Excerpt from The Literary Character of the Bible: A Lecture Delivered Before the Wilmington Institute at Wilmington, Delaware, January 8th, 1857 Hence, to form even a proximate idea of the true liter ary value of the sacred writings, we are compelled to adopt some such process as that by which we determine the dis tance and magnitude of those bodies too far above us to be directly estimated, as the stars by their parallax. And in attempting, briefly, to carry out this design, let us eschew the method ordinarily adopted in critical essays on the Bible, and instead of dividing the books of which it consists into Historical, Prophetical, and Poetical, let us rather re gard it as one beautiful whole, composed of the three grand elements of all literature - History, Philosophy, and Poetry; for we find the facts of History, the truths of Philosophy, and the gems of Poesy, blended together on every page of the great volume, from the first startling announcement in Genesis, to the last words of John's sublime vision on the isle of Patmos. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Rediscover the incomparable literary richness and strength of a book that all of us live with an many of us live by. An international team of renowned scholars, assembled by two leading literary critics, offers a book-by-book guide through the Old and New Testaments as well as general essays on the Bible as a whole, providing an enticing reintroduction to a work that has shaped our language and thought for thousands of years.