Reading the Bible for Its Prose

W.H. Auden once wrote: "Thou shalt not read the Bible for its prose". Well, he didn't (as I've just learned), but Stephen King said he did. He wrote something very close to it, anyway.

All the same, one can't help having a literary reaction to the Bible.

The Good Book comes to us through many layers of translation, and at such a great cultural remove, that it must be hard to appreciate many (most?) of its nuances and depths.

I know that I'm always disappointed by Psalms. I'm ashamed to admit it, but I generally wish the responsorial Psalm at Mass to be over as quickly as possible. (Against my will, you understand). Nor do I gain any poetic pleasure from reading the Psalms. With a few exceptions, especially-- you guessed it-- Psalm Twenty-Three of the King James's Bible, which I think has a claim to be the most beautiful poem in the English language.

In fact, the sections of the Bible that give me the most intense literary pleasure are all the most obvious ones: the prologue of John, the first letter of John, 1 Corinthians 13, God's reply to Job in the Book of Job, the Book of Revelation, the Beatitudes, the Parable of the Prodigal Son (which always reduces me to a weepy mess at Mass), Joshua's words to the assembly ("I put before you life and death...")...

But, above all, the Book of Ecclesiastes. Has the human condition ever been captured so sublimely? Of course, there is the deservedly famous "Unto everything there is a season", which deserves all its plaudits. But also this, which prompted this blog post, and which never fails to wow me (especially "man goeth to his long home"):

Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them;

While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain:

In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened,

And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of musick shall be brought low;

Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets:

Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern.