## Link https://youtu.be/KWH47rS9DRo?si=fnRI738QchA5a5R7 ## Clips ### How does the bible differ from the study of any other book, he was in a literature department for 30 years at UC San Diego start = 0:23 end = 1:23 ### Course titles like the bible as history or the bible as literature both show that it's neither, not fiction nor non-fiction, it's some other kind of object start = 1:23 end = 3:23 ### I'm not interested in the supposed divine qualities or literary qualities of this object, I'm interested in things like did the Exodus happen and how did that impact the birth of monotheism and treating foreigners right start = 14:00 end = 14:30 ### The genre of this odd object is prose and poetry and law start = 14:20 end = 14:50 ### Genre is also records, census, itineraries, genealogies, measurements, architecture, it's many genres from a common culture start = 14:40 end = 15:21 ### The reason people put this book in hotel rooms and not other great literature is because of its unique genre start = 15:21 end = 15:55 ### The bible is a Rorschach test start = 18:55 end = 22:34 ### Life is full of Rorschach tests start = 22:34 end = 25:42 ### If a play or a movie can do that, if black blotches on paper can do that, a book can definitely do it, and all Rorschach tests are not created equal start = 25:42 end = 26:43 ### The bible is probably more of a Rorschach test than any other book, because it's famous, because it's old, because it's authoritative, you think you're shedding light on the text, you're actually shedding light on yourself start = 26:43 end = 27:58 ### In the end this object may be greater than all of us, it exposes what we're made of, we think we shed light on it, but far more often it sheds light on us start = 32:30 end = 33:04 ### Everything is a Rorschach test, so be detectives, see how much you can see, because the more you see, the more you find out what you've got inside you start = 33:04 end = 34:56 ### Live your life in such a way that the world is better because you were here, because it being worse or equal are both pretty sad start = 33:50 end = 34:56