The Unchained Bible: Cultural Appropriations of Biblical Texts

200 Pages·2012·0.83 MB·English

by  Hugh S. Pyper

LIBRARY OF HEBREW BIBLE/
OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES

567

Formerly Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series

Editors
Claudia V. Camp, Texas Christian University
Andrew Mein, Westcott House, Cambridge

Founding Editors
David J. A. Clines, Philip R. Davies and David M. Gunn

Editorial Board
Alan Cooper, John Goldingay, Robert P. Gordon,
Norman K. Gottwald, James Harding, John Jarick, Carol Meyers,
Patrick D. Miller, Francesca Stavrakopoulou,
Daniel L. Smith-Christopher

PLAYING THE TEXTS

17

Editor
George Aichele, Adrian College, Michigan

THE UNCHAINED BIBLE

Cultural Appropriations of Biblical Texts

Hugh S. Pyper
Published by T & T Clark International
A Continuum imprint
80 Maiden Lane, New York, NY 10038
The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX

www.continuumbooks.com

Visit the T & T Clark blog at www.tandtclarkblog.com

© Hugh S. Pyper, 2012

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher, T & T Clark
International.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

eISBN: 978-0-567-18706-2

Typeset by Forthcoming Publications Ltd (www.forthpub.com)
CONTENTS

Acknowledgments vii

Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION 1

Chapter 2
THE OFFENSIVENESS OF SCRIPTURE 13

Part I
MAKING SENSE OF THE BIBLE

Chapter 3
THE BEGINNINGS OF THE BIBLE 35

Chapter 4
BIBLICAL NONSENSE 45

Part II
THE RESISTANT BIBLE

CHAPTER 5
RELIGION AGAINST THE BIBLE 53

Chapter 6
THE BIBLE IN THE METROPOLIS 61

Part III
THE BIBLE AS GUIDEBOOK

Chapter 7
BIBLICAL TOURISM:
EÇA DE QUEIROS AND MARK TWAIN IN PALESTINE 79

Chapter 8
THE BOOK OF DAVE VERSUS THE BIBLE 85
vi Contents

Part IV
THE BIBLE, MUSIC AND NATIONALISM

Chapter 9
WHEN JESUS WAS (NEARLY) A SCOT 101

Chapter 10
JONAH IN ESTONIA, JOSEPH IN LATVIA 109

Chapter 11
BRUCKNERIAN TRANSPOSITIONS 123

Part V
ANIMAL BIBLE

Chapter 12
THE LION KING 133

Chapter 13
CONVERSATIONS WITH DONKEYS 141

Part VI
THE SPORTING BIBLE

Chapter 14
WRESTLING THE BIBLE 151

Chapter 15
THE NASCAR BIBLE 157

Part VII
THE SURVIVAL OF THE BIBLE

Chapter 16
DISPELLING DELUSIONS:
DAWKINS, DENNETT AND BIBLICAL STUDIES 167

EPILOGUE 180

Bibliography 182
Index of References 188
Index of Authors 190
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am particularly grateful in presenting this collection of essays to those
who had the temerity to invite me to give talks and seminar papers, many
of which became the basis for the present form of these essays. The
audiences made their contribution too; their attention and their questions
prompted me to rethink and rewrite a number of points. I am also
indebted to my colleagues and students in the Department of Biblical
Studies at the University of Shef(cid:191)eld; they have provided opportunities
for conversation and have allowed me to travel to conferences and to
take the periods of study leave which have been necessary for these
pages to be written. I am also grateful to Dominic Mattos and his
colleagues for their support and encouragement in bringing this book
to press, and to George Aichele, editor of the Playing the Texts sub-
series.
My principal acknowledgment must be for my father, Jock Pyper, who
died as this book was being prepared. He was a dedicated critic of the
Bible, who nevertheless appreciated its beauty and its power. Many of
the views in this book have their roots in the ongoing discussion between
us on the role of the Bible. Without him, I would never have ended up
thinking and writing in the way that I do. I dedicate this book to his
memory.
1
Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

“It is a good thing we did not all live in the time when the Bibles were
chained up in the churches,” said Bumpus. “It would have been so
lonely.”

“Well, but it is a good thing to read the Bible,” said Francis.

“Of course it is the most beautiful book,” said Emily. “And now we are
modern, and only read about wickedness, it is so nice to have it
unchained, isn’t it? It really ought to be chained, I think.”

“Ah, you try to get at us, Miss Herrick,” said Francis, not quite checking
a laugh.

“Ah, there is much warning in it for us,” said Miss Lydia.

“In all great pictures,” said Francis, (cid:191)rmly pulling himself together, and
(cid:191)nding the effort inspiring, “we are shown the dreadful as well as the
beautiful. We are surely not given only one side of the lesson.”1

This volume explores a number of instances of unexpected readings of
the Bible in popular culture, literature, (cid:191)lm, music and politics. The
argument that connects them all is that the Bible continues to have
effects on contemporary culture in ways that may surprise and some-
times dismay both religious and secular groups. The title “Unchained
Bible” comes from the epigraph above where an avowedly irreligious
novelist, Ivy Compton-Burnett, nevertheless stages a conversation about
the Bible in her (cid:191)rst acknowledged novel. Rigidly atheistic in her beliefs,
Compton-Burnett inevitably knew her Bible, as did any educated
Englishwoman of her generation. Her own inimitably aphoristic style of
conversational novel owes more than a little in its cadences and in its
structures to biblical models. Her capacity to offer the “dreadful” as well
as the beautiful in the spaces between the carefully modulated set-pieces
of her novels is unmatched and so her characters’ appreciation in dialogue
above of the importance of the “dreadful” in the Bible is particularly
apposite.

1. Ivy Compton-Burnett, Pastors and Masters (London: Gollancz, 1972 [1925]),
9 3-94.