Harris Poll - America's Favourite book...

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Groin Redbeard

What are you all complaining about? I couldn't think of two better books to outdo the Lord of the Rings.

Oh, I wasn't irritated that LOTR came in third; in fact, LOTR wouldn't necessarily come in third on my own personal favorite list. Rather, I was bemoaning the list in general (I'm rather surprised that Ayn Rand and Harper Lee managed to muscle in against such literary heavyweights as Dan Brown, Stephen King and Harry Potter). So much for Steinbeck, Dickens, Hugo and other such second-rate hacks.

Originally Posted by Groin Redbeard

he Bible is an awsome book, if one takes the time to read it, it has all the answers. The greatest lessons that anyone could learn is all wrapped up in that book.

Yes, a good book, but not the only book (to paraphrase the movie Inherit the Wind). But if we are talking strictly from a literary standpoint (and I realize that the question that was asked was rather vague in that regard), then I would have to say the Bible is inconsistent. There are sections of unsurpassed brilliance (Psalms, the book of Job and Revelations come to mind), but if one slogs through many of the Books (Chronicles, Nehemiah, Sirach, even Genesis) one gets an ad nauseum reguritation of who begot whom and what battles were fought and what tribe was on the outs with its neighbors -- it is not very interesting or even germane to saving one's soul (if one finds that necessary).

Then there is the question of which Bible were these people voting for? The King James Bible certainly is the standard bearer for biblical excellence (although the Wycliffe version is handsomely worded), but the revised Catholic version (with thoroughly modernized verbiage) bears little resemblance to the King James, and the Jewish voter certainly would only choose the Torah (without, of course, any mention of the New Testament). Then there are the Apocrypha (books lacking canonicity among certain Christian faiths) which do not appear in every bible currently.

I'm not interested in any religious furor, or debating the precepts of any religion (as that tends to get ugly), I am speaking stictly of the Bible as literature.