atheists.
Basically where I was going with this was to add my own experience, and to say that what people get out of religious observance can be more complicated than just social capital. I don’t think secular social organizations have to be at all “church-like” to provide community benefits. And correspondingly I think that the non-theological things people like about religion are not exactly summed up by “community.”
Also, I personally am in a weird position because lots of people (understandably) don’t share my tastes. I get why some people are enthusiastically anti-tribal; it isn’t me, at the moment, but I can see it and respect it. I also understand (though can’t actually imagine being this way myself) that most people dislike memorization and rituals performed just so. And it is weird but true in my experience that most folks (religious or not) can’t actually “get” any kind of sense that the Bible is literature of some value. It’s an aesthetic response and when it doesn’t go through, it doesn’t go through.
Personally, I turned to the bible after becoming acquainted with several other strains of mythology, and with the intention of treating it in the same manner, but I found myself intensely disappointed by its literary qualities. There were plenty of other writing flaws, but I felt like the core of it was that monotheism simply doesn’t make for as good story dynamics.
Please remember that what you read is a hatchet job of translation. The original is poetry, and it was poorly translated. I find myself quoting from the bible much less in English, for that reason. (I think a lot of biblical quotations are often appropriate: e.g., when I’m frustrated with something obviously petty, I use the Jonah quotation of “Better I die than live”, because it’s got the exact self-awareness that I need)
When I read Bible verses in English, I often suffer almost physical pain at the awkwardness. At “Song of Solomon”, this increases to actual physical symptoms, after which I closed it and never tried SoS in English again...
I suggest that there never was any “original,” even in Hebrew. Rather, there were many contradictory oral, and later, written fragments, later amalgamated and integrated into a canon that no doubt continued to change even after it claimed to be unchangeable.
As I understand it, the King James Bible is a rotten translation (it’s admittedly a translation of a translation). However, at least according to The Story of English, it was composed “so that it would not only read better but sound better.” I suggest that, within the context of English-speaking culture, it was a success—and it has itself become canonical.
My impression is that lots of religiously moderate individuals also didn’t like their Hebrew school/Sunday school etc. so that’s not unique to atheists. At to literary feeling for the Bible, I don’t know how someone who is educated wouldn’t have a fair bit of that other than simple emotional reaction because of the damage that religion has done to society. I’d have to wonder if those people have read Samuel or the first few chapters of Kings or Ruth for example. Maybe tell them to read it as they would read Greek mythology and evaluate the literary merit as if it were from a no longer extant religion?
I think I wasn’t clear enough. My point wasn’t to bash other atheists.
Basically where I was going with this was to add my own experience, and to say that what people get out of religious observance can be more complicated than just social capital. I don’t think secular social organizations have to be at all “church-like” to provide community benefits. And correspondingly I think that the non-theological things people like about religion are not exactly summed up by “community.”
Also, I personally am in a weird position because lots of people (understandably) don’t share my tastes. I get why some people are enthusiastically anti-tribal; it isn’t me, at the moment, but I can see it and respect it. I also understand (though can’t actually imagine being this way myself) that most people dislike memorization and rituals performed just so. And it is weird but true in my experience that most folks (religious or not) can’t actually “get” any kind of sense that the Bible is literature of some value. It’s an aesthetic response and when it doesn’t go through, it doesn’t go through.
Personally, I turned to the bible after becoming acquainted with several other strains of mythology, and with the intention of treating it in the same manner, but I found myself intensely disappointed by its literary qualities. There were plenty of other writing flaws, but I felt like the core of it was that monotheism simply doesn’t make for as good story dynamics.
Please remember that what you read is a hatchet job of translation. The original is poetry, and it was poorly translated. I find myself quoting from the bible much less in English, for that reason. (I think a lot of biblical quotations are often appropriate: e.g., when I’m frustrated with something obviously petty, I use the Jonah quotation of “Better I die than live”, because it’s got the exact self-awareness that I need)
When I read Bible verses in English, I often suffer almost physical pain at the awkwardness. At “Song of Solomon”, this increases to actual physical symptoms, after which I closed it and never tried SoS in English again...
I suggest that there never was any “original,” even in Hebrew. Rather, there were many contradictory oral, and later, written fragments, later amalgamated and integrated into a canon that no doubt continued to change even after it claimed to be unchangeable.
As I understand it, the King James Bible is a rotten translation (it’s admittedly a translation of a translation). However, at least according to The Story of English, it was composed “so that it would not only read better but sound better.” I suggest that, within the context of English-speaking culture, it was a success—and it has itself become canonical.
I might have found it more aesthetically pleasing in the original Hebrew, but I had more complaints about the content than the prose.