BIBLE 



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BIBLE 



Originally it meant a rod, or by derivation, a 

 carpenter's rule, and so in time it came to 

 have reference to the standard by which the 

 authority of the sacred writings was measured. 

 Now the term "canon of the Scriptures" de- 

 notes those books which are believed to be 

 inspired and are therefore authorized by the 

 Christian Church. Just those books which at 

 present make up the Bible, and no more, were 

 not always looked upon as the canon; over 

 certain specific books long controversies raged. 

 Could the book of Esther, in which the name 

 of God is not once mentioned, possibly be 

 one of the "holy" writings? Were the books 

 of the Apocrypha (which see) to be regarded 

 as inspired, or were they merely secular? Be- 

 fore the time of Christ, the Jews had deter- 

 mined the canon of the Old Testament, but 

 that of the New was naturally not entirely 

 fixed until some centuries after Christ's death. 

 To-day the Roman Catholic Church accepts 

 as canonical the Apocrypha, which Protestant 

 churches reject. 



The Bible as Literature. The writers of the 

 Bible were not learned men, as the world 

 counts learning to-day, and yet their works 

 have lived and multiplied as have no others 

 ever written. In large measure, to be sure, 

 this is because of the subject matter with 

 which they deal, but in a lesser degree it is 

 an outgrowth of the literary character of the 

 Bible. Time was, and not so very long ago, 

 when to have spoken of the "literary charac- 

 ter" of the Bible would have been looked 

 upon as sacrilege. It was a sacred book, de- 

 signed to appeal to man's spiritual nature and 

 taking no account of the feeling for beauty 

 which is no less an inborn sense. Indeed, in 

 those days when the Bible was perhaps more 

 in men's thoughts than at any time since the 

 days of the Church fathers in the Puritan 

 age the spiritual sense and the sense of beauty 

 were looked upon as antagonistic. 



Then, too, the Book was looked upon as too 

 sacred to be studied as any other book might 

 be; people actually held that its holy charac- 

 ter extended to the paper upon which it was 

 printed and the boards in which it was bound. 

 To ponder over it spiritually was right and 

 necessary "in His law doth he meditate day 

 and night"; but to attempt to solve its prob- 

 lems with the aid of cold reason such an act 

 was to lay profane hands upon the Ark of the 

 Covenant or to enter with unhallowed feet 

 the Holy of Holies. One eminent writer upon 

 things Biblical phrased the matter pictur- 



esquely when he called the Bible "a literature 

 smothered by reverence." 



In recent years students of the Bible have 

 been paying more and more attention to its 

 literary quality, but yet students of literature 

 have placed upon it too little stress. Many 

 a person who accounts himself well read, and 

 is ashamed to confess his ignorance of the 

 works of some minor poet, almost boasts of his 

 lack of knowledge of the Bible. And yet no 

 one can really understand English literature 

 or grasp its full significance who has not a 

 background of Biblical knowledge. What can 

 Byron's stirring Destruction of Sennacherib 

 mean to the person who has never read the 

 account in II Kings, 25? We are told that 



The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the 



fold, 

 And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and 



gold, 



and that later 



The Angel of Death spread his wings on the 



blast, 

 And breathed in the face of the foe as he pass'd, 



but no statement is made as to who Senna- 

 cherib was or as to why such dreadful woe 

 came upon the Assyrians. Or how can the 

 person who had not read the story of Moses' 

 experience on Sinai grasp the full significance 

 of Lowell's 



Daily, with souls that cringe and plot, 

 We Sinais climb and know it not. 



But it is not only as a background for other 

 literature that the Bible merits attention. It 

 is itself a literature unmatched in certain lit- 

 erary forms. Epigram, epic, thrilling tale, 

 exquisite pastoral romance all these and 

 many more are to be found in its pages, and 

 in lyric poetry, especially, critics agree that it 

 equals if it does not surpass all other litera- 

 tures in the world. The translators, too, have 

 been so wise in their choice of words that the 

 English ' reader has little or none of that dis- 

 appointed feeling which usually accompanies 

 the reading of translations. So wonderfully 

 phrased are most parts of the Scriptures that 

 the person who cares nothing for the spiritual 

 significance of the Bible cannot fail to be 

 impressed with the fact that if Biblical quo- 

 tations are contrasted with those from almost 

 any other work, they take from such quota- 

 tions much of their dignity and stateliness. 



The Bible for Children. This topic is closely 

 related to the preceding, since it means to take 

 no account of the religious teaching of chil- 

 dren, but to emphasize the "story" side of the 



