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Literary Value of the Bible

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 10, 1916

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 93, No. 8.

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Literary Value of the Bible

By MRS. I. H. E.

A LITTLE girl, with a very happy face, once met an older friend and began to recite the tale of her latest birthday’s addition to her “liberry.”
“Twenty volumes, all bound in blue, with pictures and gilt tops, and I have to cut the edges,” said she. Then, in answer to a half-teasing question as to the contents, she explained, “They’re literature.”
Often we unconsciously accept this child’s viewpoint, and judge a book as “literature” by the company it is found in, by its printing and illustrations, by its binding and adorning. But the true literary value of any book is not a matter of externals. It lies in the writing itself, its truth, its sincerity, the beauty of its language, its appeal to the heart, its influence on the life, its power to mold and uplift and inspire men. Judged by this standard, the Bible is acknowledged to be first in literary value of all the books of the world.
One literary critic has said: “There are three great provinces of thought,—man, nature, and God. The last is the greatest of all, and the highest achievement of literature is to lead us to a new or fuller appreciation of his character. That being true, no other book is of such great value as the Bible, for in it the character of God is written on every page.”
We come along the road from childhood to maturity with no thought at first of the literary value of the Bible. To our earliest appreciation it is a Book of Stories—Joseph, and Moses, and Ruth, and the little captive maid, and Samuel, and David, and Daniel, and Jesus. Then it is a Book of Precepts: Thou shalt, and thou shalt not. We learn a little of the greatness of God’s power, of the all-seeing eye that knows our hearts and reads our secret thoughts. Still later it is a Book of Doctrines. From it we learn that the seventh day is the Sabbath, that there will be two resurrections, what the millennium is, that the second coming of Jesus is near. And presently, it becomes to us the Book of Beautiful Thoughts, expressed in language that plays on sensitive human hearts as skilled fingers may play upon a harp. Enraptured, we listen to the wonderful rhythm and melody of the psalms, and to the lofty music of the odes of Deborah and of Moses and Miriam. The variety and charm of the “wisdom literature” of the Bible, the eloquence of its orations, the sublimity of its prophetic and descriptive writings, open before us vistas of unthought-of wonder and beauty.
In making this discovery, we find ourselves in good company. The wisest scholars of all ages, poets, philosophers, statesmen, unite in declaring the Bible to be the “crown of writings.” As a literary production it “stands at the head of the list, whether we consider its thoughts and style, its prose and poetry, its history and biography, its logic and diction, or its beauty and grandeur.”
“I owe my education as a writer more to the Bible than to any other hundred books that could be named,” said Sir Edwin Arnold; and Macaulay wrote, “If everything else in our language should perish, the Authorized Bible alone would suffice to show the whole extent of its beauty and power.”
Of the poetry of Jesus, Edwin Markham says: “Jesus lifts the worn and pedagogic into the peerage of poetry. He changes sand into pearl; he turns cloud into rainbow.”
Ruskin declared that his mother “established his soul in life” by her faithfulness in teaching the Scriptures to him as a child. He says: “To this discipline, patient, accurate, and resolute, I owe much of my general power of taking pains, and the best part of my taste in literature. I count it, very confidently, the most precious, and, on the whole, the one essential, part of my education.”
John Quincy Adams said: “For pathos of narrative; for the selection of incidents that go directly to the heart; for the picturesque in character and manner; the selection of circumstances that mark the individuality of persons; for copiousness, grandeur, and sublimity of imagery; for unanswerable cogency and closeness of reasoning; and for irresistible force of persuasion, no book in the world deserves to be so unceasingly studied, and so profoundly meditated upon, as the Bible.”
Sir William Jones, founder of the Royal Asiatic Society and a master of twenty-eight languages, paid this tribute to the Bible: “I have regularly and attentively read the Bible, and am of the opinion that this volume, independently of its divine origin, contains more true sublimity, more exquisite beauty, purer morality, more impartial history, and finer strains of poetry and eloquence, than could be collected within the same compass from all other books ever composed in any age.”
We are told that Professor Phelps, of Yale, “makes the suggestion that all examinations in English for college men be confined to the Bible;” and Fisher Ames, the great American jurist and orator, recommended the Bible as a model for orators to study. He said: “I will hazard the assertion that no man ever did or ever will become truly eloquent without being a constant reader of the Bible, and an admirer of the beauty and sublimity of its language. Its morals are the purest, its examples captivating and noble, and in no other book is there so good English, so pure and so elegant.”
The influence of the Bible on modern literature cannot be estimated. In thought, in phraseology, in allusion, in figures of speech, it runs like a golden thread through all that is best and noblest in English poetry and prose.
Of course, we do not and should not regard the literary beauty of the Bible as its highest claim on our attention and admiration. It is our Guidebook along the road that leads from earth to heaven; it is the Book of Counsel and Comfort; the Book of Hope and Salvation. “The Bible is my book,” said Victor Hugo, writer of many books; and a multitude of feeble, trembling saints of God have echoed this thought. The Bible is every-man’s book; “it touches human nature in all of its depths and ranges.”
“Bring me the Book,” said Sir Walter Scott, when dying. And when he was asked what book, he replied, “Need you ask? there is but one.” How often has his experience been repeated! How sweetly have the promises of the Bible fallen upon ears that were fast dulling to all other sounds! How has its consolation brought comfort and courage to hearts in their sorest need! Even in the valley of the shadow it brings the Saviour near, and sets the heart at peace.
No matter how far afield we may wander in our search for knowledge and truth and beauty, we must, if we follow the guiding voice within, come back to the Bible. It is the one book, our book, the surpassing treasure of wisdom and hope and love given to mankind.
“We search the world for truth; we cull The good, the pure, the beautiful, From graven stone and written scroll, From all old flower-fields of the soul; And weary seekers of the best, We come back laden from our quest, To find that all the sages said Is in the Book our mothers read.”
MRS. I. H. E.