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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