Passage I hope here better proof-read:
The phrase in question contains a problem. It means, "the Bible / also
literature." "As" is a form of the word "also," one of a large number of
words ultimately derived from the Indo-European root al-, from which we also
get the word allegory. The Bible, an allegorical literature. The study of
the Bible as literature, it could follow, pertains not to the Bible, but to
literary works having an allegorical relation to it. ¶ We often teach our
subjects as if they were something "else," and it is easy to believe that
the Bible belongs to the gospel of the humanities. The Bible's old rival,
Saint Socrates, is also Saints Calidore and Quixote. Erasmus' Folly
commends those who have made themselves fools for the gospel, and an ironic
comparison of Quixote to Saint Paul implies that the Don has made himself a
fool for the gospel of romance. Courses on the Bible as literature seem
rather quixotic too. Their very title may be a contradiction in terms. No
doubt much that is useful can be done with this contradiction, once we turn
it into a comparison. But we cannot do this without first having learnt
something about the Bible as the Bible. [Fin.]
[log in to unmask]
James Nohrnberg
Dept. of English, Bryan Hall 219
Univ. of Virginia
P.O Box 400121
Charlottesville, VA 22904-4121
|