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    God's Library
    God's Library
    God's Library
    Ebook139 pages1 hour

    God's Library

    By Greg Clarke

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    About this ebook

    If you have called someone the apple of your eye, a lily among thorns or the salt of the earth, you have been quoting the Bible. But did you know it? The Bible is the bestselling book of all time. It has changed the course of nations, inspired many of the world's great works of art, culture, philanthropy and architecture. But how many people today know what it says?

    God's Library is designed to persuade the sceptical reader just how essential it is to be educated in the Bible. It also introduces you to the kind of literature that is found in the Good Book, when it was written and for what purposes. It also tries to answer the question why the Bible has had such an enormous influence on individuals and societies for over two thousand years.

    Greg Clarke is the CEO of Bible Society Australia and teaches at the University of Sydney and Macquarie University.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBible Society Australia
    Release dateNov 12, 2012
    ISBN9780647518441
    God's Library
    Author

    Greg Clarke

    GREG CLARKE's illustrations have appeared in publications such as The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Time Magazine, The Atlantic, Blab!, and Mother Jones. Books that have featured Greg's illustrations include: How to Raise Mom and Dad (Dutton), Golf Rules Illustrated (Callaway Editions), My Fine Feathered Friend (FSF), Enchanted Night (Random House), and Masterful Marks: Cartoonists Who Change the World (Simon & Schuster). Clarke is the recipient of three silver medals from the New York Society of Illustrators. He lives on the outskirts of Los Angeles, and some of his best (and worst) ideas have occurred while sipping an IPA or a dry gin martini.

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      Book preview

      God's Library - Greg Clarke

      Contents

      Preface

      PART ONE

      The Bible scandal

      A simple quiz?

      PART TWO

      An educated person needs to know the Bible…

      …in order to understand what you are saying…

      …in order to grasp our stories, poems and plays…

      …in order to appreciate music…

      …in order to know what’s going on in art and architecture…

      …in order to enjoy movies…

      …even in order to appreciate TV…

      So what?

      Some deeper issues

      PART THREE

      The Bible and Australia

      The early days of the colony

      Hang on, what about the first inhabitants?

      The Bible at the foundation of Australian charities

      PART FOUR

      Actually, what is the Bible?

      The Library of Babel

      God’s Dewey Decimal System

      God’s diverse library: the importance of genre

      The Man of the Book

      The Bible in 500 words

      What the Bible isn’t

      How was the Bible compiled?

      Were there other books that were left out?

      The Bible on itself

      PART FIVE

      Fitting the Bible into your life

      Fitting your life into the Bible

      Eat this book

      For further reading

      The simple quiz answers

      Preface

      All other books are also-rans… the Bible is publishing’s success story. This introductory book is written especially for those who feel that they really should know something about the world’s most influential text, but may have been afraid to ask, put off by the Church, found the black leather cover and cigarette paper pages ominous, or just never got around to it.

      I’ve tried to keep the tone light and informative, to avoid too many of the debates that stop people in their tracks (there’s nothing about evolution or gay marriage in this book), and not to make assumptions about how ‘religious’ my readers are. I’m hoping this book will be both accessible to those who don’t read much, but feel they should (especially since 2012 is the National Year of Reading in Australia!), and also interesting to those who do read and do have an education in literature, but for whatever reason have not received enough information about the Bible itself.

      In the first half of the book, I try to answer the question: Why would I bother with the Bible? If I manage to succeed there and keep you with me, the second half of the book answers the question: So what really is the Bible, and what do I do with it?

      If by the end of this book you are motivated to read at least a little of the Book of Books, I’ll be happy. In October 2012, Bible Society Australia is conducting a campaign to help people do just that, starting with just 25 Words a day—the average length of one Bible verse. That might be your way of getting into things, or you might be a ‘big slab’ reader. However you do it, I hope you find the experience exciting and enlightening. Check out 25words.biblesociety.org.au for free resources.

      As CEO of Bible Society Australia, I have the privilege of seeing what happens around the world when a people group receives the Bible in their own language for the first time. It’s quite remarkable; it changes them; they light up. We talk about lightening people’s hearts with the Bible, and I hope that’s your experience too, whether you are completely new to the Bible (like those people groups), or coming back to it after a long absence, or just filling in the gaps in your education (we all have them).

