So, what do you think are the best books in the Bible as works of literature?
Here are my picks:
The Gospel of Mark. Probably the most compelling book in the Bible. The disciples just don’t get who Jesus is even after all the clues they’re given.
Genesis. This reminds me of the one of those 1980s miniseries tracing the lives of several generations. Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, and ending with the Joseph story.
Job. A conversation between man and God.
*Genesis *is the only book of either testament that I’d ever return to as literature.
You can’t go wrong with the Wisdom Books (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon.)
I also like 1 Corinthians and Revelation just for the trippy imagery
As for the most difficult to get through, I would have to say the Book of Numbers and the parts of Kings and Chronicles dealing with genealogy.
Dang, I came in to nominate Ecclesiastes, but got beaten to the punch.
Personally, the only section I found to be all that literary was Lamentations. The rest is, while hugely influential of course, pretty piss poor as story, fable, or history. Frankly the Bible is a boring read.
Revelations can be interesting reading alongside someone’s interpretation of all the meanings, but since every interpretation you’ll see is wildly different, it doesn’t say a lot for the author’s ability to convey his point.
I took a class on the bible and found most of it to be very enjoyable, though incredibly slow in some places, and it repeats itself a lot. It was in high school so the class was a whole year, and we spent almost the first half of the year on the first 5 books, so those still hold a special place for me.
Apart from those, I’ve found a lot of enjoyment reading Ecclesiastes, Job, Judges, Joshua, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 John, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and of course Revelation. Revelation scared the shit out of me when I believed in it, but it was in a “cool” way like a kid watching a Freddy Krueger movie.
Genesis, definitely, you could do a gritty HBO miniseries off of it.
Same with I & II Samuel. It will be interesting to see the new NBC series KINGS this February.
Ruth is a happy compact stand-alone story.
Job to Song of Solomon
Matthew- Jesus as The Moses of the New Covenant
Luke- Jesus as subject of researched biography (whether or not you believe it is, that is how that author presented it)
John- Prose Poem of Jesus as Logos/Light
Romans- God’s dealing with humanity via Nature, Law & Grace.
Revelation- The Unveiling of Jesus Victorious against Beatial Rulers & Harlot Religions.
I can’t speak to the best book, but the story of David is very well done even by contemporary storytelling standards. Everything from his duel with Goliath to his emotionally-conflicted battle against Saul, to his moral failures in the cases of Bathsheba & Absalom, are absolutely compelling.
Piss poor as story, fable or history… Of course, everyone is entitled to their opinion but… have you read this?
If you consider the story of Judith, in the Apocryphal book of the same name, to be Scripture, then I’d nominate it.
Strong, gutsy, female lead. I mean really, cutting off a guy’s head like that? Talk about sneaky! The only reason they don’t make it into a movie is that she never remarried after the death of her husband. Hollywood couldn’t do a story like that without a romance.
Genesis and Exodus. Genesis is a great book of short stories, Exodus is like a great, epic novel.