It is believed that even if the Bible were not divinely inspired, it is great literature. In the West, the Bible has been the most widely read and respected of all the classics. There might be made sound argument that if the Bible is not inspired it may not be great literature. If the most gifted authors were to write a book following the model of the Bible, it is likely that they would not gain much of a readership audience, and would be scathingly treated by literary critics. We will take one feature only for debate – repetition. We might take other factors, like long lists of names, or remote and ponderous prophetic passages, or bloody sacrifices, or miracles (impossible by world nature), and so the story goes. Scripture is the Christian story of God and our spiritual rescue.
The Bible is repetitious. Even Jesus appears to have repeated sermons, and focused them on individual situations related to the problem of sin. He accented plain parables like the sowing of seed. The illustrations seem easy and simplistic. These parables and concepts were repeated. Many persons knew what he would say when they went to hear Him. On occasion the repetition was cleverly accomplished, as in the instance when he taught about love, quoting Deuteronomy, Chapter Six. One of the listeners was put in the position of repeating the repetition of a known principle. Jesus commended him: You are not far from the kingdom of God. In a current conversation the response from the teacher might be: That is what I just said. It might have been with a voice lilt that would make the respondent feel like a dummy. Here would be redundancy.
Is a story a classic because it is widely read and becomes influential? One may suppose that that is what is meant when the Bible is touted as great literature. If the classics are great literature they ought to be reviewed in the education of youth. In a full rounded education a student will surely hear and/or read something from Plato, Aristotle, Beowulf, and others like the Greek playwrights. I was introduced to Homer and Cicero in school. I read Goethe in German class. I even read some of Cicero in Latin. A few of these works are on my library shelves. Except for one class in high school, no teacher in public education through the University suggested that I read from that classic, the Bible. If the greatness rule is important to the fully educated person, was something left out for students in the West? In some public contexts my great literature is ruled out by law.
We may be fairly sure that God is only secondarily interested in the human literary qualities of Scripture. He is interested because anything he would do would be done well for the intended purpose. Apparently he is willing to permit some shifting human qualities go by in order to gain attendance to his meaning, a meaning that apparently has some eternal verities related to it. To repeat often the characteristics of God, to have four men tell the same story in the Gospels with different nuances, to replicate the stories and principles of righteousness and sin, and the like, tells us something. They tell us that the message of the Bible must not be missed – so is told repeatedly so that those who run may read. There is something about the Bible that makes it necessary literature accenting the main issues of life, death, God and immortality – demanding attention, even if not believed. So important is that communication Christians seek through the church and other institutions the values of Christian life and culture. It is a culture to be lived and declared, proved in the satisfaction of its comfort – for life and death to whatever is beyond nature. The Scripture repeats its main story in the fulfillment of the long believed truism that an important secret to learning is found in repetition. God is redundant with: I love you. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020