      The worst thing about new books is that they prevent our reading old ones, wrote French essayist, Joseph Joubert. I hope my new little book doesn’t keep you away from the old big Book for long.

      Greg Clarke

      September 2012

      PART ONE

      The Bible scandal

      There is a scandal going on in the early 21st century. I’m not sure who exactly to blame, or how they have managed to oppress and blind so many people. But they have done a comprehensive job of it, whoever they are.

      The scandal is this: millions of people have been denied a basic knowledge of the key text that has shaped their culture. The heritage of many of our cultures has been taken away from us. We are being ‘protected’ from an understanding of our roots—why we think the way we do, why our novels are about love and suffering, why we value education, why science has made so much progress, why forgiveness matters, how we came to value hospitals, why we think that all people are equal.

      The scandal has touched many of us, without our even being aware of it. Like prisoners herded unwittingly to their execution, we have been gassed by ignorance and deception (I think the offensiveness of this description is appropriate). With a Big Brotherish learned helplessness, we have accepted our situation of abuse and even grown to love and support it.

      At the core of this scandal is a simple lack: no one is encouraged to read the Bible these days. No one knows what is inside the pages of this most significant of books.

      Before you close this book in disgust, horrified at my hyperbole and sensationalism, hollering accusations of red-neckedness and fundamentalism, let me explain.

      I believe that we have witnessed an outrageous con job over the century just past. It has been a time of shattering the boundaries, tearing down the strongholds, challenging the pre-conceived ideas, raging against the dying of the light, biting the hand that feeds you, cutting off your nose to spite your face and throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

      Last century saw more changes in our views of authority, truth and the building blocks of existence than perhaps any other. Ours is a time when we wish to be set free from our past. This is understandable. Our past includes periods of extreme sexism and misogyny, where women put up with abuse and oppression that men would never tolerate. It includes times of racism, of government betrayal in the pursuit of power, of restrictions and rules that stifled the life out of the average citizen.

      It’s no wonder that we view authorities with suspicion. Some years ago, Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore, the formerly married couple who make up half of the band Sonic Youth dressed their newborn daughter, Coco Hayley Gordon Moore, in a T-shirt which read ‘Question Authority’. I suppose you might call that enforced rebellion, but you could also call it good parenting. Anyone who is in a position of power these days is treated with cynicism and an expectation that they are trying to exploit people in some way.

      The call to question authority is a wise one. No human government or empire or corporation or information source can be trusted. We know that it is human nature to lie, to seek your own good above others. We have all done that; we expect others to do the same. Questioning authority is one thing; actively opposing it is another. When rap group Public Enemy said, We’ve got to fight the powers that be, their lyrics were echoed by angry youth around the world. People are tired of the attitude of those the generation or two above them. They feel abandoned and disillusioned. They either fight or despair.

      The Bible has been caught up in this revolt against authority. I say the Bible, rather than religion or the Church, because it is the Bible that I’m keen to promote. Religion has the same problems the world over: crazy methods and unlikely rituals for achieving a higher humanity. The Bible has been used and abused for religious purposes, but it stands beyond them and shouldn’t be judged by the same standards.

      The Church, furthermore, is one of the great and infamous symbols of authority which has been derided and rejected in recent times. The Church is identified with religious, political and socio-economic issues, usually on the side of the bad guys. Sometimes, it has deserved this label. But to talk of the Church like this is far too generalistic—are we talking about Catholics or Protestants or Greek Orthodox or someone else? The Church changes as human beings change, but the Bible doesn’t, so I’m going to leave the Church out of this discussion.

      Back to the issue. As people have kicked against authority, they have also kicked against the Bible. Usually, they are rebelling against the idea that the Bible is the Word of God, given for everyone to obey. That view is seen as anachronistic, like keeping your head in the sand while the tide rushes over you. Times have changed; people have changed; how could every word of the Bible possibly be relevant and true today? What’s more, we say, how can we know the Bible is true? Isn’t it speculation about heaven and hell, miracles and stories so old that they would have to be myths?

      These are good questions, and I have my views on the answers to some of them. I’ll come to this later. At this point, my concern is that, in rejecting the Bible as the Word of God, people have rejected it in all sorts of other ways too. Historically, the Bible is so much more than ‘God’s lawbook’ or ‘The Doctrine of the Church’. The Bible has had a profound and lasting impact upon areas of culture, literature, the legal system, art, science and philosophy. In fact, it is hard to find an area of life into which

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