After the past few readings, I'm almost convinced the Bible might be good leisure reading...but I am not going to get ahead of myself.
This reading, had I not known it came from the Bible, might not have even seemed like a biblical text. Chapter 2 was very interesting and easy to read. The symbolism of the crushing and destroying of the kingdoms leaving nothing but God's eternal kingdom was very powerful.
Chapters 7-11 were a little repetitive in my opinion. I was sick of hearing about all of the dreams by the end of it.
Like Alex said, it was interesting to read a biblical story told from a first person perspective. I don' think I've ever read one that is in the vein.
This is pretty irrelevant, but when I was reading chapters 9, 10, and 11, I couldn't stop thinking about Game of Thrones with the King in the North, and the King in the South and all of the wars going on. Textually speaking, it was really similar, but I couldn't help but draw that connection.
I completely agree that it sounds ridiculous but I kept saying the King in the North out loud. The text seemed very fictitious and would be a very good plot for a movie, but with all of these prophecies I can't imagine it actually happening.
ReplyDeleteI agree completely that "The Book of Daniel" doesn't really come off as a religious text. I too think that the story was a little repetitive. I didn't really like the fact that the story was composed almost entirely of dreams and their interpretations.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that it didn't feel like I was reading a biblical text. It did get tiring of the repetition, but this isn't the first time I've noticed it in the Bible.
ReplyDeleteI agree. It felt like I was reading something mythical or more on the line of fiction. Also, I was sick of the dreams too. Book of revelation was much more intriguing to read.
ReplyDeleteWhen I've studied the Bible, I've not only found it to be incredibly enjoyable to read (not everywhere, of course) but also an incredible literary text. Few places see such a varied presentation of writing style and literary elements while still maintaining consistency between the writings. Oddly enough, this seemingly eclectic distribution of style is very gratifying to observe; quite opposite from what I would generally expect. It is also very interesting to rediscover the seemingly infinite allusions to the Bible present in our daily life (last week's reading and Babel being a decent example). Whether for religious reasons or otherwise, I think that Bible is one of the single greatest reads around and everyone should read at least a few of the more important books because of the universality of the stories within.
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