Biblical Quotes in Literature

I was reading a decidedly non-Christian book and was amazed at several non-referenced quotes from the Bible. I thought it would be interesting to mention those we find.

Here's the idea: tell the quote, reference or allusion to the Bible and state the work it was found in and maybe the page it's on.

Of course, I hadn't made a note of the ones I saw, and couldn't find them all in a cursory review of a book I didn't want to reread so here's what I have.

At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig "But Manchuria was not a Land of Milk and Honey" p. 329.

ibid. a reference to a people group migrating from one part of Paraguay to another as "the Exodus" (all capitals the authors), page unknown.

There was one other reference that was more a direct quote, but I can't remember it and couldn't find it.

Garfield, December 27, 1982 (not a biblical reference, but a definite nod to Cowper) "Mondays move in mysterious ways."

No, that one probably wouldn't have been (althought he did capitalize it all), but there was one that was less well known that I couldn't find. I was just trying to get the topic started as I want to pay more attention to the idea.

However the fact that they have become idioms in everyday speech also says something about our culture and literature.

What does referring to "Land of Milk and Honey" have to do with whether a book is "Christian"?

The part of the Bible being referenced predates Christianity by a long time.

The Bible was at one time one of the books (along with the works of Shakespeare, The Iliad, etc. etc.) with which any educated person, of whatever religious persuasion, was expected to be familiar.

My favorites come from U2...but you have to understand that I consider pop musicians to be the poets of our day.

"40" is lifted almost word for word from Psalm 40.

Bono uses the angelic announcement "Peace on Earth" to form an imprecatory psalm.

He retells the temptations of Christ in "Vertigo".

He retells the betrayal of Judas in "Until the End of the World"

"Gloria" contains several Latin phrases lifted from the beginning of 3 different Psalms.

And, on the literature side, I was wowed by Pat Frank's Alas, Babylon, lifted from Revelation 18:10.

Re #6: During the Elevation Tour, Bono would typically recite Psalm 116:12-14 as a lead-in to one song--I can't remember which.

Re the thread in general: There's so many examples I wouldn't know where to begin. Indeed, compiling a database of Biblical allusions just in the Western canon seems like a herculean task (but a worthy one).

The King James Bible had a profound influence on English and American literature. Indeed, people without a Biblical background sometimes take a course in Biblical literature just to understand Biblical allusions in the literature they are reading.

For instance, the title, Lord of the Flies, is a common lay translation of Beelzebub, one of the Biblical names for the devil.

Doré

#5 myshelves--the phrase has nothing to do with it being a Christian book. It was not Christian because of many other factors. Being Christian doesn't necessarily make a book good reading nor does not being Christian make it not good. I've read many books in both categories that I liked or didn't like. Happy reading!

#7 cpg--What I am looking for is biblical allusions in non-Christian literature--probably especially newer as the older was more affected by it. I think a database of Biblical allusions in the western canon would be a great one to have, but I don't aspire to that here. Just thought it might be something interesting to keep in mind as we read.

My point (and others have made it) is that there is nothing at all surprising about finding biblical allusions in "non-Christian books."

It would certainly be amazing not to find them in such non-Christian books as Harry Kemelman's mysteries featuring Rabbi David Small.

I am reading a book called Heavens to Betsy! by Charles Earle Funk. It is an attempt to track down the origin of some of our everyday sayings. Some of them are outdated to our time, the book was written in 1955. Here are a few examples.

"at the eleventh hour" - not a moment to spare, from Mt. 20:1-16
"to take under one's wings" - shelter, protect, from Mt. 23:37 & Ps. 63:7
"deaf as an adder" - alluding to refusal to listen to wisdom, from Ps. 63:3-5 (I've always heard it said "deaf as a post," referring to someone unable to hear.)
"to kick against the pricks" - to knock one's head against the wall, to suffer from one's own misdeeds, to kick against thorns or spurs to one's own hurt. This is from the story of Saul, who later became Paul. As he was on his way to Damascus with a letter authorizing him to arrest any Christians, he met with the Lord in the form of a light from heaven: he heard a voice say "Saul, Saul, why persecuteth thou me? And he said,Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecuteth: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks." (I liked this, because it is as though Jesus is commiserating with Saul over the pain he feels in his resistance to Christianity.)
"gird up one's loins" - prepare for action, from Pr. 31:17
"writing on the wall" - a warning of something ominous, from the book of Daniel when Belshazzar saw a man's hand write Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin. Meaning God has numbered thy kingdom, weighed you and found you wanting, and divided your kingdom between the Medes and Persians. (That of course is a paraphrase, not literal translation or quote.)
"to strain at a gnat and swallow a camel" - to make a fuss over trifles but accept great faults without complaint. Mt. 23:24-26.

While perhaps it is not surprising that Biblical terminology is to be found throughout our language, I still find it interesting to see someone who has set themselves against God using His Word in their everyday speech. As Terry Pratchett says, it takes a special kind of atheist to not call upon some god when he bangs his thumb with a hammer.

#10 myshelves--I'm not surprised either, though as MrsLee said, the source can be surprising, especially if it is a more obscure Biblical allusion.

I just want to notice these and thought others would enjoy it too. That's all.

In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin:
Page 73, direct quotes from Psalm 29 and Job 38:21.
Page 122, "The story of the Anarchists is the tail end of the same old quarrel: of Abel, the wanderer, with Cain the hoarder of property." (I have trouble understanding the correlation to the Genesis account other than the names. Seems to me Cain ended up being the wanderer.)
Page 148, Chatwain writes "My Cousin Charley...would sit at a desk stirring his memory to recapture the ecstasy of going down to the sea in ships." Psalm 107:23 says, "They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters;"

(This last is the kind of reference I was actually thinking of--somewhat obscure, but nevertheless, obviously showing the author's familiarity with the Bible, usually, as in this case, the King James Version.)

A lot of these expressions ("the powers that be," "the spirit is willing," etc) and even words (such as "scapegoat") we can thank the scholar and martyr William Tyndale for as explained in William Tyndale: A Biography by David Daniell

I was thinking about why an author would use these types of quotes in their work and came up with 3 reasons:
1) The author is familiar with the Bible, perhaps not as the Word of God, but as an important part of English literature.
2) The author has heard the expression/phrase somewhere and feels it best suits his needs.
3) Although the author is not familiar with the Bible, he knows the origin and chooses to use it because the source is part of his literary technique.

Still looking for others findings in their reading.