From the Papers of One Still Learning

wearethestories:

novangla:

caiprince13:

I sort of want to rewrite The Bible. Some of the stories are intriguing and since I’ve been told on multiple occasions as an English major that “you need to know the bible so that you understand allegory and biblical allusions,” which makes me feel like I, as an atheist who views it only as a text akin to any other legends and mythology, should treat it as any other piece of literature. I’d like to dissect the stories and see where it takes me.

I don’t think it would be disrespectful. Just realize that it is like 80 books and would probably take as many volumes to turn into stories.

I mean, as a theology student I’m inclined to say a really good treatment of this would require some good understanding of source criticism, ANE mythology, and non-canonical mythos built up by Talmudic and Christian sources.  So you can like, really work all the rich source material in to rewrite.  The same way a good retelling of any mythos would (I say, as I fail to read like 80% of Arthuriana material hahaha shhhhh).

But as an exercise for yourself, I say go for it.  Maybe choose a thematic way of starting - pick one book? or one set of characters? or go through each kind of typography (like, infancy narratives).

The reason you are encouraged to read the Bible as literature is also because of the specific King James/Authorized Version language and how that has shaped our present language and the entire post-Reformation Western canon. Understanding allusions to stories is one important aspect, but of almost equal importance is the specific linguistic influence (though if there’s any trouble with the language and you’re not going to be a 17th century scholar, definitely read the New Revised Standard Version along with the King James).

I might suggest picking up Harold Bloom’s The Shadow of a Great Rock: A Literary Appreciation of the King James Bible. Bloom is always excellent, and this gets at the stories as well as the language piece.

RE: stories though:

You definitely don’t need to re-write (or read) the whole thing - there’s plenty in there that’s redundant, boring, unnecessary, etc. (and I say that as a practicing Christian). For example, you can understand Dryden’s “Absolom and Achitophel” by reading just a few chapters of 2 Samuel (14-16) and being aware of English politics of the late 17th century. Something like Milton’s “Paradise Lost” would require a pretty decent understanding of a larger swath of text, but you’ll almost never need about half of the “history” books (1 and 2 Chronicles are a retelling of 1-2 Samuel and 1-2 Kings from a differently biased source) and the minor prophets run together a bit (as do the major prophets, but there are definitely themes and things you’d want to be able to know or differentiate between).

If you wanted to re-write, definitely include Judges (Jael driving a tent spike through a dude’s ear and Ehud getting away with stabbing a fat smelly king because he’s a lefty shouldn’t be missed), 1-2 Samuel (where you get Elisha calling on she-bears to maul teenagers for making fun of him for being bald and King David being an ANE version of Michael Corleone/The Godfather), Genesis (half is boring, but there are brief mentions of half-giants, two separate creation myths and flood narratives, and a bunch of tricksters), the Gospels (but really just see Christopher Moore’s Lamb) and DEFINITELY DO EZEKIEL AND REVELATION (which is not “Revelations” - it’s one long, single revelation) because those prophets were tripping BALLS.

Oh, and don’t forget the Deuterocanonical (or Apocryphal) books in a re-write - they have excellent stories (like there are dragons… also “Susanna” which is baller - go read it right now).

I’m might also want to add that there is a clear distinction in the way you might want to read the texts for historic literary purposes, and how most scholars read the text. If you’re interested in how the Bible serves as a cultural touchstone for the Western literary canon, you don’t really need to do too much history. The reality is that most contemporary Biblical scholarship still deals with the historical critical method. That’s perfectly fine, and good scholarship, but it doesn’t seem to be your interest. So don’t worry about bogging yourself down too much in what the original context meant exactly. A bit of it is necessary just to understand the text, but throughout Church and Western history that hasn’t been a very strong prevailing concern. The early Christian writers cared far more about memory and tradition than they did about what we call history.

Be clear as well about what it is you are and aren’t doing. Understanding that you’re reading the texts for literary purposes is fine. Just be aware that that’s what you’re doing, and don’t make any strong claims about understanding the “true” meaning of the texts, and you’ll be fine.

(via bazoingdoing)

brandondonnelly:

I love the work that LSE Cities (London School of Economics) is doing with Urban Age. If you haven’t yet checked out their site, you should do that now. If you’re a city geek, it’s the kind of site you can get lost in for hours. Especially if you’re a sucker for great diagrams like I am.

Here’s one I found today that shows where cities are growing in the world:

Each circle represents a city (well, metropolitan area). The dark green dot is the city’s population in 1950. The lighter green dot is the city’s population in 1990. And the yellow dot is the city’s projected population by 2025. Click here for a larger version of the map.

What’s fascinating about this diagram is that you can so clearly see how the most significant population growth has shifted away from the West to the rest of the world and in particular Asia. That is, those dots have more yellow than green.

We, of course, already knew this was happening. And population is just one dimension. But it’s still interesting to see this in diagram form. We are living through the rise of the East. And this diagram is a reminder of that.

(via humanscalecities)